


Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top

by MrSchimpf



Category: Gilmore Girls, Judging Amy
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, minor crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2002-10-20
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 830,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrSchimpf/pseuds/MrSchimpf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How does subtext taste? Kind of like ranch dressing and cherry tomatoes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Table with Quite a View

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter One | A Table with Quite a View  
Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Inspired by:** Just something that flew into my mind after a conversation with Freelance, not inspired by any particular episode. It does reference most Paris/Rory scenes from seasons two and three. This is what you end up with after a long drooling session with a fellow luster of the French soda monitor. Plaid skirts are going to be the death of us!  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, naughty femslash thoughts, self-pleasuring)  
 **Disclaimer:** It's not my world, I just live vicariously through it. Amy Sherman-Palladino paints the picture, Hofflund-Polone finds the museum to hang it in, and Warner Bros. Television puts the word of mouth out to see it, while hoping people decide to study the portrait in detail, especially those little details that convince you to buy appliances, breakfast pastries and orgasm-inducing shampoo, then waste a half-hour of your life watching _Off Centre_.  
 **Summary:** How does subtext taste? Kind of like ranch dressing and cherry tomatoes. Paris thinks of Rory as she sits across her at the table during lunch, and looks back at the last year.  
 **Improv:** #12 (lips, accent, pain, button, wine)  
 **Archiving:** Subtextual Intercourse, Improv, GilmoreGirlsSlash, and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** This is a story I wrote about a year and a half ago on a whim, and never had plans to sequelize until my Paris/Rory thoughts came back strong this week with all the talk of the kiss they're sharing during a dance scene in _Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin' the Twist_. I haven't seen it yet, but I hope to have a second part to this story out soon after that. I also have plans to use more Season Three subtext to eventually bring the two together, and POV switches with each chapter (Paris in the odd-numbered, Rory's thoughts in the even, along with some combined POVs later on).

My thanks to Freelance for the interesting conversation about subtext that inspired this story. Challenge words are bolded.  


* * *

Really, I don't mind sitting across from Rory Gilmore all the time at lunch. It's not as if I have a choice in the matter however.

It's been in the Chilton bylaws since 1938 that the president elected by the student body must sit at the same table as the vice president in the dining hall, and next to them during assemblies in the auditorium, on stage or in the audience. The reason why is unknown to history, but supposedly according to a past president, it shows strength and resilience in the student government when we sit in the same place.

Funny they would say that. Because I feel my weakest when I'm sitting near or next to Rory.

When I found out the poll results from Madeline and Louise last year, I panicked like I usually did. I jumped to the first conclusion that I had, and immediately thought my chances of getting elected were slim to none. I was going against a boy who promised the world and the stars, and a girl who tried to convince the boys to vote for her by trying to pull a Basic Instinct stunt as I went on about my agenda if I were elected.

My first thoughts after finding out I was universally disliked were that of promising more than I was actually going to do. _Fuck it_ , I thought, _Little Debbie, sign on the dotted line and turn this school into Times Square, full of ads for Swiss cake rolls and oatmeal cream pies_. Thankfully, my mind thought better.

For awhile.

It went through your general list of candidates who I felt worthy of being vice-president alongside me. I went through the names I remembered being in the top thirty of our class. Most of them had achieved fame in clubs such as chess and the mathlete team. A few were just quiet students, coasting along and knowing that their mothers would be happy if they were 22nd in the class and had some tough times in calculus. A couple of them, forget it. The only reason their grades were so high was because either they or one of their parents had succumbed to a teacher's sexual favor.

My mind was up to 15th in class when I directed my gaze over to Rory, sitting alone in the middle of a sea of chairs in the hall, furiously writing up her story on how each of us candidates did with each of our speeches for her op-ed column.

And just like that, I decided to throw my campaign on her shoulders. Damn her.

When she came two years ago, I was the strong one, able to order her on command not to do something. Many a time I told her to forget even bothering to ask for my notes, or to be my partner in a project. But my grip on her eventually faded, slowly but surely. A bump here caused by a misinterpreted date with Tristan, another somewhere else when I was spurned when I just wanted to go over debate transcripts with her...

Yeah Paris, keep telling yourself you were just going to do academic stuff with Rory that cool March night. The moment she said no to you so she could spend time getting to know that ditzy vessel her father called a girlfriend, you felt a **pain** rise through your stomach, and hit you in the heart, where it hurt you the most.

That's right, I'm in love with Rory. And if it weren't for that Sherrie bitch, I might've been able to finally tell that to her a few months earlier. It was perfect, a dozen roses delivered to the house, candlelight dinner with soft classical playing throughout the house. I had a Eisenhower-era vintage bottle of **wine** sitting on the work table in my bedroom, where I hoped to show Rory that she was way too good for Tristan, and Dean, along with everyone who ever carried an XY chromosome.

But whenever I get close, something pushes me away from her. So instead of inhaling her scent as we made love to each other, I sat in my room in dead silence, the wine glasses put back in the pantry, and the alcohol my love and me were supposed to share sitting in my bottom desk drawer once again. And I sat there, wondering how I could get that bottle opened up one day in the future.

So I stayed persistent. I begged for her help when I got a B in class. I've gotten B grades before, back in 7th grade I took it a little too easy and slacked off. A B wasn't even a big deal to my mother honestly, she just would ask me to try harder next time, honest.

But sometimes when you're in love, you have to lie. I turned on the Gellar charm (what little of it I have), and told her I'd never even gotten a B in my life. Sucker, she said she'd help me out a week later.

I decided to stop by her house and see if she would help me out after school, even after she said she was busy. Funny, she didn't look too busy, folding her clothes for a night alone with herself. My first thoughts as she said that were very perverted. In my mind, it was just her laying on that couch with thoughts of me actually initiating a real, truly passionate kiss as the emergency Romeo in our Shakespeare project. And her wanting to take it beyond that boundary, into something truly impure.

I can dream though, can't I?

Just the sound of her voice talking about obscure equations made me feel weak in her presence. It's those blue eyes that always do it to me, and the way she bites her **lip** in concentration as we ponder a solution to the problem. She can just make me go all aflutter just by doing her homework in front of me. Thank God she concentrates real hard, because I was scoping her out as she read the problems to me. She was laying on that couch in the perfect position for me to just walk up and sweep her into my arms. I sat there idly writing notes on my paper, as I imagined what kind of satin or cotton layer was beneath the fly **button** and zipper of her jeans. Or if there was a layer at all. She's way too pure to go that far though, so I don't even venture to think of her that way. Well, not that much.

They say to imagine people in their underwear when you give a speech. With Rory Gilmore though, I do it all the time, even when no speech is being given. I have an inner pervert trapped inside of me, I swear.

I wished that the hour would go on and on, and that after awhile I could finally admit my feelings for her. But then the boys who fawn over her had to come in and ruin my fun once again. Dean and Jess, the equivalent to two guards standing watch over the gates of my personal Buckingham Palace named Lorelai Leigh, but who keep denying me access to her. I had to fake being interested in what both of them said, then hope the aching I was going to get was light when I had to lie through my teeth and tell Dean I was interested in Jess, and that's the reason I came over.

What I really wanted to say was "Hi Dean, do you mind if I get down on one knee and decide to confide my eternal love for your girlfriend of eighteen months? It's not as if you're ever going to let her get past second base anyways, and I'm sure that us being gay would be something you'd totally embrace." Love made me numb once again though, and I didn't confess my feelings for her that night, even being able to sleepover at her house, my stomach filled with snacks my mother warned me never to touch, and my knowledge of the Pythagorean Theorem being threatened to be lost forever, replaced by the strains of the opening theme to _Muppets Take Manhattan_ , along with the usual vivid fantasies of us making love to each other. Rory is holding my soul hostage, yet she doesn't even know it.

So who do I ask first to be my partner in crime when it comes to the Chilton council? My favorite coffee-addicted brunette, of course. I wasn't going to be stuck with a nobody for a running mate, and Rory fit the bill perfectly. She was the perfect Al Gore substitute, except for the stick up her ass and claim of inventing the internet. I was Clinton without that whole thing for land deals and chasing every tail that happened to walk by the Oval Office door.

I had to make an impassioned speech to her about how important this was to me, and we were totally the perfect campaign ticket. I was so desperate to get her running beside me I even pointed out we shared a G in our last names, and it rung off the tongue perfectly. Gilmore and Gellar; Gellar and Gilmore. I ignored the little voice inside my head that wanted me to sweep her off to Montpelier and put a hyphen in the middle of our surnames.

Finally after minutes of her not listening, and with her running out of the room looking at me as if I just escaped Bellvue, I got the excuse out of my pocket that was like my get out of jail free card. I brought up Harvard.

Suddenly she was cooperative, although I could tell she did it half-heartedly and without much effort on her part. But hey, Cheney sits on his ass all day waiting for that moment to come out of the bullpen that is sure never to come, there was an excellent chance Rory would do nothing in her capacity.

I got to look over the ballots after the voting was finished and we were declared the winning ticket. Somehow I knew in my mind that it wasn't the band that saved our hides from being in the loser column. Everyone can see that Rory and me have this secret thing going on, that both of us will just never acknowledge. And I think that won me a lot of favor I may not have gotten if I ran with a boy. I'm sure that some of those boys voted for us because girl/girl tickets inspire corrupted thoughts, and they were hoping to hear juicy details of a romance when we came back from D.C.

Washington. Damn it, if that isn't a waste of a good six weeks to get the girl, especially when she's sharing a room with me, I sure fucked it up big time.

It was my overdone itineraries that did away with any chance of romancing Gilmore at all. Everything was pre-scripted with the tour groups, the organizers of the conference, and with the other students who were in it with us. By the time midnight had rolled around after a moonlight tour of the Mall where the thought of taking Rory with me all alone to the foot of the Jefferson Memorial and confessing to her my undying love seemed like it was going to happen, I had to bury it under the excuse of yet another meet and greet with the loser congressman who represents my home district and trying to remember all the details of a Supreme Court decision we were going to be heavily tested on two days later.

And it was on that trip I learned that I dream aloud. Rory shook me awake one night, and wondered what I was dreaming about that I was screaming so loud into the night. She said I shouted "Oh baby!" at the top of my lungs, and I was tossing and turning alot.

I knew what it the mirage was about though. I was having another sexual fantasy about her. I could tell because the buttons on my nightgown were undone down to the middle of my breasts, apparently I also unknowingly take off clothes when I'm in my dreamworld. Thankfully the heavy comforter above me hid the image to the world and Rory. After a little comforting from her and a sly move by myself to button my gown back up, she went back to bed. This as I lay on the bed thanking the Lord for not letting Rory find out that my dreams were not involving famous _Post_ writers from the Nixon administration. It took me three nights to get down that she was Woodward and I was Bernstein in my rest.

She didn't talk about the boys in her life much during that trip, so by the third week I knew there was trouble in paradise. I wasn't going to be pushy about it, so I stayed silent, yet told her if she needed an ear I'd be there. Sure, I'd have to hear about how well Dean treated her, yet how rebellious and all-around interesting Jess was in her eyes, but I felt it would be worth it in the end to be a comforting influence, and would help her realize that I'm not always bitter towards her, that I can make a good shoulder to cry on. She saved me that torture, so for that I must thank her profusely.

By the end of the conference, I found out that a guy named Jamie had asked me out. He was everything that I would love in a boy, killer smile and grades, wonderful conversationalist, and someone who I could see fathering my children someday.

Sadly though, he planned everything out to the last detail, so I was mind-numbingly bored sitting in a restaurant frequented by tourists with him. And sadly, the whole time, I was thinking about Rory, and how lonely she must be back at the hotel waiting for me to come back so we could reminisce about the times spent by us in the nation's capital.

I also felt like I was cheating on her. I promised myself the moment Tristan left that until I could find the True One, I was not to date any guy or girl. Unless it was Rory, the girl of my dreams. So I sat there picking at my salad as Jamie went on about how awesome Princeton was going to be, poking at the cherry tomatoes with my fork, and pouring the Hidden Valley Ranch on heavy, bathing the iceberg lettuce in the stuff. All I did during the date was bring up some kind of topic Jamie could go on and on about, so I could sit there and hear him speak as I thought about Rory.

I knew I shouldn't have felt that way, after all it was a girl I hadn't talked my feelings out with yet, I had no obligation to her at all. She told me to go out and have a blast with Jamie, hell if it was late, stay out all hours with the guy.

Instead, I brushed off his timid flirtations, told him nicely that he wasn't my type and it was never going to work out, and thanked him for the lovely dinner. I then walked back into my room, and with Rory still reading in the closet, slipped out of my pink dress, and crawled into bed wearing only my black silk lingerie, dreaming that someday, any day, I could finally get it across to Rory that she was the only one I ever thought of loving.

I lay in my bed, recalling how her hands felt in my locks as she brushed it with her fingers, after I asked her how you knew a guy was right for you. I don't know why I said 'guy' instead of 'someone' like I planned in my mind so my statement would be gender-neutral. Thing was, I didn't want to **accent** the fact that I was interested in both sexes to Rory. If I said someone, she might try to start on a tangent, and wonder why I wouldn't say guy or girl. And I didn't want to learn then if she was truly straight, with nary a gay thought in that beautiful body of hers.

Still, her advice to me as those nimble fingers worked my hair into something I had never before could be formed with my tresses resonated within me, as I ignored the fact she was applying it to men. "You'll find someone who compliments you," she says to me in that tone she uses that has made me go along with her crazy thoughts. It was then I knew that Jamie was someone who could compliment me, but it wasn't enough for me. Rory has never seen the negatives in me, and though I know she'll be at home telling Lorelai "that nutty Paris is going to be the death of me," it's all in fun. In between Louise's biting jabs to weaken her resolve to stay in Chilton, and Madeline being over eager to be her friend, I'm downright normal in her eyes. I don't let the high life control me like it does those two, and I'm conservative on the outside. I'm never going to be frivolous with money, because the vices would continue to make me feel empty if I never found that love.

When Rory is around, I feel full of life. And when she's not around but in my thoughts at night as I imagine her fingers brushing up inside of me, her hushed voice tickling my earlobe, she makes me whole. I thought of her and her voice in that room almost alone that night, my hand against the wetted dark silk of my crotch, as the fingers on my other hand brushed slowly against my erect nipples, prone against the lace of my bra. I prayed to God that I wouldn't be discovered as I drove myself to orgasm beneath those blankets, wishing my hands were feeling the soft flesh of Rory's ass as her pubic bone crushed into and created friction with mine. Sweated dripped off my brow as my fingers drifted further inside of me, thankful that my passion was silent on this night. If I'm in my room, I'll usually be a lot less reserved than I was, laying here on a dorm bed that has had many more memories than only mine.

I bite down on my lower lip as the tip of my index finger finds the spot I imagine her touching one day, that microscopic bit of flesh that turns me from the studious schoolgirl she usually sees into the passionate woman who reveres her as the most beautiful girl, and competitive equal in my world. I imagine my senses taking in the aroma of her fruity shampoo which is mixed in with the scent of a wildflower, and can feel the hair on my head become heavy against my shoulders as the sweat builds up in it.

With the thought of fucking her inside of my father's den in his big leather office chair in my mind, clothes all over the place and the scent of sex in the air, my pleasuring becomes faster and faster, and my prayers are now heavier, I'm hoping Rory doesn't hear the sound of my mattress squeaking and my short little squeaks of enjoyment as I edge closer to the brink of coming, with her in the room, albeit in a closet with some walls that don't let sound through easily.

Finally, with a hard tug of my clit, I start coming, and for a minute and a half, Rory is my entire world, as I ride out the most satisfying orgasm I've ever had. I imagine her doing the same at the same time in my arms, the loud utterances of our names with the occasional scream the only thing you can hear in the room. Her eyes are shut as she tries to savor the moment that I have created for her, and at the same time I thank God that he decided to have that girl attend Chilton two years ago. I feel pleasure ebb through my entire body, and I try to lengthen it as much as I possibly can, furiously rubbing at my groin to finish myself off, thinking of her breasts in my hands.

With my orgasm ending and my panties completely soaked through, my body finally starts to settle down, and I lay there as I put the nightgown next to my bed on, still unbelieving that my most rewarding climax came but with nary a whisper, I bit on my tongue and lips so hard to keep myself shut up I swear I can feel an indent from the teeth marks on my lower lip. With that, I throw on the nightgown, and after a little time to calm down, take off my bra and panties, and put them in the lower layer of my overnight bag, hoping that with my bag zipped up my only episode of self-love in Washington would never be known to anyone but me. That was one load of laundry I was going to do myself when I got back to Hartford.

I pretend to fall asleep, and Rory comes out of the closet a half-hour later, her mind full of knowledge. If only she'd have taken getting out of that closet literally, I'd be one happy girl. She whispered me a good night, and proceeded to change in the bathroom, and then go to bed. She wasn't on to me and my activities that night, thank goodness.

The morning after, she said I didn't dream aloud as usual, and I just brushed it off as a fluke. Of course, that's because I got my dreaming in a little earlier than that. As we packed, we talked about Washington and how we hoped to come back someday. Then she brought up Jamie and asked if I enjoyed it. I dodged the question, except to say I had a fine time with him, and maybe I'd go out with him again sometime. _If only to not make my mother suspicious_ , I thought.

We went our separate ways at Bradley, her for Lorelai and me for Francisca. I love my nanny like a sister, and she's the only one who knows about my secret love for Gilmore. She can't tell my mom, who doesn't understand much Portuguese besides basic commands, and she knows someone who is gay, so we both win. I can't come out to my mom because I'm afraid she'll think I'm a failure because in a desperate bid for companionship I chose to be a lesbian. She puts so much self-loathing in me, and keeps convincing me that the guys she has me date on occasion are the best for my future. I knew if I admitted my interest in girls, she'd be on the phone to a _But I'm a Cheerleader_ -like camp so fast, my head would spin. Keeping up appearances, she'd call it.

Stifling my sexuality might be a better term.

I didn't see Rory again till after Labor Day and the start of Chilton, where we were both sworn in as president and vice-president. My agenda, along with Rory were on my mind as I called the first meeting. Immediately, things turned sour.

Francine Jarvis, leader of the Puffs and my new worst enemy, asked if I could put a good word in to Charleston to have the skirt hems raised. My first thought was definitely not, no way was Miss Perfect going to get her way with me. I'm still convinced the initiation was a setup by Francie and her goons to get me and Rory in deep trouble somehow, and if she liked revenge, I could serve it back to her ice cold with a side of screw off.

By some means, I knew this wasn't going to be easy to brush off. Despite my persistence, I knew she'd go to any end to get what she wanted, but I didn't count on her blackmailing Rory.

Somehow, she managed to know Rory was my weakness. Damn Francie for that.

With Rory being persistent after Francie brought it up, I knew Francie had influenced her somehow. I knew, but I wasn't going to say anything because it was such a stupid thing to yell at Rory about. She convinced me that maybe if I threw Francie a bone, she'd back out. So I decided to say yes, but only because at the last minute I had an impure thought of my brown-hair ingénue in a shorter skirt which I really loved.

So basically the hemline controversy didn't come down to my feud with Jarvis, nor was it influenced by a group of students begging me to let the issue pass. It was because my inner pervert screamed out and asked me to bite on this hook, line and sinker. I know the day I come out, the history books will reflect on my decision as 'Miss Gellar wanted more of a gander at Miss Gilmore's gams.'

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when you hang around Tristan DuGrey for eleven years, you end up making decisions in government based on how hot your girl is! Thank you Tristan, wherever in the Tar Heel State you are, being trained in 55 forms of hand-to-hand combat and enjoying food only a mother whose idea of high cuisine is Stouffer's could love!

I keep thinking she doesn't want me; I'm paranoid around her all the time these days. After an assembly I hosted with her about applying to college, I realized I had done too much when it came to charity functions. I called Rory on her cell phone and asked her to reassure me, but instead she thought I was panicking too much, and hung up on me. She apologized the next day and said she was in a panic herself.

See, we even get wound up the same way, _Blind Date_ would have a fucking ball charting how many similarities me and Rory share!

 I sit here across from Rory, reflecting on everything that happened between us the last eleven months as she sits across from me in the dining hall, as Madeline and Louise chatter on about who's hotter, that carpenter on _Trading Spaces_ or a cute geek guy named Kevin from TechTV that Madeline came across one day while channel surfing.

They're saying this as both me and Rory pick over the item we've picked out for our lunch everyday as a side since the first day of school last year. Each of us has a salad with quite a few leaves of lettuce, and cherry tomatoes. And we both slather each of our salads with three packets of ranch dressing, the better to get a lot of taste out of it.

I sit there everyday, staring at her salad and the way she eats it, and she does the same stare for mine, as if the salads connect us in some weird way. We both take time out of eating if one of us has a little ranch dressing around our mouths, and we usually eat it in relative silence, her listening to her CD Walkman, while I compute a complicated equation in my mind for a later math class.

Occasionally, our legs brush up against each other, and it takes everything I have not to just close the distance between us and kiss her. Her blue hosiery is a tease to me, and one day I hope she decides to leave them at home, coming to school with her legs uncovered and naked. The feel of her nylon hosiery is always something I imagine before I go to bed at night, and hopefully the day she comes wearing knee socks instead of pantyhose, I can initiate some quiet flirting with her, and start a cute little game of footsie, with us silently playing the game in a room filled with 800 other people, no one the wiser.

And it's now that I realize my thoughts are veering into X-rated territory, so I stop them in their tracks.

But in anticipation of the day I decide I've had enough of just dreaming of Lorelai Leigh Gilmore and have her fall in love with me, I can be content in letting my feelings for her out slowly and surely. We see each other from sunrise to sunset, and with the winter coming up, we're sure to be going back and forth between Stars Hollow and Hartford in our cars for various projects. That time alone with her should be enough to try to make her fall for me romantically.

For now though, there's a more pressing issue that needs to be taken care of.

"Rory, ranch dressing, right side of your mouth, you might need to stretch it out a little this time."

She blushes and smiles at me. "Uh, thanks for pointing that out Paris, I'm glad we're such good friends."

I smile back slightly. "Not a problem Gilmore."

Now it's time for me to sit back and enjoy the show as Rory works her tongue around her mouth, removing the offending glob of dressing. For now, I take delight in the fact that I can imagine my tongue is up against hers instead of a tangy salad topping.

The Simpsons were dead wrong. You do win friends with salad. And perhaps, in the not-so-distant future, the eternal love of another woman.  


* * *

**_To be continued..._**   



	2. Meanwhile, Across the Table...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, it's Rory doing the thinking from across the table as she ponders the possibilities in a way you might not expect.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Two | Meanwhile, Across the Table...  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Rory POV  
 **Inspired by:** The fact I'm such a lazy boy. With all the talk of the quick little kiss Rory and Paris share in episode 417, I started dreaming of the possibilities, and somehow they led me back to this abandoned little fic that I never really got off the ground, but I got great reviews to. It all came back to 'TomatoWorld', so rather than try to build on the possibilities of the 417 kiss that'll be done a lot better by the other writers on the slash group, I'm going to go ahead and make this a new series. Remember, this takes place in the summer and fall between the second and third seasons, and contains many spoilers and nuggets of subtext from late second season and early third season episodes, with a few changes.

Rory never struggled to send Jess any mail from Washington because her feelings after the Duper wedding kiss were clear; she wanted to just be his friend. That means her and Shane are ambivalent to each other because she's not fighting with her over Jess, though with the mannerisms of the actress playing Shane, I'll probably be making her a minor supporting character in this story later on. Also, Francie is a little more muted than she was in the show, so don't expect Rory and Paris to be catfighting with fencing foils later because both of them will be on to her games. I've glossed over Townie stuff because it doesn't play a role in the story as it is for now.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, naughty femslash thoughts, self-pleasuring)  
 **Disclaimer:** Nope, still don't own the show and the characters. See chapter one for my usual fun disclaimer, but substitute _The Help_ for _Off Centre_ as the show the WB wants you watch even though you shouldn't.  
 **Summary:** How does subtext taste? Kind of like ranch dressing and cherry tomatoes. This time, it's Rory doing the thinking from across the table as she ponders the possibilities in a way you might not expect.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** Please note that this is my first time trying out a Rory POV, so if her voice seems off, I apologize, help me out and send a friendly email my way. Click on my name on the fic sites and there you'll find my address to send criticisms and feedback. I live for it, and it's definitely going to help later when I interchange POVs in the same chapter. Also if you're on ff.net and you're wondering why girls are lusting for girls in this fic? I'm not changing it, Paris wants Rory and Rory wants Paris, so if you don't like that, hit the right-hand corner X or red stoplamp button and find another fic, you won't like this one.  
   
Onto the thanks; Freelance for the original brainstorm in October 2002, and I hope you like the next one, sorry it took so long to get out! Surya, Susie and Cinnamon for their sexy and hot Trory fic, which really helped set the tone for my own sexually thinking Rory, I couldn't have done it without recalling your work girls. Thanks to Janine for the hilarious chats and inspiration for this chapter, you rock! Raven for writing the only hot Narc fic I've ever read, and who is a real dear for answering my review so kindly, maybe this'll help you out. Steph (aka Reeka) for the little encouragement when I was writing this and chatting at the same time, may the LexLove live on. The guys on the Luke's Diner thread, I'm finally writing something to whet your Study Buddies appetites, hope this satisfies it 'till Tuesday! And to everyone on the GilmoreGirlsSlash group, thanks for giving me a place to share all my ideas about everything Paris/Rory, especially Christina for trusting me with moderating the group while she's on an internet break. Come back soon, I'm gonna be a busy beaver on Wednesday ;).  
   
And finally many thanks to Alexis and Liza for having the guts to go through with this entire little thing in 417 even with the heavy fan criticism and some scathing media articles (I'm looking at you _New York Post!_ ) getting in their way. You must've shared a lot of trepidation before you went through with it, but no matter how it all turns out, your loyal fans will love you, no matter what.  


* * *

Why do I sit across from her everyday? That's the question I've been asking myself everyday since the start of second semester last year, and our paths happened to cross that day. Paris and I were in one of our momentary truces, and with some fraternity resembling the Puffs taking over the table I usually sat at alone for the rest of the time I was going to be at Chilton, I asked Paris if I could sit with her, Madeline and Louise at her table. Grudgingly she agreed, and that's usually the most peaceful we both get in school. She eats and does her school and newspaper work, and I do the same, only occasionally do we group up and compare notes.  
   
It's also a time of day I don't feel like myself though.  
   
Yes, I'm Rory Gilmore, and according to the males of Stars Hollow I seem to be the only 18 year-old girl that they want to talk to and date. I live in a town of 6,500 people, yet guys fight over me as if I'm the only surviving woman from the damned nuclear apocalypse. They fight, preen, and pose so they can earn my love.  
   
Alright, so it's only my boyfriend Dean and Jess Mariano, nephew of the owner of the diner I frequent. My boyfriend suffocates me from doing anything that would keep me away from him for more than five hours, while Jess just tries way too hard to get my attention. It just gets so annoying sometimes, and with all this pressure, I just want to get away from them for awhile, and consider someone else.  
   
Someone like my tablemate Paris.  
   
I amazed myself when I first thought of Paris in the way I did Dean, because after all, I'm a girl, and we're supposed to be bitter enemies. So why does it feel like when I'm with Paris at anytime, I think I'm in a marriage with many ups and downs, but that we always manage to patch up and grow stronger from the downs?  
   
I don't know, and every night before I leave the _Franklin_ office, I always ask myself that same question. I just can never find the answer to it, because Paris is a mystery to me.  
   
From the day I came to Chilton, she's always been a presence in my life, no matter what I do to try to avoid her. When I first saw her, and she told me that she was going to make my scholastic life a living hell, in her exact words. I've always wanted to prove to her that I'm her competitive equal after that, and I'll do anything to prove it to her. After finding out that the Puffs were a sorority, I wanted to run far away from those freaky girls. But Paris got to me, and I ended up at the last few words of the induction's incantation before we were all caught and the Puffs were forced to disband. I would've thought that basically sealed Paris' fate with me. I'd never be her friend, and she wouldn't look twice towards me.  
   
But somehow, our roads always cross. The _Franklin_ , she looks over each and every word I write and criticizes a writing style that might have been just fine at home, but in this school is called 'tabloidishly pathetic' by her. I've been improving slowly and her rebukes seem to have finally eased off a little.  
   
What hasn't eased of is the fact that yes, I'm vice president of the student body. When I was in that room the day Paris debated with her fellow candidates for the job of president, I had no premonition that I was going to be used as a rubber duck on a fishing rod, dangled over my fellow Chiltonians as if to say 'Hey everyone, look at Rory, isn't she just so cute and cherubic? If you want her to run everything in the unlikely event I orchestrate a history-making student prank that'll get me booted from Chilton, you'll vote for me, Paris Gellar? Right? YOU BETTER, RORY'S CUTE AND SHANA McCADE ISN'T, YOU WANNA MAKE RORY CRY??!!'  
   
Oh God, her anger; another thing that has me going towards Rosie's side when I think about Paris. Most of it, I want to cower in fear whenever she lets loose her vitriol towards me or some unsuspecting poor student like Brad or Madeline. But there's this little part of my mind that ponders 'Rory, isn't she hot when she gets all pissed off?', and that somehow weirdly seems to keep me ambivalent on the outside whenever she goes off on a tangent.  
   
Anyways, once she said the 'H' word and how nice it would look on my transcript, I was all hers. She'd stay in the background while I'd talk her up in the halls and in the courtyard, trying to sell the world on a kindler gentler Paris who just happened to have innocent and nice-to-everybody Rory in front to take all the hits. I was on the frontlines, and little did she know about some of the questions from students that seemed to be as far from politics as possible.  
   
The class horndog, Roger Saunders brought up a question to me while Paris was out of the room that I struggled to answer for him.  
   
"So Rory, why are you **really** Paris' running mate?" He leered at me and though I wanted to bring out one of my saddle shoes against his groin, I answered with the usual spiel that Paris was going to help unite our student body, lower and upper classes, while balancing the needs of the few with those of the many, and I would make sure to ask a student time to time how we've been doing. He seemed to be listening intently, and I thought I'd have won him over.  
   
Then he proved that he was thinking with...well, it's lower and definitely not shaped like a brain. "Well-formulated answer Gilmore. I really was under the impression that Gellar just wanted to get in your pants and fuck you, so I guess that answers my question. Thank you." He then fled before I could retort or physically harm him, and from there, I was in the gutter about that pesky blonde.  
   
I'm taller and much more imposing than her, yet Paris is a hellfire that takes a lot of patience to get used to. When she asked me after a debate if I wanted to celebrate with her, she seemed a little too eager for my company, I mean I thought she was actually jumping up and down, excited that we had a night out. Leave it to Dad and Sherrie to ruin that bit of brightness in Paris' world, because with my having to get to know Sherrie, Paris was denied a night with me. She trounced down the hall steamrolling everything in her path, and I was left to muse what she and I would've done that night.  
   
And now I'll be having a half-sister from that woman in a few months? No offense to my dad, but I'm **really** sure Lorelai wouldn't mind taking that baby off that control freak's hands and adopting her. I'm saying too much though, back to the subject at hand...  
   
We did win the election, and that entailed Paris and I heading to our nation's capitol for the next couple months. Good timing too, because I was confused about the entire Jess and Dean situation. Just a little though, because after that kiss with Jess at Sookie's wedding, fantasy and reality collided, and reality won. I couldn't be with Jess, ever. He's too screwed up to be with me, and I want my mom with Luke someday. Would I really want to be frenching a future cousin? My mind and my body said no, and though he's nice, we're better off destined as friends than screwed up lovers that would be right on par with Romeo and Juliet.  
   
A little sidebar; when Paris became the last second Romeo, was it wrong that I wouldn't have minded being kissed by her? When her mouth moved towards my neck and she did her 'die' movement, I yearned for a lot more than I got. With Tristan I don't know how I would've felt since we kissed before, but he's out of the picture; I can't start anything with him anymore since he's down in _Dawson_ country. But with Par? I felt a swoon as she moved in for the kill, then when she faked out the audience, I felt denied. And would it have made her mad if I asked her if I could've rehearsed the kiss? I'll never know, but I would've taken her lips on mine for a couple extra points towards an A, no question.  
   
I look at all these guys who ignore her so they can become Louise's newest flavor, and wish I could tell them they're missing out on a whole hell of a lot. Her eyes convey her anger, her sadness, her glee whenever she manages a victory in life. Her mouth has nice, rounded lips that yearn to be kissed and to share her inner-most secrets with another. And if there's a hole in the girl's locker room somewhere from the hallway, they've had to have taken a good look at her body because I'm jealous of her. Paris usually tries her best to hide herself beneath that uniform she wears and tries to find a place to change privately like in the stall, but after living with her for two months in that Washington dorm, I've seen more of her than probably her mother ever has. She's the definition of classical beauty; curves everywhere, large, but not too big breasts that draw you down towards cavernously deep cleavage. Long, blonde hair that makes the most primping-obsessed woman green with envy, because all Paris needs is an antique gold hairbrush and watermelon-scented White Rain shampoo and conditioner to keep it beautiful and lustrous. She does put some highlighting in occasionally, but not enough to really make a difference. Her face is something you can't forget, what with it's ovalish shape and bright red cheeks that look very cute in a cold Connecticut winter, or after saying something that makes her blush. And her ass...yes, let it be said that Rory Gilmore can be shallow at times, because I wouldn't mind feeling her firm buttocks in my hands, I really envy that part of her! She'd definitely make men turn heads if she ever got up courage and went to the country club wearing low-rise jeans that tighten right around her rump. I've also dreamed of her once wearing leather things on her lower section; pants or a skirt. It's like she was born to wear them, but as goes her mother, as goes her style. Which means stuff that would fit with my Grandma much more than on a 17 year-old classmate of the same sex I occasionally lust for...  
   
Oh no, I'm getting off track again, focus Gilmore. Yes, you like Paris more than any girl in your life, but you don't like her so much that you lust after her!  
   
Hell, who am I kidding, I've had hotter fantasies about Paris than I ever have about guys! Usually when I'd dream of Dean taking 'the big step' it involves me on the bottom, him on top, using every line I've ever seen in a teen movie about a couple's first time, as he Missionary's me through the entire dream with nothing to show for it but a 'Wow, that was fine' and me rolling over to the side to continue sleeping. But with her...it's been more. Heat. Passion. Erotic settings. That's how Paris and I do it in my dreams. It's just odd, because when I dream of Dean and I together, I think of clumsy touching, being too scared to do some things with him because it seems too aggressive, and I think that I need to serve him, rather than serve me. Sometimes the dream ends way too early and he releases too fast, and I'm left to either bubble it up for the next time, or think of some underwear model from my Cosmo as I try to make it end. But with Paris, everything goes off with a hitch. I'm familiar with my parts already, so it's easy to figure out what buttons to push on her, and she has a good knowledge of me too. We touch and tease in our dreams, maybe do a little slow and tentative kissing to start out with, pushing it up as the heat rises. And sometimes I end up sleeping with her dream self, but it's all about getting to know the girl within by imagining reading her biological instruction manual before I start getting into her and experimenting. Things heat slowly with me and Paris in dreamland, but when they get steamy and everything comes together, it's wonderful.  
   
I can recall one of my tamer dreams with her, as a matter of fact it was the day after the debate. I dreamt that we were in the _Franklin_ office, and she told me I needed to draft an article someone else had written. So I came over and got out my correcting pencil and started scribbling corrections. I can feel her breath against the back of my neck, and I inhale and exhale a lot more sharply than usual. Her usually bitter tone is replaced with an excited whisper as she helps me out. 'They could probably use a better word, might I suggest...damp?' she suggested in that lustful tone, causing me to firm up and certain parts to excite. My ears perk a little, my heartbeat speeds up, and I can slowly feel Paris' work-worn fingers against the bottom of my ribcage, she's wrapping her hand around me. She strokes the material of the blouse in a way that's driving me crazy, and slowly moving her hand beneath the jacket of my uniform. And then she gets closer, her lips brushing up against my earlobe, and her bust weighing down against my back. Her other hand drifts beneath the fabric of my skirt, and I drop the pencil to the floor, distracted by the sound of her breathing. I know then it's just a matter of time, and as I bend down to pick the pencil, she turns me over, my ass hits the hardwood floor, and her knee is up against the middle of my skirt. She doesn't say anything, and I just nod with permission as her lips close in on mine, her hands disrobe me as I tear off her clothes, and we proceed to do things that would forever change the meaning of that pesky 'Mary' nickname Tristan gave me.  
   
I had so many of those dreams when we shared a room in DC over the summer. I also had daydreams. It was disconcerting that I, Rory Gilmore, was having very hot and heavy sapphic thoughts about a girl who made it clear from the beginning I'd never make it on 'her turf'. But as we rode around the Beltway on that bus everyday, headed toward places of government or leisure such as the Capitol or the National Aquarium in Baltimore, we had to sit next to each other. Would she ever say anything if she had feelings for me? Could I admit the same?  
   
Because I came pretty close to taking that step as we took a water taxi back from Fort McHenry to the Inner Harbor one evening in Baltimore. It was such a beautiful evening too; the sky was clear, the awesome skyline of the city in front of us. We were sitting at a table eating dinners consisting of tossed salads with lettuce and chopped up cherry tomatoes, and Paris was looking so carefree. She was talking about her nanny Francisca and a story about her saying the darnedest things when she was young. She had on a cleavage-baring dark red top I know I'd never see her wear in Hartford, combined with a pair of corduroy pants that fit her slim legs like a glove. Her hair was in an elegant ponytail, and her eyes reflected the half-moonlight in the sky. She's really a good storyteller when she really gets into the meat of it.  
   
I was about to ask her in a subtle subject change whether she'd ever fall for a girl, when suddenly this guy came in and broached conversation with both of us.  
   
His name? It was Jamie, and he had prevented me from divulging close feelings for Paris. The boy seemed smitten for her, so I didn't want to be rude and be the third wheel, so I backed out and moved over to the front of the boat, looking at the skyline alone as we came back into Baltimore Harbor. I felt so stupid, because that guy seemed to be Paris' perfect type. Well-bred, killer grades and looks, and a highly developed wit. A small town girl like me never had a chance with Paris because I was too chicken to take the next step forward. So I pushed them together, had them keep looking at each other so that they could be happy and I could push any lesbian tendencies way down to the dark deep portion of my heart, never to lurk on the outside.  
   
Three nights later though, it came back out, and strong.  
   
See, if you don't know Paris, she sleep talks in her dreams. It's not that loud and barely noticeable, but when you're going on your 20th sleepless night without seeing your mother and best friend, you'll try anything to make yourself fall asleep. What I had previously ignored and tuned out, I listened to that night with interest.

I could see in the light of the window her tossing and turning violently to each side of the bed, clearly which I thought, was a nightmare. She'd mumble 'Oh God, oh my God' occasionally, and toss over to another side. So I continued listening, trying to wear my brain into REM playing silent dream psychic with Paris. I thought nothing of what she was dreaming, just that it was pretty bad if she was begging for God's mercy.  
   
Suddenly though, she shrieked in her bed. Not a loud shriek, not a blood-curdling one, but just a shriek. A happy one. Now I was really confused, because why would she be excited that way during a nightmare, a postive way? I got up from my bed and crept toward hers, because from my position, I didn't have a good view of her whole body.  
   
I should've probably stayed in bed. Because when I was about ready to rouse Paris awake with my hand, I discovered where her right hand was when she threw her comforter after another happy shriek.  
   
There, in her hand, was the bedsheet, balled up. And her nightgown was bunched up around her waistline, I could see a couple fingers beneath one of the leg holes in her panties, exposed to me.  
   
Of course, I blushed the deepest shade of red I ever could muster. I had come upon Paris having a sex dream! I whispered the F word to myself, and tried to will myself away from watching the scene unfolding in front of my eyes, very dimly. But my feet stood still. I watched her toss to and fro, her hair spreading out all over her pillow and her fingers working more furiously to get herself off. Her gown seemed to unsnap in the front like it had a mind of its own, and I tried to block out the fact that I was staring at her breasts so blatantly. I couldn't stop, and I felt my whole body react, despite not knowing what her dream is about.  
   
Her panties were so wet, and she was arching against the bed, I could tell that she was about to reach her peak. She then shouted words I'd never have expected from her, and that, in a proper setting would have probably been a dream come true. But in that dorm room, I had to chalk it up to frustration.  
   
She screamed "Oh Rory, baby!" loudly as she came in her sleep. I had never expected her to be fantasizing about **me** like that, so I immediately went into denial mode, despite the wild side of my conscious screaming at me to make her dream come true. I grabbed the sheet and comforter from the floor and threw it onto her body, then waited a few minutes for her to settle down from her orgasm. Then I approached her slowly and shook her awake, hoping she was unaware that I knew her secret fantasy. I told her that she was sleep talking, and though startled at the admission that she screamed in her dream, she seemed fine. I told her that she said "Oh baby!", editing my name out so that she didn't have to answer the awkward question of why I was in her dream. And I also made sure not to let her know she had an erotic sleep-talking dream, that it was somewhat normal.  
   
She shook a little in her bed, looking down at her comforter in shock. Then she apologized for something I knew was tough to control. "I feel so embarrassed, I'm so sorry Rory, I promise you that I won't be so loud again. Maybe I'll get a muzzle for myself," she joked, though a little shaken. I thought that was the perfect time to assure her that her neurotic tendencies were actually fine to me, and I gave her an awkward, yet friendly hug. I could tell as she put her hand on my back that she was trying to push her nightgown below her waist again and buttoning up the front.  
   
After her loud and obvious dream, I didn't know what to think of Paris' sexual orientation. But I did know she needed love in her life, and with Dean my boyfriend, I couldn't give it her, no matter what my dreams were telling me. So whenever Jamie came into the picture, I pushed them together. I think she flirted, but it seemed more to keep up appearances than in showing any actual interest in the boy. Jamie was just as tentative and very shy whenever they happened on each other at an event.  
   
Meanwhile being with Paris in the same place almost twenty hours a day drove me into this sexual tizzy that Dean or Jess could've never gotten me into. The image of her almost nude and prone body in her dream that evening permeated my thoughts, and I spent all day counting the minutes until I could get in the shower and release all that energy over the cover of my CD player and the spray of the shower blocking my noises from her ears. I missed home and Stars Hollow, but that one mid-June night stayed with me all that summer.  
   
I wrote postcards to the boys occasionally, leaving 'wish you were here' messages to them, when I couldn't give a damn if Dean pulled up and got a private room with me at the Watergate for the rest of the summer. I loved living with Paris, and though our schedules were planned up to the last minute, we still got time to get to know each other. I learned she was a closet romance and soap opera fan (she even brought a Tivo box to record them when we went on a four-day tour of Virginia battlefields so that she wouldn't miss a minute of _The Guiding Light_ and GH), and she respected my taste in music and fashions. Though the 'L' word was far from being brought up, I found out that we were kindred spirits, and though her motives for befriending me were confusing, I knew one thing; I didn't want to lose it again. Lane's the friend you made in preschool and will know until you die and will probably wear the ugly bridesmaid's dress for, but I've never had a dirty thought about her in my life. Probably because I'm convinced Mrs. Kim can see into my mind where it concerns Lane, and she'd get out the cross and hand drill if I thought of Lane in less than a sweater!  
   
But Paris, she's the girl who runs hot and cold. One day you think you've finally gotten into her good graces, and then you do something that seems innocent and screw it all up. Hooking her up with Tristan comes to mind. Strangely, I liked imperfect friendship, and perfect rivalry. Had she not threatened me that first day or my ass bumped her fort project to the hard linoleum as I 'opened' my locker, I might have been looking for an even more challenging school than Chilton to attend because everyone else besides her and the rest of the Chilton Three, I honestly couldn't find anything to relate to with them. She keeps me humble, I keep her humble, and we make the perfect, though flawed team. It's win-win for both of us.  
   
August finally came slowly, and the last days of our Washington tour were finally here. Which meant a last shuffle at courtship, and that meant Jamie finally got off his stubborn ass and asked Paris for a date, much to my delight. I could finally get all those dumb thoughts out of my mind about jumping my classmate and concentrate on the upcoming battle of trying to drill into Jess' head that we're just friends and only ever going to remain that, and trying to keep my flame burning with Dean.  
   
Two minutes in though, and already a hitch. Apparently Paris missed every cue in the book that yes, you're Sandra Bullock in _Miss Congeniality_ and he wannnts to date yoooouu hon. She didn't know it was a date, and treated it as if she was being taken to Chunk E. Cheese's for turning nine! Being that Paris was new to the dating game, I gently nudged her and let her know that yes, she was going on a date with Jamie. She commented on how it would seem to the world how a Harvard girl would be dating a Princeton boy, and I just nodded and told her I'd help her get ready.  
   
I should've seen through her from that moment though. She hyped herself on the date and had no interest in calling it that before I prodded her on. And I should've known that with her light beauty regimen, I'd need to give her serious help to impress Jamie.  
   
Which meant touching. Lots and lots of touching Paris. She needed help in everything, and I just succumbed to helping her here and there, touching her almost everywhere. I helped her choose a dress, and had to imagine her in it. Oh God, here I go again...She took off her 'luncheon' suit, and there she stood, in a black demi-bra with matching panties, looking for something to wear in the closet. And I thought Tristan was a pervert! I admit, I milked the opportunity for all it was worth, having her change into outfits that I know wouldn't work just so I could touch her and ogle over her subtlety for at least a couple hours. I found the perfect little pink dress in the bottom of her suitcase, and had her change into it, and without even looking at her in it, knew she'd look hot wearing it.  
   
She did of course, and though she was panicking as I made my weekly phone call to Dean, I still pondered why I was letting a overneurotic J-AP from one of the old bloodlines of Hartford get into my mind so much. And one from my own sex no less! About the only place I learned that girls even kissed girls was from _Ellen_ and some soft-core movie I flipped onto during a free preview Cinemax weekend late at night, and from my health book, but I always thought you'd only find them in the big cities, the San Franciscos and New Yorks. I also heard of a term called 'lipstick lesbians', where cute girls would kiss or have sex with each other just for fun.

We certainly wouldn't be lipstick lesbians, I wear gloss, and Paris only wears the stuff on special occasions!  
   
I took her hair out of a very tight ponytail, had her sit down and calm down, and then she asked how I knew a guy was right for me. As I brushed it out, ignoring any tingles I was getting from being able to be trusted with her long locks, I told her she'd know when she least expected it, "You'll find that compatible person who you share interests with, but not too many that they're boring." I told her as I calmed her nerves.  
   
I hid behind the words him and his, and knew what I was doing. I had already found the person most compatible with me, and unfortunately she was about to go out on a date with a boy. I was telling her all this stuff and meaning it all towards Paris, not Jamie. I felt guilty for a moment, before I heard Jamie knock on the dorm door, conversation ended, and I had her turn around and I gave her one last once-over. "Perfect", I told her, and she asked if that was really my opinion. It probably would've been really weird and out of character if I had gone with my first choice of words, "Paris, you look totally fuckable!", so I confirmed the previously vocalized opinion.  
   
She then smiled at me and told me to get into the closet. Some kind of fear about me being taken out instead of her by Jamie if I was in the same room. So I made a crack about her therapist and got in the closet anyways, trying to find some kind of Freudian theory that me in the closet was really the way she visualized me in her dreams in a lesbianic sense. Which sadly after the "Oh Rory, baby!" incident became about as exciting as a Prime Minister's Questions show on C-SPAN. I mean yeah, so she sleep-talk dreams about newspaper writers having ferocious battles about what to write, but could she really replace them in her mind with her and me sleeping together? Kind of a hard thing to do, say one thing and think another, especially in slumber. Still, the mind puzzles.  
   
I wrote my postcards in the lit closet and packed up my clothes, trying to find anything to do to take my mind off my crush on my blonde roommate. I had three hours to spare and so much to pack, so it was pretty easy. When I heard Paris approach in the hallway, I decided she might need some recovery time, so I went back into the closet to give her the time she needed to recharge her batteries.  
   
She came back into the room, and sighed as I hear her bed creak. She hesitated and I heard the floor creak as she took off her shoes and set them to the side of the door. _So far, so good_ , I thought to myself silently, _looks like they'll work out_.  
   
Then I hear another knock on the door. Hmm, maybe Paris and Jamie would give me an excuse to put in my earplugs? She walked over from the bed, and I heard her open the door. I heard Jamie, and eavesdropped on their conversation.  
   
"You forgot your purse Paris," he said kindly.  
   
"Oh, thank you, I was a little absent-minded tonight."  
   
"So, do you think I can have your cell number? Maybe if I get up to Hartford, we can do this again sometime."  
   
Here it comes; the crush is going to die any second now! No more hot dreams and getting off to images of Paris screwing me, this silly little phase is about to pass--  
   
"I'm sorry Jamie, I didn't feel any chemistry with you romantically. I wouldn't mind being your friend, but I don't have the interest in you that you have for me, and I don't know if I ever can. I had a fine time, and I hope you have a good time the rest of the days you're here." She said it tersely as if she was repeating a test result verbatim.

"Oh, well, I'm sorry." He sounded stunned, and lost all his momentum, any love he had for the girl fading fast. "Uh, goodnight Paris."

"Bye Jamie."  
   
With that, my lesbian crush on Paris Gellar went back into full effect! All the parts of my body that were normal seconds ago are feeling drugged up with desire. My soul swoons, and I'm trying to telegraph "DAMN IT PARIS, QUIT BEING SUCH A GODDAMNED ENGIMA!!" to her brain because she just turned down Mr. Right for who knows who! I want to come out of the closet and wring her neck for turning down such a nice guy. He left, probably heartbroken, and I'm left to wonder why she'd rather stay single than go out with him. I assume the date was fine because she came home safe and he wanted more. Maybe they **did** have sex and she was lacking?  
   
I heard her lock the door and sigh as she took off her dress, dropping to the ground in front of the closet. "Hello? Rory?" she asked aloud to the room. I decided not to respond, thinking that she needed a little quite time to get ready for bed.  
   
I go back to my letters and write quietly, wondering if she'd need something from the closet since her nightgowns are in here. Though she did have one next to her bed. Ten minutes later, she hasn't opened the door, and I know her as not going to bed without at least something on. Ten minutes later, she hadn’t opened the door, and knowing her not to go to bed without at least something on I opened the door slowly at first, I heard nothing in the room but her breathing, so I opened it a little more.  
   
It's a good sign though. She's laying in her bed in her underwear, looking up at the ceiling in the dim light of the room, one bra strap fallen against her boobs and her fingers...  
   
Great, now she was masturbating again! I certainly couldn't interrupt her as her legs were spread across the bed, providing easy access to her clit. I was only seeing out of one eye because the door was in the way of my left eye, and the footboard of the bed was blocking it more just a little bit. It was pretty clear however, what she was doing. She bit down onto her lower lip with her upper palate, and was freakishly silent as I watched her give herself pleasure.  
   
But she had just turned down Jamie. Why on earth would she have been giving herself pleasure after having a bad date? It didn't make much sense to me!  
   
To me, Rory Gilmore, who hasn't even seen a penis before except in a textbook however, her private moment was arousing me so much that I wanted that closet door closed so I could have a moment like that myself. Imagining my fingers inside of her, myself on top, both of us oblivious to the world around us as we share in one of the most simple, yet carnal pleasures we can partake in.  
   
I felt my cotton undies dampen as I continued to spy on her. I focused my eyes in on her groin, where the black silk of her panties had been shoved off to the side so she had full access. Her other hand was up against her breast, still in the bra, and she was barely making any noise. The springs of the bed groaned as she arched against her hand, and I could tell that she was soon to come from the fact her toes were curling back and each of her smaller fourth toes were clenched below her big toes. God, this was so wrong!  
   
That's what I thought until that night. As Paris brought herself over the hump in front of my eyes, and her body became relaxed, I was totally thinking 'Paris _does_ want me. She's dreaming of me.' Despite not having any confirmation except for the earlier sleep-talking dream, who else could she think of, Tristan? She hated him when he left for ruining his life with the help of Duncan and Bowman. And it certainly isn't Brad! It couldn't have been a boy because otherwise common sense tells me she would've been using an item shaped like a penis, like a vibrator or a dildo (geeze, I can't believe I'm even thinking about _that_! Gross!) to bring herself off. But her fingers worked just fine for her.

And if my vision wasn't deceiving me, she was trying to get her hand in the same position my fingers are normally.  
   
The cork was opened. I had to get myself off too. So I grabbed the doorknob and slowly closed the door before Paris would notice, and moved all my writing materials off to the side so I had enough room to lay down. I took off my sweater and pants and kicked off my shoes, all my nerves excited as I stripped myself of my clothing furiously. I cursed myself for being a dork as I realized how unsexy my underwear was. I mean Hello Kitty underwear and a plain white tank top?! I suppose I could seduce someone desperate in that ensemble. I'm just thankful I've drawn the line of sharing clothes with Lorelai at underwear, because even she'd be embarrassed at what I wear under the Chilton skirt!  
   
I examined my panties and discovered that they were soaked at the crotch. I felt the wet spot with two fingertips and actually felt the dampness of my juices wring onto my fingers into a small drop. Experimentally, I brought it up to my nose and took a sniff of myself, something that I've never done. Mom never really talked about masturbation to me, and I've never asked because that topic goes into her 'gross territory'. Basically she says as long I don't have sex before I'm 30, I can pretty much do anything with my body I want. My utter shyness before then had stopped me from doing more than 'buffing the pearl', as Louise had stated once in an impromptu sex talk she had with Madeline one day in the _Franklin_ office (far away from Paris' ears of course). But I was very curious; if somehow Paris told me she had feelings for me, sexual feelings and decided to...use her mouth down there, would I have a bitter taste? Would she be repulsed upon knowing what she was getting into, stop right there, and never speak to me again?  
   
Actually, it wasn't too bad. Sort of sugary with a bitter taste, but something that wouldn't repulse me like a dose of green NyQuil. I got a mouth-watering image of what I surmised she'd taste like. All bitter, but with just a hint of sweetness as it went down my throat. Though it did smell like a bodily fluid did, it was a much nicer scent. Not like Secret deodorant, but a musky kind of scent, something that would appeal to a man. Or a girl like Paris, it's just something that's so her.  
   
I could smell her in the air, the stale sterile aroma of the Spartan dorm room disappearing around me as I dipped my fingers around the waistband tentatively. The skin along the bottom of my stomach immediately tingled, and sent shocks down to my core. God, I wanted this so badly, all the negative things about loving another woman not even a factor. I moved my hand in deeper and deeper slowly, imagining her against the middle landing of the grand staircase at school...

 ** _Her jacket is open and her tie is undone, and she's beckoning me closer towards her. Her skin is flush and beaded with sweat, and she releases her hair from a scrunci in this crazy movement that brings out my untamed heart. We collide together, and I feel her tongue demand to know mine. We crumple to the floor arm in arm, and I feel her large breasts weigh against my chest. I open a few buttons on her blouse (more like rip it open), and find the cleavage she keeps hidden to everyone except herself, and thank God that I know this girl so closely and intimately after only two years.  
_**    
I try to keep my cries to myself, staying soft as I moaned her name in that closet and find my hand against my vaginal lips. I feel the brown hair tangled and covering it, and feel even more dampness than I did on my panties, it is clear the beginning of my masturbation fantasy is making me so wet. I dipped a finger into my pussy and against my clit. I'm already aroused and in another world where every little movement feels like heaven. My nipples tighten against the tank top, and I can clearly make out the outline of my areola. This spurs me on even further as I continue on with my daydream.  
   
 ** _Paris is down to her underwear and her skirt, while I've already ditched the itchy fabric of my kilt and hover above her in a pink undershirt and bikini briefs, my shirt open and my entire body writhing above her. She can't take the fact that she's not in control, a trait that makes me respect her even more. I'd do anything for her, and if it involves her on top, well I certainly can't deny her, can I? She rolls me over, and with strength that's hidden somewhere in her analytical body, she tears off the undershirt and my bra at the same time right in the front, exposing my sort of flat chest to her. Somehow I don't think it's enough, and I await her answer as if I have enough cup size to satisfy her._  
**  
   
"Gilmore, I'd love you even if you were completely flat!" she says to me, sad that I even thought one part of my body wasn't good enough for her. She closes her mouth in on my right nipple in my thoughts in order to prove it.

In real life, my hand was fondling the underside of my right breast, and I muffled out a groan of pleasure as I found myself distracted, and very hot. My tank top had to come offso I interrupted my self-pleasuring and yanked the shirt up from the waist hem, turning it inside out as I took it off and threw it so high it caught the end of one of the wire coat hangers above and just stayed there, not slipping at all from its roost.  
   
 ** _My dream self starts to stray towards the dark side of Mary as I'm now down to my panties and I'm returning the favor of Paris' fondling back to her, biting and and playing with nipples, driving her to beg me for more and causing her voice to become hoarse, I swear I hear her use vulgar and sexual Portuguese terms, and I take that as her losing control of her usual, reserved and conservative self. However, my language is far from G-rated as her hand rubs against my mound, her school-worn fingers perfectly frictioning against my needy clit. I actually use the 'p' and 'c' words in a way that Lorelai would have me eating a dinner of Ivory soap with Palmolive gravy, and I couldn't give a fuck because Paris is making me feel like a goddess. She's making it clear that she wants me for me, and would do anything to make me happy. And in turn the only thing I want for her is happiness._**

 ****She's really getting to me now, and I recall her moans as she had that wet dream I watched her have a couple months ago. I could only smell sex in the air then, and my panties were so wet I swore the silk-screened image of Hello Kitty's face was starting to smudge, turning the fabric's color from a virgin white to a muddy grayish red from the inks used.  
   
I hoped Paris would be able to sense what I was doing because she was making me cum like I never had before. I had three fingers inside, stroking my clit so vigorously that my fantasy of her and me fucking in the school lobby has to struggle to catch up.

 ** _I catch it up to my current state, and now it's just Paris and I, naked as the day we were born, making love without a care in the world. I feel her fingers inside of me, and then I feel her leg against my entrance too. Another thing that makes me wet for her; she has perfectly long and sexy legs, and she barely stands five feet and a bit. She's imposing when she's sitting down, and small when she stands, and it's all because of her legs. She wears the smallest socks possible to expose as much gam as she can, and has told me that's the one body part she spends big bucks on, with waxing and exfoliating and what-not.  
_**    
Figures that I have a double fetish, her legs and her breasts. But they say two is better than one. But as I prepared to orgasm, my panties are rolled down midway between my knees and my feet and they're tangled together, I wanted to see this thing her little show started in me all the way to the end!

**_I see her brown eyes reflect in mine, giving off an aura of admiration, respect, and love. They say all they need to about her feelings towards me, and I as I feel her weight on me, two fingers playing with my clitoris and two hitting that exact spot inside of me that guarantees that I'll cum like a gusher, I want to imagine a world with just her in it, no Dean, no Jess, no Tristan to interfere. No Madeline and Louise telling us lesbianism is so going to be out of fashion soon. No Mrs. Gellar frowning on her daughter's 'wasted potential' just because she swings the other way and won't marry one of those creeps that walks the Chilton halls and flashes around his bling-bling like no tomorrow. No nagging from my mother, confused because yes I certainly wasn't going to get pregnant from Paris, but now she had to deal with a daughter who doesn't like boys sexually and what ground rules she has to set. It's just her and me, and as the warm feeling of my orgasm comes down from my belly and onto my hands, I hear Paris wail loudly about her own release in my mind. "Fuck, Rory, I love you!" she screams as we come at the same time._ **

****I settled myself down, lay my head down on the ground and let the afterglow pass over me as I realized how much I'd came. My hands were coated with my arousal, and the light blue carpeting beneath the apex of my thighs had turned a dark gray from all that cum. I feel somewhat embarrassed, because I'm sure a janitorial crew is going to miss this when they come in to clean the room, and whoever rooms in this dorm come the start of classes in fall had to wonder what that mysterious smell from the closet is.

Of course, I could've said the same for the person who'll take Paris' bed. I smile in contentment, knowing that in some gross weird way, Paris and I have certainly left our marks on Washington. To be seventeen and secretly in love with another woman, I guess that's how it goes.  
   
I stripped off my underwear after I feel like I can walk steadily without tripping, and put back on my jeans and yanked my t-shirt off the hanger and put it back on, knowing I'd be changing into my pajamas when I needed to go to the bathroom in a bit. Having sex with myself certainly did some odd things to my bladder, and I _really_ had to go after finishing.  
   
I gather myself and my writing materials, and leave the closet, feeling the irony of that statement so much. I think I feel Paris peeking at me, but I'm not really sure. I go to the bathroom, change into my PJs, and head off to bed after wishing a sleeping Paris goodnight, anxious for the trip home and wishing I'd have a couple more days in DC with Paris, but knowing it wasn't to be.  
   
Still, best damned good night's sleep I've had in my life ;). Paris had to drag me out of my bed because I almost overslept and missed the flight back to Bradley.  
   
It was fun being back in Hartford, but I was counting the days until Chilton started back up again. I would've seen Paris before then, but her mother insisted on her yearly trip to see her parents down in Florida, thus she had to go down kicking and screaming. Meanwhile things were starting to get a little strained with Dean. He was still convinced I had my eyes on Jess and I never told him about the kiss, so he kept trying to get me to do more things sexually with him.  
   
I would've complied had I not gotten this crush on Paris. But where Dean made me weak in the knees with his kisses before Washington, after I came back I kept thinking of Paris and how much I wanted to kiss _her_. They felt even more tepid than when Lorelai or Grandma would kiss me, and those were just to express love between family members. Jess had surprisingly taken my hint that we were meant to be friends, meanwhile, and gotten himself a girlfriend, a wild blonde named Shane. Somehow, they were perfect together, and his puppy love crush faded away.  
   
So now my love life had faded from a love triangle, into a love quadrangle, then back down to a love triangle. The corners were slanted towards Paris' side thought, it was weird. I had almost not gone to Chilton two years ago because of Dean. This year, I couldn't wait to be there because a girl I liked, but who began by tormenting me was going to be my constant companion at the paper, in class, and in student government.  
   
I'd give anything to add on a fourth point in that equation; lover. But I had to start slowly, lest anyone get suspicious. The last thing I needed from day one was the gossip circles getting wind of our small sparks in Washington, so I treaded cautiously.  
   
Right off the bat though, one girl had to have known our secret; Francine Jarvis, chair of our class. Paris' move to slide me in as vice president snuffed out her last minute push at getting her ticket (with one of those tree or fruit named girls, I could care less) on top, so she had a vendetta, on top of the fact we were accidentally instrumental in ending the Puffs in their current form. So she tried her best in getting her way in student government, despite Paris' power over her. She'd push through these insane things that we all damn well knew would never make it past Charleston; Paris would snuff each one out before we could get it to a vote.  
   
It worked well until Francie asked her to consider a slight raise in the height of the hems on the school skirts. She asked Paris, who immediately tabled it, thus I thought it was over.  
   
Then she dragged me into the bathroom and played a game of Chicago Machine with me. I don't want to go through the details, but basically I'd be Francie's puppet, I'd support all her issues, and she wouldn't try to usurp Paris and make her look like an ineffective leader. I wasn't having it, especially on something as pithy as an issue with the hemline. I still had unfinished business with her, and she wasn't going to ruin Paris' power by starting on something small and moving up to something like putting the prom in the Civic Center with gilded gold decorations, something that would bankrupt not only our class, but the next classes for the next ten years.  
   
As I was coming home from school on the bus though, suddenly I had a perverted thought. Higher hemlines? That meant Paris' skirt would no longer end at her knees, it would end just that much more higher. I almost became a puddle in my seat with a big grin pasted on my face as I thought of her in a shorter skirt. Needless to say, I had to vent on Dean with an extended makeout session after that just so I could get that thought out of my system.  
   
But I still went to bed thinking about it, so I decided that it was time to play a little hardball with Jarvis. I called her about nine that night on her cellphone and told her I agreed to be her lackey. What I didn't tell her though was that I'd be writing everything down and using a microcassette recorder hidden either in my backpack or jacket to detail all our business together. In a couple months I'd let Paris know what she was up to, and with all the proof of her work behind the scenes, Francine Jarvis was going to bounced on her ass out of the senior chair, and with her proof of corruption, the only political aspirations she'd be holding after that would be for borough selectman in one of those economically depressed mill towns that are dying because no one wants to live in a troubled city with no hope. She could play evil? I'd play the bitch that brought her down, and still end up with a little something out of all of it.  
   
Paris never saw me coming the next day. I gave her the puppy-dog look right into her eyes as I told her we should throw Francie a bone and let her have the shorter hemlines, and she relented and decided to let it go onto Headmaster Charleston. I could swear she was ogling me as I told her we should let it through, but I decided I was just seeing things. If it gave her a hint though, I'm certainly not offended.  
   
Then there was the aftermath of that college applications seminar, she panicked as much as I did, maybe even more. She called me to let me know she was scared, and though I was in a panic myself and I hung up on her because I was dealing with my own panic, at least I knew I had a kindred spirit. At least there's something we agree with; if one neither of us get into Harvard, the admissions board is going to have to deal with two angry Chiltonites right on top of the class, because I won't forgive myself if I end up taking her slot. Paris deserves it after putting so many years of hard work in her academics, and I wouldn't want that to be lost to her on a technicality. The question is, if she got in and I didn't, would she ever go to bat for me?  
   
That's one of the many questions I ask myself every day at lunch as I sit across from her at the table, nursing whatever food I buy from the a la carte line and my daily romaine lettuce and cherry tomato salad with ranch dressing. Paris recommended it to me a few days after starting Chilton because that's what she always ate, and I've had that as my second course every lunch since. She has the same exact fresh salad, and though I'll never forget why, they link us together much more than any test or exam could ever do.  
   
Today I have my headphones turned down as Paris computes in her brain in relative silence, and Madeline and Louise debate an age-old question; is technology or good old sweat equity the better subject. OK, so they're arguing whether they'd jump either Ty from _Trading Spaces_ versus Kevin Rose from _The Screensavers_ on TechTV. Madeline actually has some good arguments for Kevin, but it's kind of hard to make a point when very few people watch his show. Louise reminds her of that, and she sighs and says, "Fine, I keep him all to myself Grant, but you don't know what you're missing. Installing Linux, XP, 98 and OS2/Warp on the same machine with a dual-boot manager while modding an Xbox into the machine? So hot, and he has that John Mayer everyday boy next door sexiness to him!"  
   
Louise and Paris give her this bemused look of 'what are you talking about', and Madeline just shrugs. "What? It's an educational show, have to get something out of my eye candy." Her nose twinkles, and Louise decides to let bygones be bygones.  
   
"Fine Maddy, prove it and bring over a tape of your geek boy tomorrow evening, but I'm sticking to my assertion that Ty is one hot carpenter and can hammer me anytime!" I ignore the obvious innuendo and turn the music on my CD player back up. Ahh, the theme to _Birds of Prey_. For some reason, I just really miss that show. Who knows why, but the WB screwed up the scheduling on that. Probably why I don't watch television all that often, it gets my blood boiling.  
   
Paris' leg bumps into mine beneath the table, and I can't figure out why I haven't ditched the blue hose yet, despite the raise of the skirts. It's not as if I'm standing outside all that much anymore in the middle of a chilly fall day because I usually leave with Paris in her car and she gives me a lift home. I'm sure that's going to keep happening until we leave Chilton, and as long as I give her $10 every month for gas, she'll keep doing it. Her car is as unflashy as she is, but it fits her personality well. Her maroon red Jaguar has all the latest car gadgets, and though she keeps it as neat as possible, I still find the occasional sub sandwich wrapper and piece of schoolwork under my power seat, which of course is heated. And it reclines into a comfortable laying position, perfect for when I want to ask Paris if I want to...  
   
Err, uh...take a nap. Honest to god, no siree, I, Rory Gilmore do solemnly swear I'm not having any thoughts of me and my classmate doing uncouth things in her car. Or the jeep. Or in the _Franklin_ darkroom around 5:45pm on a Wednesday afternoon when everyone else is gone and we've met our publication date and both of us are really wound up from the adrenaline of putting an edition on the street, both of us alone--  
   
OK, God! Enough Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, it's lunchtime, time to eat. Time to stop talking about Paris like she's the only one you're thinking of going beyond making out with, there's other fish in the sea. And other subjects to study.  
   
Whatever Paris Eustachia Gellar did to my mind over the last two years, there certainly hasn't been a dull moment since I ended up at her school. However things do end up between us, one day I'll admit I'll have a crush on her, and there's this big hope inside me that things end up ending perfectly, with me kissing her in my arms, and all the boys who have been 'friendly' to me open to my new lifestyle. I hope Lorelai would be able to handle the fact I've fallen for my classmate and that it has almost nothing to do with sex. I'm also hoping that I can keep building my relationship with Grandma and Grandpa if I ever do admit to this, because I love them so much and I wouldn't want to see them have that 'Being gay is not for you Rory' attitude the rest of Hartford society seems to have. I've seen a couple girls on Valentine's Day admit they loved their best friends in the halls of Chilton, and they're popularity hit the floor swiftly and they ended up losing their friendships. Not to mention that being gay might as well be on par with hanging out with the goths in this school. Admitting what I feel so late might be to my advantage, so that I could go into Harvard relatively scot-free.

But I should stop thinking now, because Paris just snapped her finger in my direction. I turn down the music and look at her intently, wondering what was up.  
   
"Rory, ranch dressing, right side of your mouth, you might need to stretch it out a little this time," she says, and I notice a white blemish right where she's pointing to.  
   
Why must I be such a slob when I eat at lunch? Probably because I know it gets her attention, and not in an innocent way either. Might as well give her a preview before she goes for the entire thing one of these days. If she does.  
   
I smile, and blush at her, cursing my messiness on the outside. "Uh, thanks for pointing that out Paris, I'm glad we're such good friends," I say to her sweetly, wishing I could add a certain four-letter prefix denoting a female to that last word. Not going to worry about the schematics of changing that sentence though, because it's time to give her a little thrill, unbeknownst to anyone else in the room.  
   
"Not a problem Gilmore." She returns the smile, and I blatantly stretch out my tongue, messing with her mind as I keep 'accidentally' missing the lump of Hidden Valley Ranch on my mouth.  
   
Yes I still have to break up with Dean. Yes I still have to convince Lorelai that I'd still be her little girl if I admitted my crush on Paris. And boy would my life change the moment my lips touched hers. But it's time to face facts; I really love the woman sitting across from my table, with her unique _Ally McBeal_ -ish neuroticisms and a drive to succeed at everything she does that would overwhelm any other average person, because it's Paris Gellar, a force of nature.  
   
I just have to find the right opening. I have to get her interested and let her know that if she has her eyes on me already, keep them there. She might not be the perfect girl, but she just might be my soulmate, and that's all that I need, because being the product of a scared sixteen year-old girl once before, I know how it feels to get lucky and have everything turn out well.  
   
This is one part of Paris' life that definitely deserves a happy ending. And I better give to her. I will, soon. But right now that ranch dressing is still a little present below my lip, just a couple more centimeters...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	3. A Russian Class Conspiracy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start to progress slowly as Paris daydreams about new possibilities brought up by Rory in the middle of a mind-numbing class she hates.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Three | A Russian Class Conspiracy  
Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Inspired by:** From past subtext from the last half of season two and the first half of season three with many spoilers from those episodes. This chapter of the series however is all from my own ideas, we will get back into the show in the near future.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, naughty femslash thoughts)  
 **Disclaimer:** Don't own GG or profit from the show, that would be Warner Bros. Television and Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions. _War and Peace_ is in the public domain, despite the pleas from every teenager in America to burn the book or destroy all prints of the crappy six-hour 'epic' waste of film made from it. If you ever see anyone watching or reading Tolstoy voluntarily, please seek help for them immediately ;).  
 **Summary:** Things start to progress slowly as Paris daydreams about new possibilities brought up by Rory in the middle of a mind-numbing class she hates.  
 **Archiving** : GilmoreGirlsSlash, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** I'll only be making a small note since I finally got all my thanks out in chapter two. For those who reviewed, thank you for the encouragement (or criticism), and to my beta readers Raven and Cinnamon, thanks so much for all of your help, this story wouldn't be back on the fast track without you girls. Thank you to President Bush for pre-empting _American Idol_ Tuesday evening, and giving this week's great GG episode the best ratings in a while.  
   
And if you're a ff.net'er still hoping that somehow one of the members of Rory's boy harem will save her from (gasp!) kissing a girl, they aren't going to make it, sorry to disappoint. Heed the FEMSLASH warnings I've left throughout the story and just don't read if you're not into girls interested in girls.  
   
Finally, I doubt that she'll read this because it's outside her regular fandom, but this chapter is dedicated to Kitty from the _Gilmore Girls_ Fanforum board. Sadly, she lost her kind and loving husband Kevin, and another passenger was involved in an accident triggered by a drunk driver on his way to work Easter Sunday morning. He had just come home from a tour of duty in the Middle East a few months ago, and they were about to move into new housing with their daughters, 1 year-old Alexis and almost 4 year-old Karissa when his life was tragically cut short in a cruel and senseless act on such a holy holiday. Keep them in your prayers to whatever deity you follow, and I hope Kitty, the girls and the rest of her family will survive this strong. She's a true board mother and I know that her love is looking down from heaven right now and keeping her and her children's spirits up.  


* * *

September 25, 2000 is a day that's still strong in my memory to this day. Though it started out with my normal routine of shower, dress, eat and drive, by about 7:35 in the morning when I arrived at Chilton, there was a buzz going through the halls that someone new was about to come in. At first I thought nothing of this new student because it was made clear that they were a scholarship case, probably out after a half-semester of the mind-killing curriculum only a select few can handle. _Another person to ignore_ , I thought to myself as I got out all my books.  
   
And then Madeline shocked me to my core when I she relayed more details about the new kid.  
   
"She's Rory Gilmore, of the Chatham Drive Gilmores," she told me, animated and smiling about the new gossip she could spread. "Back in 1984 apparently her mother Lorelai was discovered as pregnant at sixteen because of her boyfriend Christopher Hayden, and it was the biggest scandal of the decade up to that point in Hartford! A year later Lorelai had fled to Stars Hollow in shame, and raised her as a normal middle-class girl, earning  her way here eventually through her drive to get into Harvard. Talk is though Miss Gilmore couldn't afford the tuition and went to her 'rents for help. Thus, welcome Lorelai 'Rory' Leigh Gilmore, who has a 3.95 GPA coming in."  
   
I honestly was shaken as Madeline told me all about Rory. But as quickly as my emotions were turned around upon learning I had real competition for the first time; it was time to go back to work. I became an iron bitch again and despite all that Rory tried to dent my armor, from setting me up with Tristan to answering questions before my hand could get higher than hers, she couldn't get any headway. The whole PJ Harvey fiasco was the straw that I thought would break the camel's back for her. She wouldn't try again if I made it clear we'd never be friends, or more than that.  
   
But when I analyze that first year and a half after having so much time to think it over, I realize that the like for Rory was always there, lurking inside all along. I was hiding it behind an illusion that the only one I could ever love was Tristan, and if any person took him away from me I'd never feel loved again. I had to have **him** , my first male friend, the boy who pulled my pigtails in first grade and played Prince Charming to my Cinderella during the 1992 Chilton Country Day talent show.  
   
However, after that night of studying that turned into attending a Bangles concert thanks to Lorelai, I started having very confused thoughts about my rival. While Madeline and Louise flirted with those boys, we just sat there, transfixed to the music and the meanings within. As Louise and Madeline decided to hit that party with the spiked lemonade, they gave me the biggest out ever. I didn't have to be Rory's friend, I could just be reckless with them rather than stay with the goody-goody listening to 80s music.  
   
I didn't even hesitate to say no however, and from the moment I said the words, I couldn't figure out why. All I knew was that Rory was sitting next to me, and the aroma of her body heat was so intoxicating that I didn't want to replace that scent with anything male as long as I could hold onto it. And then as they left, came the image of her and I in my mind, dancing hand in hand intimately to the song being played. It was just a flash and I could've been easily freaked and disturbed by it, but I wasn't. I willed it further as I sat in that seat, Rory futilely arguing against my friends doing something that could get them on the _New York Post_ 's front page, and just became transfixed as my mind image danced with Rory's, and we discussed something as complex as whether Pluto should really be a planet or just a glorified Neptunian moon.  
   
And with that, I admitted that _Eternal Flame_ was my favorite song in the world to Rory. She gave me an odd look and went back to watching the concert, but from then on, the crush built up. I couldn't show it, but I was jealous of her not because she was possibly (but didn't as I later learned, to my chagrin) going out with Tristan because I liked him too, but that she was going out with him because I liked **her**. Thus came the summer of silence, with me shutting her out and living in a land of denial. I surrounded my thoughts with anything Tristan trying to get me and Rory slow dancing pushed out of my mind, but by September and the time she was on the _Franklin_ staff, I slowly started backing off and began liking Rory again on the outside.  
   
Maybe, just maybe though, the reason Tristan decided to turn on all of us was a swift kick in my ass from God. Rapidly, the glorified Prince Charming image from second grade I had kept for so long was fading away before my eyes, and I was finally able to see him the way the rest of the students did; as a manipulating boy who kept a swooning me on his hook as he uncorked about 47.66% of the girls in my same class. I'm only thankful Rory saw through him from day one and didn't go any further with him than some 'tortured soul' piano bench kiss during one of Madeline's many soirees.  
   
Yes, I saw that kiss. The wonders of one those pop-up sold X-10 black and white wireless cameras connected to a VCR set up in a servant's quarters made sure that buss was permanently recorded for all to see, as Madeline gave it to me the day after the party and told me to do whatever I wanted with it so I could ruin Rory's reputation. But all I saw was pain in her eyes that night; that she was looking for anything to distract her from the fact that her first love had ended the relationship because he was a stubborn ass who needed to be told he was loved by her at a certain point in the relationship. She clearly had no heart to kiss Tristan and was trying to use it as a coping mechanism, but it failed and she ran out, wanting to cry out the anguish of being dumped by a boy who wanted her to speak words she was far from ready to utter.  
   
So instead, I let Madeline know that she was not to copy the tape or let anyone know this had happened. To make sure of that, I threw the master copy down the incineration chute at the Manor in front of the eyes of my friends, shocking them and keeping them as puzzled into my motives for Rory.  
   
It was only after Tristan was thrown out of Chilton minutes before the project, and I was pushed into the spotlight as an emergency Romeo that I finally confronted my building feelings for Rory. And I really looked at her for the first time.  
   
Why did her mother have to be a talented seamstress? Why did the neckline of that pesky Juliet dress have to expose so much porcelain skin in front of me and her headwear have to make her so gosh-darned adorable? Why does she have the most beautiful and enchanting eyes that look like sapphires and hypnotized me into doing whatever she wanted? And why was I suddenly getting this evil little voice in my head telling me, _Oh yes Paris, you want to rehearse that kiss with Rory so bad! Practice does make perfect and you'll only have one shot to pull it off!_  
   
Boy she looked cute in that costume. But then I remembered that yes this was a graded project and we better be pitch-perfect, lest I lose a letter grade after such a shock of losing my main player from the project. Oh, and there was that little problem named Dean out in the crowd, and I'm sure his lesbian fantasies don't go much beyond the _Man Show_ definition of lust, meaning I'm too homely to be imagined in one.  
   
So I didn't kiss her, preferring instead to go with a fake little move learned well from Louise before I 'died' by laying my head against her chest. It still meant I had to breathe in her scent though. And this time, she smelled like baby powder, probably because she had to put it on all over before she could slide into that tight, tight dress with a cinched-up corset piece.  
   
Later on that night in bed, I finally let my crush on Tristan go, and for the first time my mind was free to go beyond the bounds of me and Rory dancing to _Eternal Flame_ into what I can only describe as beautiful. As I came with her scent in the forefront and her face in my thoughts, that was the evening I swore that I couldn't love a boy again. It was all Rory from then on.  
   
Then...oh my God, I'm being called on to answer a question! Shit! I hate this class, why did I have to be talked into taking Russian Novelists and Their Works 401 by my stupid guidance counselor? It's not as if I'll ever use this crap in my life, and any of Leo Tolstoy's works make much better doorstops or stepstools than actual good works of fiction! _War and Peace_ wastes so many wonderful trees; you have to weep when you realize how many good logs in Oregon were sacrificed to make paper for that horridly boring piece of literature!  
   
Thank goodness Rory's also in this class, but she's only taking it for the English requirement to get a merit award on her diploma. I've seen her with the Cliff Notes to every book we've read in this class, and I can tell she's not reading it on the ride into Chilton because she struggles with the questions raised by the teacher as much as me.  
   
Hurriedly, I construct a half-ass yet complex answer that should have him singing the praises of my question-answering abilities, and sure enough, he takes the bait. I won't be called on again today and I can go back to thinking about how things with Rory are starting to change for the better.  
   
Besides our lunchtime meetings, she's taken to spending much more time with me than she did last year. Gone is the nervous small-town girl looking for any praise she can muster while not damaging the way I shine with Chilton faculty, and in her place is this confident woman who's not making me regret making her my cohort at the paper and in student government one bit. She's suggesting articles and pieces that are changing the face of the _Franklin_ from a dull, dry broadsheet that seems to only brighten up when the sports teams are winning, to a paper that's becoming full of life and will look awesome on both of our transcripts once the Harvard admissions board looks at them. I may be the editor in name, but without her help I'd still be fretting about my 'paper legacy' once I graduate.  
   
We finally managed to eradicate the supper club and unhip soft drink ads of old that took up most of the ad space in the paper, and in their place elaborate ads for the hottest teen clubs and hangouts along the I-91 corridor along with bank and .com ads, pumping more money and ad revenue into the paper than I could've ever dreamed of. With her help we've been able to replace the aging 60 year-old press donated from Yale's _Daily News_ thirty years ago, and replace it our own slick new model able to print full-color photography on the front pages. The Oppenheimer endowment we won from the 'Rory Curtain' story helped us get the latest and greatest in digital cameras, and just might make that darkroom we have now a glorified closet in a few years.  
   
And after making that fine enlightened point of why I like Rory being around me, I'm going to purgatory when I pass on though, because I'm internally giddy that she finally ditched the ugly blue hose a few days ago. She's wearing boring white crew socks beneath her saddle shoes that only go a quarter up her shins, and I'm finding myself thinking seriously about 'accidentally' brushing up against her legs in one of the science classes I sit next to her in where a big black table-like desk covers up the fact I'm trying to coax her shoes off and get that dream footsie game started.  
   
Yes, I'm a dork. Get used to it, because the little things about Rory are starting to bunch up together like a bee colony and I'm starting to think she's giving me clues herself as to what she thinks about me.  
   
They started coming on strong during gym class last Wednesday. Because Rory and I aren't that wild about physical activity usually we slog through the class hoping for an ankle strain that would put each of us in the bleachers for an inordinate amount of time. We wear the school-issued physical education uniforms reluctantly and both puzzle how we can get a constitutional amendment banning compulsory gym class through if we ever get into politics.  
   
Last week we had our field hockey unit, which meant bumps and scratches as I chased some stupid ball around a muddy athletic field with a curved stick while preventing another person from taking the ball away and putting it in their own team's net. Rory and I were picked last for our respective teams, a well deserved honor since the only exercise she and I look forward to is putting a #2 pencil to a Scantron form. We became opposing forwards, and I thought that we'd just spend the next hour having a glorified jog around the athletic field, occasionally passing the ball and scrimmaging for possession before we passed it back.  
   
About ten minutes in though, I noticed that we were right in the middle of the action, and that Rory and I were suddenly putting the same passion into this game as we do a Latin exam. She was uncharacteristically athletic and kept asking for her team to pass her the ball so she could challenge me to a shot on goal. The adrenaline of competition kicked in, and I brought on my own passion of wanting to kick her ass. Our sticks started clashing together at every possession opportunity, and before we knew it, we had collided with each other quite a few times, ruining our personal records of not having to bring our gym clothes home to wash them, about three months each.  
   
The other players on my team started passing me the ball, and I had to think fast as that brunette hellfire came bashing against me in order to dislodge the ball. Suddenly I was in a very completive game in something I despised with the girl I like, and I was enjoying it!  
   
I felt the weight of mud on the bottom of my sneakers as the game went on and Rory kept trying to challenge me when the ball was passed over so I could take a shot. I didn't know what brought on this new flurry of competition, but I knew that I wanted more. I took shots on goal whenever I was called on to take one, and would pump my fist in the air and yelp happily whenever it got past the keeper. My heart thudded against my chest and I felt my whole body excite when I made a shot. Rory would look dejected, but then grit her teeth and growl, as if daring me to bring it on. Within about twenty minutes she had taken her hair out of a Lorelai-created braid that made her look cute when she left for school that day, but was plainly bothering as she played an aggressive game of field hockey, she looked so untamed and beautiful in such heated competition.  
   
It didn't seem like she was out for blood, but rather just wanted to have fun for once in gym class. She took her own shots and gloated when she made a goal, and I was forced to put the same dejected look on my face before telling her with my emotions to bring it on again. And we brought it on so much I thought the gym teacher was going to have ring a bell and tell us to go back to our corners!  
   
Rory would try to stop me no matter what it took whenever I had possession of the ball, be it tackling me and making my body tumble to the ground, or grab at my gym shorts or shirt and pushing me aside, trying to make it look like a legal trip. Whenever she would handle me roughly, I'd get this flash in my brain of her doing the same thing in a bed, and that made even more adrenaline flow down. I countered her fire with fire, and started playing more aggressively within the rules. I wasn't going to sit this game out in the penalty box, and Rory looked like she wanted to play the whole game too! I'm sure everyone could notice our sudden spurt of wanting to play, but I could've cared less that day. Also very noticeable was the fact that my bra was having a very hard time keeping my breasts flat and unnoticeable as they usually were. My nipples became erect as the game went on, and suddenly I felt very naked to Rory since I went with a tight gym shirt, not really caring when I bought it whether it would show off my goods or not.  
   
I couldn't believe the effect she was having on me, and as I noticed her own small and pert tits harden against her shirt, I became distracted. I realized then I had the ball and Rory was coming at me like a freight train wanting it all to herself. As I came to back into the real world I tried to evade her, but I was a little too late pulling my trigger. She crashed, hard into me, and I felt her skull bash right into mine and her starting to weigh down on me as we tumbled down to the soft, muddy turf below. My ass cushioned the fall, and as I came back to, time seemed to slow down.  
   
My eyes drifted up towards her face, and I wanted to ask what demon had gotten into her body to turn her from innocent to bitch on wheels. But I stayed quiet as my five senses made hay of the situation. Touch was going into overdrive from the fact her pelvis was right up against mine so close, and her arms were tangled across my front. Smell was gone to the world as her flowery deodorant had faded away and was replaced with this animalistic smell of sweat that made me clench my teeth together, trying to prevent myself from closing the distance between our mouths so unexpectedly. My ears could hear the pounding of my own heartbeat, sped up to an insane level, along with Rory's own mix of grunting and breathing, and the brushing of our sopping wet cotton gym clothes together.  
   
Taste...thankfully not blood from a dislodged tooth, but instead my gaping maw was open as a couple of drops of perspiration dropped down from her chin and into my mouth. Fuck, even her sweat tasted divine!  
   
It was sight that really got my attention though. Above me, the usually clean girl I respected for being a worthy competitor was still so beautiful; her crystalline blue eyes still clear despite the situation we were in. I seemed to bring my vision down from there and noticed the position we had crashed into each other in. Her left thigh was right against my groin, moving my gym shorts up just enough that I felt a sizable amount of cool wind between my shorts and underwear, and of course her leg. I could see just slightly down her t-shirt, which was coming apart at the seams from such a quick burst of strenuous activity. Pulling against the back of it when we scrimmaged seemed to have made the front droop down, and I could see what lay beneath it quite clearly. Not much cleavage from the side view, but now I could confirm that she wore a light blue sports bra during gym class. I felt like such a pervert gazing at her this way, and didn't know what to say as the moment ended and time sped back up to regular, she was getting back up and offering her hand to me.  
   
"Uh, sorry Paris," she said, nervously. "I guess I got a little too into the action there." She helped me back up, and I was too startled to call her on the sudden burst of energy she had that day.  
   
"It's OK Rory, really. You're pretty good at this game." I smiled and rose to my feet, wondering if we'd knock into each other again.  
   
"You're not too bad yourself Gellar," she told me back, and we went back to being stoic and silent for the rest of it. We calmed down a little from there and finished the game relatively action-free, letting the other students have shots at the goal.  
   
By the time it had ended with her team inching out a 9-8 victory, my gym socks were a deep dark brown, my face was caked in a mix of perspiration and dirt, and I was so dirty from all that physical activity that I was sure to get a scolding from Francisca when I got home that day. I also could see there was a little spot of blood settling on one of the shoulders of my shirt, I was pretty scratched up from the whole thing. The shower couldn't be avoided today, and Rory was going to be in it with me.  
   
As the teacher congratulated me and Rory on finally participating in such a heated way, I looked over to her and shook her hand. I never thought I'd swoon from such a simple expression of sportsmanship, but she was definitely trying to prove to me she could be competitive and I had to catch up to her. And it's completely true too. I might be the one with the monster crush on her, but she held all the cards. If she didn't like me it wasn't ever going to happen, but if I kept up with her, there was at least a slight shot of hope.  
   
I went back into the locker room and took off my gym clothes in the stall I usually change in, noting that even my lingerie had suffered from the effects of such strenuous activity. I never had bothered with a sports bra before, and after that game it was clear that I needed one since the underwire from one of the cups had torn out of the seam and was digging wicked hard into the bottom of my breast, a $35 bra at that. And yes, my mother is insane for trying to compress my chest into something flatter than an airport runway, so I certainly didn't mind going without the rest of the day. I took it off and threw it into my messenger bag, got out of my underwear and dreaded the shower ahead. I left the safety of my little stall wearing just a towel and carrying a bottle of combined shampoo/body wash I bought at the tanning salon (the school stuff is just dreadful on my hair and itchy), and was glad to see that almost all the girls had finished their showers already. Maybe that meant Rory was already on her way to class...  
   
I put my towel on the rack outside the shower room and navigated the maze of stalls until I came upon one where I thought I'd get relative privacy, and started washing up. I turned the hot spray on heavy and put all the thoughts of that field hockey game out of my head as I washed my hair and soaped up my upper torso, though glad Rory was aggressive that day, hoping that it was just an exception.  
   
I'm about to wash lower down, when suddenly I hear a familiar voice echoing behind me. I turn around, and the shower got a little more interesting.  
   
There's my girl Rory, standing stunned, nude and all muddied up as she discovers that I'm taking a shower with her. Her hair is a mess and I see a slight scratch running lengthwise along her ankles, probably from my hockey stick. I try to block out her nude state as best as I can as she greets me, but I can't help but be distracted by her form. She seemed a little nervous as she set her shampoo and soap down on the shelf in front of her stall, and her fingers seemed like they wanted to be playing with a non-existent sweater cuff, something that always clues me into her timid moods.  
   
"Hey Par," she says, very casually, but in a tone of voice where she tries to hide her distracted state. I note the fact my name has been cut down to one syllable very deliberately and listen to what she says next. "Got a little dirty there, eh?"  
   
"Well I certainly wasn't expecting it, what got into you today Gilmore?" I answer back, sort of bitterly but laughing all the same. Yes, dull conversation is proven to kill any sexual mood, and many girls share a shower stall everyday. I'm not looking down at her; I'm concentrating on her face. Honestly!  
   
"I don't know, I get this sudden urge sometimes to be athletic, and it seemed today was the day. It is mid-semester and I better show that I am somewhat athletic." Her nose wrinkles up and she sniffs herself. "Next time though I better put on some heavy-duty deodorant, I don't think this stuff works."  
   
I turn around and focus on the front nozzle of my shower as I resume trying to shower without distractions. "I think you mean next time warn me before you decide to turn into Chris Chellios, geeze you were rough today! I wonder why you never got on a sports team here, when you get that adrenaline pumping it pumps hard!"  
   
We get into a good conversation as the dirt from the day is cleaned off of each of us about athletics, and though we're usually ambivalent about them, she shares her love for football (Lorelai turned her onto the fact that Brett Farve is a pretty hot guy for someone who gets paid millions of dollars to throw a ball around for an hour), while I admit I have a soft spot for hockey, and it's more than just the guys, the strategy really does something for me. I think I'm still one of the few Harfordians who still follow the Hurricanes after they ended their run as the Hartford Whalers. We get into the pros and cons of each sport, and despite our state of nudeness, don't seem to really be flustered at all. Maybe that was a good sign.  
   
I couldn't help but start to feel blood start to flow down heavy towards the area below my abdomen though. It felt so odd to be sharing such a casual shower with the girl I liked and not have anything be so weird. Sure she seemed to be a little nervous around me, but I couldn't help but notice her sidelong glances towards my chest out of the corner of my right eye. The competition was still going on according to my nerves, and the steamy hot water hadn't helped to simmer down any part of my body that could be excited. I was feeling so aroused that my nipples seemed to peak, and as I ran the bar of soap against one of them, felt that it was hard and that any sudden touch would cause me to start moaning in pleasure right then and there.  
   
She was washing herself and distracted with her dirty arms, so I got a quick glance in to store in my fantasy memory banks. Rory is just a smidge taller than me; about four inches and I have to admire her slim classical Twiggy-ish figure. Her breasts aren't too large nor too small, and the tips of her nipples look so perfect, I can tell that field hockey game had the same effect on her body.  
   
OK fine, I was blatantly staring down below the face line I set for myself! And I thought I could get through this shower pretty much scot-free. She was hardly noticing however, at least from what I thought. Rory finished up, and I saw her turning around. I brought my focus back up to her face quickly and was hoping for the conversation to resume where it had left off.  
   
Instead, she threw me for a curve with a question that was out of character for her usually innocent guise, and right out of left field.  
   
"Paris," she asks in the damned puppy-dog voice she's perfected, "Do you think I'm too flat?"  
   
The only thing I'm thinking after that? _Oh Dear God, is she trying to kill me?!_ I didn't expect her to ask me (or anyone else) that in a million years, and though our friendship is getting to the point she and her hometown friend Lane are at, I have no idea what to tell her in an appropriate way! If I wasn't shy I sure would've given her a little show and tell about what I really thought about her chest, but that didn't seem to be the best idea. Unlike the gym teachers from those bad 70s high school movies where unsupervised girl's locker room scenes were the norm, the gym teachers keep a close eye on showers here. They don't have cameras up or watch us in the act, but if we take too long, the teachers wouldn't hesitate to shut off the water and dampen any ideas I would've had in mind for Rory. We were already pushing four minutes with the end of class bell ringing in one more, and usually it takes me just five to get a quick enough spritz of water to be considered a shower, change into my uniform and start preparing for the next class.  
   
All I knew was that I was turning towards her and she was looking like she really wanted to know the answer. I psyche myself up and think, _maybe she wants to know if Dean has enough of a handful before they do it_.  
   
 _Yeah right,_ my conscious answers back. _Knowing Caveman he probably goes right for dessert and avoids the main course and appetizers._ I snort out a laugh at my internal comeback and suddenly Rory covers herself up from me.  
   
"I thought I didn't have enough, sorry to have--" she starts cutting herself down, frowning before I interrupt her suddenly, just going off on a tangent.  
   
"No, no, no, I was laughing because of how absurd the question was!" I didn't even have to look at her because I've seen her naked many times in the shower at school, but never like this before. It seemed like such a blatant question, but she had to have her body image propped up again. "Honestly Gilmore, you're fine, right in the middle, you have enough there to make anyone jealous."  
   
"But you have a lot more than me," she whined, pointing right at my breasts. I looked down at myself mortified, and felt like I had to end the conversation before it became a lot more personal than it had already. Her eyes seemed to be transfixed on my chest, and though in another world entirely where she knew how I felt it would've turned me on, now it just seemed to dampen every sexual feeling I was having. She wasn't being shy about telling me I had more than her, and it made my firm up like a deer in the headlights.  
   
I wanted to answer her, but I couldn't. I blanked out, and she shook my shoulder, trying to get me to answer her coherently. Instead I was mortified, and not knowing her intentions, I had to get out of there before all my secrets would crumble.  
   
So I evaded the loaded statement. "Umm...uh-huh, that's genetics," I told her nervously, my face brought down in shame. "I have to go, I'll see you at the _Franklin_ later." I cut out of the shower as fast as I could, changed back into my uniform and fled the locker room before Rory could catch up with me, red as a kickball. Of course she turned the breast question on me, how couldn't I have expected that?  
   
After the whole shower incident we seemed to become silent friends again. That afternoon at the _Franklin_ was pretty much the status quo, and when everyone was out of the room except for me, Rory and Ms. Peters, we didn't even broach it, focusing on the last touches for the week's edition before we went to press. Rory tried to bring up the topic on the way home, but I distracted her by claiming a good song was on the radio and turned it up.  
   
Unfortunately it was _All-Star_ by Smash Mouth, the soundtrack to every 'hip' television ad since 1999. Note to self, deport that band whenever I become president.

So for the next few days I avoided her once again, and told her I was too tired to make the drive to Stars Hollow after our government and paper work ended, so she took the bus home. Friday evening though, ended with a loud argument in the student conference room where we shouted at each other until our throats were raw about how we closed up on each other when we strayed out of our comfort zones. At the climax of the argument, she called me a 'prude' for not going further into my answer in the shower. Angered, I shot back with something I regretted the moment I said it.  
   
"I might be a prude, but at least I don't have a chastity electric fence around my person preventing my fucking boyfriend from doing any more than heavy petting, Mary Stone!!"  
   
Rory got this wounded look on her face like she was punched in the gut, and before I could catch up and apologize to her for using a prim 1950's sitcom character as a slur against her virginity, she had slammed the door in my face and stomped out to the bus stop just in time for the 5:50 to pull in the front circular drive. I refused to chase after her, but immediately left a message on her cell saying sorry for my behavior. No matter, she had shut me out for the next day and a half. Lorelai would pick up the phone and I'd ask to speak with Rory, but she was 'busy' whenever I called.  
   
I spent all of Saturday then with a pool of acid down in my stomach, studying to no avail. This time I had said the wrong thing, I knew how Rory felt about her virginity, it was an iffy subject with her. She never said anything about it to me or anyone else because she was under the impression from her own mother that doing anything before she graduated college would be indicated as being a failure in her family. By pushing it though, I'd just put a further gulf between feelings that were starting to become known during that gym class.  
   
I got out the bottle of wine from the bottom drawer of the desk, still fermenting in its 48 year prison, waiting for me to release its unique bouquet and pour it into the two flutes. It was starting to feel like the Tristan situation all over again, and I didn't know if I could rebuild a truce with her again.  
   
There was no choice in the matter. I could sit there and have Rory ignore me for the rest of our time at Chilton, or I could go to Stars Hollow and settle things down. Despite the clock on the computer reading four in the morning on a Sunday morning, I had to take care of what I wrought. So I jumped in the car and took the Cross Parkway down to the Hollow, arriving at Rory's house just after 4:30. I made my way onto the porch and knocked on her bedroom window off to the side of the house, my face looking worse for the wear from all the fretting I did after I made the Mary Stone crack.  
   
Of course she was pissed when I woke her up. And she had every reason in the world to slam the window right down on my fingers after my cruel treatment of her. But after her tired "What the hell do you want Gellar, you made it pretty clear I wasn't a sexual being yesterday!", I jumped right in and ad-libbed everything I had to say.  
   
"Can I come in, please?" I asked with my eyes wide and pleading, and though leery, she opened the window all the way so I could crawl in and take a seat at her desk. She held her Colonel Clucker by its made-of tag, and was barely awake when she asked me why I'd say such things.  
   
"Rory, you know how I think, right? You get too close to me and I have to shut down emotionally and act like a robot without feelings."  
   
She nodded, and I went on.  
   
"In the days pre-Tristan leaving for NC, there wasn't ever any effort on my part to see your side of the story Gilmore, I would've taken the assumption express until my argument ran out of steam and off the broken bridge into the gulch. But now, you're one of my closest friends, and I shut you down cold on Wednesday in that shower stall, leading to this domino effect which left you pissed off and angry at me. I'm done playing those games with you, and all yesterday all I could think was," I started sniffling, "I fucked up things, Florida-election style. I told you that you were playing with the emotions of boys and never intending to do anything with them without any proof to back it up, when you just have these strict morals and rules for getting to you more closely than Lane. And for the first time since I knew you, I scolded myself. I went way too far out of my way trying to avoid your question, and almost ended up squelching one of the most important friendships I've ever had."  
   
With that, I went into detail about how I felt about my body image, Rory seeming to calm down with every one of my sentences. "The reason I didn't answer was that my mother has convinced me that I'm...too big. I eat too much despite my diet, and she hates the fact I have actual natural breasts that are bigger than hers, and made me feel so guilty about it since I had this huge puberty spurt over the summer of '97. Numerous times she's suggested I eat even less than I do, and even reduction surgery, which thank God no doctor in the Northeast will even consider giving her a quote for until I turn eighteen and can make my own medical decisions, and she tries to shape me in her image rather than that of her and my father's, because I received most of the genes for my figure from his side. I still eat heartily thanks to Fran's kindness and the fact she's being paid by my very supportive father, and not my stifling mother. And despite how I go to these insane measures to hide it, I love my chest, and I don't want to change anything about it."  
   
She beckoned me to sit on her bed, and she held my hand as I finished admitting I was ashamed of my body. "I don't want to be Louise, all bone and no skin Rory. I actually respect you for never sticking to a diet, eating what you want in healthy portions and having a metabolism that lets you burn it all off right away. But my mother has fucked over my brain when it comes to my body image, and it does take me a long time to take a compliment to heart, which I assumed you were doing."  
   
"Yes it was," Rory said softly, smiling. "Paris, you're very blessed and you should stop hiding everything."  
   
"I know I should, but my mother is stuck on this scary Bela Karoli-ish plan that I can't stray from at all, except its all academic. Even my dates are matched up by IQ and grade point average, not actual looks or traits, which mean I get a lot of duds or guys desperate to be my first. The only reason they even take an interest in me is because I have a D chest, they've never cared what's on the inside, so I figure if I keep myself off the market, I don't have a problem."  
   
Thankfully she understood after I explained everything to her, and after promising her with a pinky swear that the V material was off my repertoire of humor forever, she finally let me back in. I explained a few more things, like how I was closer to Fran and Daddy more than I ever would be with my mother, and that I never meant to let a little question like that become such a fiery argument.  
   
"Paris, I knew you regretted it from the moment you uttered those words, that it was heat of the moment," she said as we both lay down on the bed looking up at the ceiling. "But I'm never sure with you so I wanted to make sure you were sincere about being sorry about it. I did get mad at first through Friday night, but by the time I woke up in the morning yesterday, I was over it."  
   
She then turned towards me, and hesitated. "I'm sorry I shut you out Par. And I'm sorry everything ended up blown out of proportion in the conference room." She took my left hand into her right and intertwined our fingers together in a strong bond. "But having some time to think things over made me realize that you are quickly becoming my most important friend in life, maybe even my best soon enough. And I'm done losing you over petty little boy trouble or miscommunication for so long. So I want you to promise me that from now on, if anything bugs you pertaining to me, or you have to admit to something like about your mother, you'll come to me. I assure you of the same honesty in return, no matter what ends up happening. We're in these things together, and it's a two-way street." She went on to explain that she felt a closer bond to me than with any girl she had met since she started attending school (she and Lane were playmates way before she turned three), and she had found in me a solid soulmate when it came to our dreams and wishes for later in life.  
   
It just went like that for the next hour or so. We talked idly about school, homework and our lives in general, the topic of our body images fading away in such close and intimate conversation. Even though her bed was far from the queen-sized cloud in my bedroom, just having such wonderful company was making me so sleepy and I didn't want to drive back home. Eventually, we fell asleep together in her bed about six, and I didn't have any jarring or odd dreams about her at all. It was a tight fit, but somehow we went four hours without one of us falling onto the floor, nor were either of us cover hogs.  
   
That was how Lorelai found us at 10 am when she went to wake Rory up to go do her Sunday work at the Inn. She turned on the light and was a little freaked at the sight of another person in her daughter's bed.  
   
Once I turned around to acknowledge her surprised voice though, Ms. Gilmore seemed to be relieved it was just me. I explained that I really had an urge to patch things up with Rory, and yes she did make fun of me for 'sleeping' with her daughter, joking that I was a harlot. Blushing, I got out of the bed (wearing a dark red Harvard t-shirt and black sweatpants I just threw on before I left the Manor), and let Rory and Lorelai get into their morning routine, due to the fact I didn't have a change of clothes in the car so I could join them. I said goodbye and prepared for the trip back to Hartford, and expected to be reamed out by my mother for leaving the house in the middle of the night.  
   
Actually I was able to get back in undetected. I guess her newest affair is a Sunday brunch kind of thing, so she never even knew I had snuck out of the Manor as she was too busy 'entertaining' her newest 'client' at Mohegan Sun Saturday evening, and I completely forgot about it. Fran didn't even know either because she was at her Hartford apartment for an off night before church in the morning. I was starting to think that luck was really getting on my side if I was able to leave my house undetected to 'sleep' with Rory.  
   
I'm a harlot according to Lorelai. For some reason the image of me slowly seducing Rory just seems more comical than sexy, our first time would probably be as awkward as could be. I'd probably twist her nipple a little too hard and I'd end up with a strained jaw from figuring out where my tongue should go. I do keep those images in mind as much as possible, the things that could go wrong if I admitted and Rory went for it, and keep those embarrassing outcomes far, far away from my fantasies.  
   
As for this week, the last few days, they've been interesting. Madeline and Louise are looking for dates for their Halloween parties, so they've left us two alone to eat in the dining hall. We've been somewhat quiet, though I have to note that Rory started to take Louise's seat next to me, and was shifting a little closer than my bottle blonde confidant ever had been. Must be her slimmer figure, she doesn't need as much room to sit down; though I have been noticing she's been kind of brushing up against my arm several times.  
   
Rory and I have already decided not to do anything on Halloween that involves a costume, but she's heading up to Boston to see her father, thus I'll be spending October 31st alone. I certainly don't mind, because Madeline gave us this insane costume idea where we'd go together to the party, and I would've been Roxie Hart, Rory would dress as Velma. Mr. Gilmore and the Bitch win out every time though, so I'll be left to dream about my girl in a 20's flapper dress instead of actually seeing her in it.  
   
That stupid control freak dick-sucking and over-planning hussy! Sherrie's like a younger more perkier version of my mother, and I can never see getting along with her because of things like that!  
   
It really doesn't matter though. I'm starting to feel like I'm going insane, because I think Rory's giving off vibes I can't ignore. The ditching of the hosiery, the gym class, the intimate contact we've started to have more than ever before. Tuesday on the ride home she stretched her arms out behind the seat, and one of her hands ended up brushing against my shoulder for a split moment and her hand seemed to linger against it as I drove, she almost veered me off and onto the shoulder.  
   
Though it could be just the fact I've decided to ditch the jacket when I dress for school. I've been wearing the blue sweater instead over my blouse, and feeling a lot more comfortable in my own skin since she reassured me that I have something she's jealous of. I've seen her eyes wander down towards my bust as we sit next to each other in life sciences, but I don't know her ulterior motives. All I know is that unconsciously I'm returning the stare and glancing away from my notes and down towards her legs, and there were a couple of times where my teacher thought I was falling asleep and told me to pay attention.  
   
Which is where it definitely isn't in this Russian novels class. Rory's sitting behind me, and I can feel her presence as her fingers brush up against the back of my sweater as she takes some of the most pathetic notes possible, enough to get that A without much effort to get her merit award. I swear it's accidental, but then why do I have this wonderful and serene feeling running up my scalp? She must somehow be sensing my stress level, and trying to calm me down by playing with my hair since it worked so well before the date in DC.  
   
Thankfully far, far away from actually having to read this shit aloud to the class and the teacher's eyes off the 'scholar row' (the middle three seats in the first three rows), I scribble off a quick note to Rory, tear it out of my notebook and pass it back slyly.  
   
 _Ror,_  
   
I'd blow Boris Yeltsin before I ever read any of these crappy books voluntarily again. Thanks for noticing I hate this class.

Par  
   
I unsnap the sharpened lead of my pencil off on the paper so she can use her strategy of using a Dixon to wrap her response around one as she passes me a new utensil. I unroll the note and laugh internally at what she says.  
   
 _Par,_  
   
I'll join you and we can get plastered on vodka from the Inn before we come in tomorrow, anything would make this class more interesting!  
   
Ror  
   
P.S. I hate it too, and it's my pleasure to make you feel better.  
   
My heart skips a beat as I read her postscript and wonder if she is purposely trying to cause me to be aroused. All I know is whatever her intent on relaxing me is, my shoulders are relaxed further back into the desk chair, the other 30 students are too zombied out to notice anything but Mr. Mercurio drone on about some obscure czarist proclamation from the 1760's, and Rory's fingers are massaging my scalp and neck in the oddest way, causing my arms to goosebump.  
   
I hope I don't fall asleep during this class, but it seems more and more like I want to. There's just nothing more I want to do right now than slide my skirt up just a smidge, close my legs, move the crotch of my panties off to the side and use the friction between my legs to have a nice touchless masturbation session with no one, not even Rory the wiser. To them it would just look like I was shaking my leg to and fro as Rory's pleasurable touch was redirected down below towards my core, and she brought me to an unknowing orgasm that would make me flush for the rest of the day...  
   
Uh, darn, I better not. Seems the teacher just decided I was a little too drowsy and called on me to read another lousy passage from _War and Peace_ , about six pages worth. I find where we are and start reading it with about as much enthusiasm as reading a teen magazine, wishing instead I was reading love sonnets to Rory as we cuddled together in bed.  
   
Oh well, it's all good. She's still playing with my hair unconsciously and I feel a little better about the forced drudgery with her delicious fingers against the back my neck as I read. Now all I need to figure out is how I can get Rory behind me in every class she takes with me...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued…_**   



	4. The Pros and Cons of Romancing Paris Gellar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory's thoughts on Paris become even clearer in the same class, along with a plan that you wouldn't expect an innocent girl like her to ever brainstorm.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Four | The Pros and Cons of Romancing Paris Gellar  
Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Rory POV  
 **Inspired by:** From past subtext from the last half of season two and the first half of season three with many spoilers from those episodes. This chapter of the series however is all from my own ideas, we will get back into the show in the near future. There's also a little plot device taken from _A Tale of Poes and Fire_.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, naughty femslash thoughts, implied self-pleasuring)  
 **Disclaimer:** Can I claim ownership over the characters of _Gilmore Girls_ with the season one DVD set I bought at Wal-Mart this morning? Anybody? Is there a lawyer in the house? Never mind, here comes the folks at Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television to give me a finger-waving lecture on the fact that they own the show and the ideas and I can't claim them, and they have a bad 70's educational film about intellectual property rights rolling starring Telly Savalas from _Kojak_ (pout)! Can I at least ask the WB to create one of those huge PDF document posters like they have for Sophia Bush and Lauren with the 417 kiss in full color oversized detail? I promise I'll never bug you Hollywood types again!  
 **Summary:** Rory's thoughts on Paris become even clearer in the same class, along with a plan that you wouldn't expect an innocent girl like her to ever brainstorm.  
 **Archiving** : GilmoreGirlsSlash, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** It's certainly not easy posting a GG slash story and asking everyone to read it, but I've been heartened at the feedback I've been getting back from everybody about how they like my viewpoint of Rory and Paris romance. I'll admit I like PWP or frenzied attraction like the next average guy, but I've always been one for the slow tease, which is how I love to write, so to those who read this and somehow held back from asking me to have them jump each other crazy in this chapter, thank you and you'll be rewarded after this and the next double chapters, that's where things start to take the romantic turn.  
   
Thanks to Raven for betaing, everything you've said about the story is appreciated beyond words, you make this story what it is with your corrections. And Cinnamon my other beta, who got me out of a minor rut with her newest chapter of _Thoughts_ , which you should read even if you're not a Trory shipper just for the simple fact that Rory acts like a big tease and partakes of the pleasures of her own flesh to the fullest.  
   
And if you're on ff.net, read the previous three chapters, and are just now realizing 'Uh, that ain't Tristan those two girls are thinking about?' and you don't like femslash, this is the fifth warning to hit the left-pointing arrow marked back on your browser toolbar, the X button or stoplight in the right-hand corner, and surf another story.  
   
Finally, feedback, **any** feedback about this story is strongly appreciated, multiple words in a review are welcomed with hugs and smiles :D! See, there's one now! Go read now before you seal off my mouth with electrical tape to shut me up...  


* * *

There are those who are in the love 'industry' that will tell you that an attraction can start at the oddest and most inopportune time possible. The romance novelists, writers for soap operas and romantic comedies and those analysts running those dating sites on the internet seem to live on this theory and try to convince everyone who buys their ideal that Cupid is always hovering over you and that significant other, ready to release the arrow at anytime and start the gears of attraction into motion faster than Jessie Spano's Vivarin overdose on _Saved by the Bell_.  
   
Let's just say I don't really believe that. In my own opinion, Cupid stuck his arrow into me two years ago, but instead of being fast acting, the effects of it have been slow to take root, like a cancer or Alzheimer's disease.  
   
Okay, eww, fine, that's a bad example, but apply that analogy to a more positive situation and you'll see what it means when it comes to my attraction to Paris.  
   
It seemed innocent and such a throwaway line two years ago that fateful Parent's Day when I found out that my mother was having more than parent-teacher conferences with my Lit 201 teacher, Max Medina. Paris had found out as she passed by that they making out in his classroom, and her attitude then being sour towards me, spread the gossip like wildfire across the school, I never saw it coming. After I found out she had poured the kerosene on the rumor, I had nothing but hate for her. I wanted her to feel as if she was the weak one in our little rivalry, and I was actually prepared to use fists to achieve it.  
   
I had thankfully calmed down by the time I decided to make a truce with her. I approached her eating her lunch with Madeline and Louise after she made some offhand comments about Mrs. Gellar sleeping with a teacher, and told her we needed to talk. The other two girls seemed to draw their claws out before she called them off, and it was just Paris and I.  
   
Everything else about that meeting is just a blur besides the fact I gave her an opening that if she ever needed an ear to listen to her problems, she had it in me. She was kind of off-hand about it, but I knew she would come around eventually, thus the state of our friendship today.  
   
But the little joke she made before I took her to task for spreading the gossip about Lorelai and Max caused me to become disturbed for a moment and brought me off my train of thought.  
           
"You're not going to kiss me are you?" she asked, with a wide smile spread across her face. If it wasn't for the fact my mother was becoming a sexual being for the first time in years with someone who could play with my grades, I probably would've brushed it off, which I did on the outside, and went on to call her on her crap.  
   
Before I did, there was this weird flash in my mind of dropping my book bag to the ground, taking her by the hand and into my arms, and just planting a nice big smacker right on her lips. My shy reserved little self was pretty shocked by what my mind had just come up with, and I was strangely not repulsed by the image planted within. I had remembered a month before at the Formal her own reaction to me accidentally finding out that her date was her cousin, and her anger at me finding out about that fact. Her forehead was completely scrunched and she had bent down right to my face level to go off on this odd tangent that I was going to ruin her because of the small information that Jacob was her cousin, when really I felt so much empathy for her because I had hoped Tristan would've bought a clue, along with a ticket to the dance for a girl so smitten with him instead of that vapid Cissy.  
   
I hadn't ever really looked at her before then as another girl, just as a classmate. But she had on this Kermit-green formal gown which went down to her ankles, yet on top was cut so that a lot of skin was exposed in her front. She just had so much cleavage showing on that dress, and I took in everything in front of me and wondered why she would ever be stuck with taking a relative to the dance. Paris looked very cute, and as I remembered her anger at me for finding out about her odd dating arrangement, I realized something I wouldn't have expected to ever happen to me; I was having thoughts about her like I had Dean! I also had offered her an opening in my heart, no strings attached.  
   
So I did what I do best when I feel like I have a problem; denial. I put a wide gulf between that weird 'Paris is cute' feeling and those I did have with Dean. With Tristan involved with my love life back then he became the backup defending Paris from sliding into home position. Even when Dean let me go after I couldn't say those three words, I obscured that in a wild move of abandon by trying to bury it in a honey-do list for myself and Madeline's party, where kissing Tristan seemed like the best way to end that conflict. Unfortunately, my love for Dean came back with a string of tears, and along with it a feeling of betrayal against Paris. I had promised myself I wouldn't touch Tristan, and just like that I felt if she found out we'd never have a friendship.  
   
The Bangles concert came through my synapses as his lips touched mine, and Paris' declaration as her friends abandoned us for some party that _Eternal Flame_ was her favorite song. In the context that it was in, seeing it third person, it didn't look like anything abnormal. But the timing of her words, along with the smile she gave me and the eerie green sheen coming from the spotlights creating interesting shadows on her face, to me, it seemed like something out of a romantic movie. Dean was nowhere around, my mother was far away in the back edges of the balcony with her best friend, squinting to see what seemed to barely look like Susannah Hoffs, and there Paris and I stood, her friends gone, making such a cute declaration.  
   
At the time, I put on a face of indifference and sighed, knowing she was just over-stimulated from being taken from her comfort zone of studying and into the own little happy world Mom and I inhabited. Then when she said this was the best night of her life, in addition to seeing her friends eviscerated by Lorelai, I continued to attribute it to her abandoning her competitive drive temporarily and wanting to finally start a friendship.  
   
Of course you know the see-saw that happened after all that, with me hooking her up with Tristan and then her misconstruction of the PJ Harvey tickets. I then spent most of the summer after Dean had successfully reacquired my love in the courtyard with Tristan watching basking in nothing but heterosexual feelings for Dean. Paris didn't even enter my conscious as we built the house together, and we kept up our childish fighting.  
   
Around the time of the Shakespeare project though, there were signs that the innocent little joke she made in the heat of an argument was actually begging to be answered realistically. Tristan had pulled all his crap, and she started finally rubbing the Vaseline from her eyes and seeing him for the jerk he was. She was distracted, and the flame she had for him was snuffed out, so she put 130% into the project. Which meant she projected a lot of anger towards Tristan, and I got a little more of a taste of her passionate side.  
   
Her life **became** the last scene of _Romeo & Juliet_. She'd call in every script revision she made, every little change in scenery, and then the fact we were going to rehearse on my home turf. Little did I know that the whole situation would make me see the light when it came to men.  
   
That when two men who have the hots for me got into the same room, they become total assholes. Paris and I seemed to be the only one with our hearts in the project at all, while Tristan was using the situation as a big transparent excuse to get into my corset in front of Dean. I thought my boyfriend would be the mature one, but instead he acted like an overprotective jerk. Until that moment, Dean seemed to be the one with the most pull on my soul.  
   
Then I kept finding myself looking for help in Paris' eyes. Her commanding demeanor and push for me to be Juliet no matter what seemed to affect my performance a hell of a lot more than Tristan could ever cause. Dean certainly wasn't helping his case by acting like my personal bodyguard. I actually thought 'fuck you Dean' so many times during that whole thing I didn't want to touch him, much less look at him.  
   
I thank God every day now that Tristan robbed that safe and got sent down to North Carolina. Without his stupidity I would've been buried in some soap opera-ish love triangle thing, and with that, I didn't have to face those artificial 'feelings' that flared up after the piano kiss. With him leaving, Paris was free to come in like a bat out of hell and get my focus off the devastation of losing a familiar teasing face. She put on the Romeo wig and told me to get ready to reenact like I never had before, and in her own joking way, suck on an Altoid. She didn't kiss me and faked that last move during the 'thus with a kiss I die' spiel, but it seemed more in fear that Dean wouldn't take it too well than in revulsion. I think that because her head seemed to lie on my chest just a little longer than usual, and I swore she smelled me. No matter, her adrenaline was probably piqued from actually getting to earn our grade, and just was breathing a sigh of relief.  
   
I just would've loved to tell Dean when he asked in the diner if we did rehearse the kiss "Of course Dean, and let me show you the big ol' hickey she planted on my left tit before she slid three fingers between my folds and screwed me 'till the cows came home, we did way more than kissing backstage." Too bad I wasn't thinking of her that way when he asked, the reaction would've been fun.  
   
I've had so much time to recall those little things Paris and I have shared over the last two years as I sit in a class that I'm only taking for the shiny gold seal under 'English and Literature Merit' I get on my diploma, Russian Novelists and Their Works 401. When you're in a class that even Paris hates (and trust me, she loves every class), that's not a good sign. I've had to read some of the dullest crap ever to come out of a pen and printing press, when the evaluation comes up after the final exam where I have to write down what I thought about this class, I'll be creating my own long-winded and boring novel describing how draining Mr. Mercurio and his love for Russian literature has been on my will to learn. This is the only class I half-ass, reading the Cliff Notes and doing whatever it takes to get an A without actually putting an effort into the class at all.  
   
I have to admit however, it's helped me on one front. Whenever I don't have to read yet another dull Tolstoy plot point that has nothing to do with either war or peace, I've been adding on entries to something I keep hidden from everybody and deep in my backpack, and since Mr. Mecurio never goes past his own desk, I'm free to write whatever I want in a project I've been working on for the last two weeks. I like to call it 'Pro and Con; Romance with Paris Gellar'.  
   
I started doing it on a whim one night when I was bored and all my homework was done, and my mother was working at the Inn. I turned to the back of my notebook, drew a line in the middle of the page, and wrote pro and con in big bold letters on the top line of the sheet. I also made up a sheet for Dean, in the case that Paris' cons outweighed her pros, thinking that because I loved him I'd have filled up the left side with reasons to keep him and knew for sure my little lesbian crush was just a phase.

Dean, I'm sorry, I stopped your list a few days ago when the pros were soundly defeated by cons 35-12, and even more sadly, in a college-ruled notebook. Yes, the things that attracted me to him at first were right in the pros, like the fact I loved him, he's a good kisser and he built a car for me, the obvious things. But those were taken out of commission by the cons that he dumped me for awhile because I didn't feel the same, his kisses no longer turn my knees to jelly, and his car is back in the junkyard, proven unsafe by Grandpa and fated to become a scrap metal cube when a little squirrel ruined things between me and Jess for awhile, and Dean's attention to safety was lacking since I had my arm in a sling for most of spring. Also not helping his cause was a big con that he distrusted me around anything else with a penis, he'd probably beat Brad to a pulp if he told me my hair looked cute in a ponytail!  
   
With that list finished, I was free to concentrate on the girl who gave me a summer to remember. I honestly tried to drive everything she did into the cons column, scraping my mind for anything. But I only have about five items under the cons list right now, even those are little things.  
   
 **·She doesn't like Luke and thinks he runs a brothel.  
**    
Paris was trying to get the Oppenheimer and hoping for a bite that there was a dark side to my town, so Luke became the victim of her drive. Once I can get her to know him though, I'm sure he'll relent. She does like Jess as a friend, helping her cause plenty with Luke. I'll also clue her into his long time crush on Lorelai and reveal him as far from depending on revenue from prostitutes, everyone in town already knows about their mating dance.  
   
 **·Paris abhors my diet and keeps trying to make me eat healthy**.  
   
Once she gets a good taste of Luke's cooking and I can pull away from her health freak of a mother, she'll take it up. Though it's cute that she likes tofu and drinks soy milk.  
   
 **·Stars Hollow is too stifling and all the people are too wacky for her liking, she thinks most of them are hicks.  
**    
I could make the same argument that she doesn't know one person on the cul-de-sac she resides on, and some of the high society matrons of Hartford are way too doped up on Paxil to be considered sane. At least Kirk is good for the occasional juvenile laugh, and Taylor's an interesting enigma.  
   
 **·She talks in her sleep, keeping me up at night.  
**    
I live with Lorelai, who acts like a ten-year-old when she really wants something and wakes up to the sounds of either mooing or meowing. I already get woken by my mom at least twice a week for some little unimportant thing and am used to it. Paris just talks in her dreams, which I eventually tuned out in DC when it became clear she wasn't going to get herself off in one again. Plus, it's cute and something I'd recall as such when I'm old and in a rocking chair. If I can't get to sleep, I have two choices, NyQuil or getting myself off so I eventually pass out, it isn't as if she's a loud snorer.  
   
 **·Paris would break my heart when she found someone else, or might disassociate from me if I admit I like her.  
**    
Not such a little point there, but it's definitely possible; I can't talk myself out of this con. I only have small clues to guide me towards what she feels for me, so she might not be lesbianic, not even bisexual. If she did feel the same for me, I might just be a gateway towards someone cuter, a Gina Gershon or Sheryl Crow-type woman later on, I don't know. But if I'm just her schoolgirl crush, at the very least I have to take a risk and hope it can last longer than these last few months at Chilton. I don't want to keep this silent, marry a guy I'm not in love with, and see her at the altar with the man or woman she used to dissolve her crush on me if she held one herself, and have to think 'what might have happened if I had told you I liked you Paris?'.  
   
So yeah, that's all of the five reasons, all lonely on the right side of my notebook. Over to the left however, I've pro'ed so many things that on the surface might seem like cons, but upon further reflection I've erased and put on the the other side. For example;  
   
 **·She owns medieval hardware and isn't afraid to use it.  
**    
To any boy who might have found this fact out, they might think Paris is some kind of whacked Xena nut and flee from her screaming bloody murder. When she brought out her sword as a prop for the project it freaked the living daylights out of me at the time. But when I thought about it in conjunction with my crush, I kind of found it arousing. If her family has passed down weapons to her, it has to mean she has enough interest in them to train on how to use them, I've fenced her in class before and she was a very worthy competitor. I've imagined her sleeping with me, and a burglar decides to break in through the window, trying to start some trouble. She'll unsheathe some dagger she has under the bed, and with her training the guy'll be too scared to mess with her unless he has a fetish for flesh wounds.  
   
Oh, and I had a _Buffy_ ish fantasy about Paris slaying demons in a graveyard a few days after I came home, and woke up in a cold sweat due to what she did to my dream self to 'exhaust the energy'. For that alone, weapons usage goes on the pro list.  
   
 **·Our arguments would be passionate and arousing.**

 ****I'll talk more about that later. Moving on...  
   
 **·I'll see the world with her at my side.  
**    
I still plan on backpacking with Lorelai in Europe when I graduate, but unless Grandma springs for my own private jet, I won't be leaving the States very often after that. Paris however, I remember her trying to get me off Washington's beaten path and tour much more than the area around the Mall. We actually went into the city and Georgetown and she went into detail about things I didn't know about our nation's capital. She knows the hidden little things about cities, states and countries I would have never known if she hadn't turned me on to reading beyond the tourist brochures. Touring Fez would be the trip of a lifetime if she could come with me, and I'm sure she'd spoil me rotten giving me a vacation to remember.  
   
 **·Paris understands the way I think.  
**    
I have to dumb down things to Romper Room level when I talk to Dean about anything that doesn't involve a hemi or transmissions, and when I argue book talk with Jess I try to keep opinions from the real world out of the debate since Jess isn't heavily invested in current events or topics that bore him. With Paris, I can talk at her level and she'll never go 'huh?' at any of my responses, arguing right back in a smart, cultured and witty way. Discussions that would end up like Fox News pundit segments with the boys would be much more like an enlightened conversation with Bill Moyers if I and Paris were a couple.  
   
 **·Lorelai could become her second mother and be much more supportive than her real mom.  
**    
It's not all about me; though Lorelai would keel over once I exposed my secret, in time she'd relish the fact she could turn Paris from the automaton that Mrs. Gellar groomed her to be, into an actual girl with thoughts besides those that are academic. At first those two getting along all the time will be an iffy proposition, but I certainly never predicted that Paris would wind her way into my heart from her first impression two years ago. She currently talks above my mother's level, but I think she'd definitely take her in the complete package that comes with me, who wouldn't want to have Mom as a mother-in-law? She'd love it and finally have a shoulder to cry on that isn't paid for by her father; Francisca's been more of a mother figure than Sharon Gellar ever will be, and she's just Paris' nanny. I've heard her say nothing but positive things about her father so I'm not as scared of him as I am the woman who borne her; she even has a little humanity for her paternal side and calls him Daddy rather than the ever-unchanging and groaned out 'Mother' used to describe Mrs. Gellar.  
   
I've been building this list from scratch and continue listing at least one new pro about her daily. But I have to admit, I've been trying to come out of my shell and looking for new things I don't know about Paris to list. So I've started doing things to try to subtlety clue her in that maybe I do have an interest in her. A controlled experiment you could call it.  
   
I started out small with simple wardrobe changes that wouldn't startle Lorelai before I left for school. Instead of hosiery covering up my legs, I've been wearing short socks beneath my school shoes. Very few other students in the halls have noticed the change, and Louise hasn't started calling me a slut for losing them, but Paris seemed a little more distracted in the life sciences class I share a table with her in. My legs have accidentally brushed up against hers more times than when I was wearing the hosiery and I'm honestly sure that's far from a coincidence. With the issue of the hemlines approved by Headmaster C, I had Mom raise my own hem at least an inch and a half. It's enough to remain conservative, but just enough to expose a little more thigh.  
   
I've also become more hands on when it comes to the _Franklin_ and she's been giving up some of her editorial power to me and letting me get my hands a little dirty. That's meant I've been pounding the pavement and trying to get advertisers like banks who wouldn't even consider a high school newspaper to give us a try, the acquisition of the new printing press has certainly helped when it comes to circulars. We've also been cutting out any of the student writers who want to pander down to the base level by writing nothing but 'Administration, yay!' and 'Go Blue Demons!' stories. Paris has become much more impressed with my work ethic, and really appreciates what I've been doing to help with the _Franklin_ , even finally thanking me for the help on that damned curtain story that won us the Oppenheimer. That means that attribute is in the pro column again. I'm still embarrassed about that whole debacle to this day, how do you explain to some teenager you hardly know whining that he couldn't rent _Nude Bowling_ that I'm the one to blame for Stars Hollow Video being more chaste than certain places in Utah?  
   
So basically what it's come down to on finding more Paris pros is becoming an instigator to probe deeper into her. I didn't feel very comfortable in the new role I put myself into; I've always been more of the follower, especially where Dean has been involved. She's always been shy around boys however, more so than me despite Madeline and Louise giving her inappropriate sex hints whenever they can. There had to be a way outside of an academic setting to draw her out and find out how she would tick in a competitive environment.  
   
Then it came to me in gym class last week; I'd suck up my usual sour feelings for physical activity and try to prod her into competition. Usually I only get physical when it involves running for the bus when Mom put my pop tart in the toaster a little late and there was barely time for it to cool before I ate it. I totally sucked fulfilling my intramural competition requirements for the Blue Demon golf team a couple years ago, finishing last in the entire Charter Valley Conference out of eighty other golfers from ten schools my sophomore year.  
   
Still, I psyched myself up when I heard we were going to do a field hockey unit in class and were going to play a full head-on game in Wednesday's class. Monday, we learned the skills and strategy of the game, and Tuesday was when the class went over the rulebook. I got my regular coffee from Luke's those days, but dumped it down the sewage grate before I got on the bus (if Lorelai found out I'm sure she wept, but I had to sacrifice to the cause here!) and drank Powerade from the dining hall's vending machine before gym class in order to keep my energy strong. I researched some stretching exercises from the internet to keep myself limber in case my arm decided to refracture or I pulled a muscle in the match.  
   
The worst sacrifice of all; I drove myself to have seductive dreams for those three nights about Kirk, and his mom in the same room to kill my sex drive until Wednesday morning! That's right, I dreamt of the town bachelor's form of romance in order to gag any temptation to touch myself to the sounds of Paris' voice, and abstained from making out at all with Dean so the sexual energy that built up in those three days would instead flow up my stem to hit that part of my brain where adrenaline flowed from. I still thought of her in that tight gym t-shirt and those shorts, but this time instead of us staying relatively clean, I was going to get down and dirty with her, and she'd never be the wiser by the time she realized it. Competition is her fuel, and I hypothesized once she got the idea, we'd be at each other's throats in a different arena than usual for once.  
   
10:00am had finally come, and I thought myself up a little pep talk as I dressed in the locker room. If I did find something up with Paris, I was going to know right away. I was also convinced that we were going to get dirty that day, since the evening before the skies had opened up and left the field outside a little soft and muddy. _Perfect_ , I thought to myself as I stood next to Paris, awaiting the eventual whine from the team captains that they were stuck with the class geeks to pick last.  
   
This time however, they were going to get much more than our usual small efforts to the cause. I felt very nervous as I took my stick and ran with Paris to our forward position just a little far from the goal. Technically we should have most of the shots on goal, but the strategies of both the teams pushed us back towards the center line away from the shooting curve so that the others wouldn't have depend on our usually pathetic athletic skills to win.  
   
We went out to our positions, and Paris of course, looked immaculate. Her gym clothes, like mine hadn't been dirtied in at least a couple months, and her eyes were rolled as Ms. Paschke went over the rules and told the class she expected all of us to give 100% effort. There's just something about looking at the girl you have Sapphic feelings for and knowing in just a few minutes things between you and her were about to get a lot closer than before.  
   
I didn't let her onto my plans at first, lulling Par into a false sense of security. I'd occasionally get the ball passed to the zone I was assigned to with her and quickly see it off to one of my more aggressive teammates. She'd get the ball occasionally and do that same thing, and I'd challenge her very lamely. I was definitely filling my role well as Rory Gilmore, sports wallflower.  
   
Around seven minutes in though, her team had taken a two-goal lead from mine, and I found myself with the ball against my stick. Looking down at the sphere and using my head to compute the trajectory and the angle of the shot, I aimed and prayed that it would somehow make it past everyone and the keeper. I shut my eyes, and heard a yelp from one of my teammates as the ball crossed the goal line and made a little 'swoosh' sound as it hit the back of the net. I smiled and raised my fist, happy with the result as I heard the cheers from a couple of my teammates. 'Good shot Gilmore,' and the somewhat complimentary 'So nerds can play sports, nice attempt'. Yeah, some things about the plan, I wouldn't have minded tuning out.  
   
Paris gave me a surprised look as we got back into our starting position, and asked why I'd want to participate. I told her not to be so stubborn and to have some fun for once, and slowly she got into the game. Based on my good goal I started getting the ball more often from my team and instead of taking a shot right away, tried to goad Paris into defending for her own team. At first her strategy was lame, trying to knock at my stick or shimmying around me to try and catch a pass I'd make and avoid my reaction. Eventually I had to start trying to prod her vocally. I reminded her of past victories in exams and tests, along with that PSAT score that almost drove her into a mental institution because I didn't reveal it until two weeks after the fact. "Come on Gellar," I'd yell at her in my roughest voice as we scrimmaged, "You call that defense? Brad could play better than that!"  
   
After awhile, she started becoming a little more aggressive and I was finally able to see the results of my effort put into action. She started bringing out that energy she reserves for class and challenging me when she could for possession of the ball, our sticks clashing together at every opportunity. I felt the soles of the Cons I bought for gym class heavy with mud, and noted that though they look and work fine when you're far from athletic, purple Chuck Taylors really can't handle the stress of an aggressive field hockey game.  
   
But besides that, things were working out well. I was playing good defense, but Paris occasionally got a shot passed me and into the goal, giving me a taste of my own medicine with an utterance of "In your face Rory!". I was so out of my element and I'm sure she was too, but we both loved every moment of it. Something had been building in our protests against gym class for the last two years and we were starting to kind of...like it.  
   
Though to be honest, it was more about the physical contact between Paris and I that was spurring me on. When she got in position to take a pass, I tackled and brought her down to the ground, trying to stay legal within the rules. Then she did the same to me. One scrimmage she even grabbed at the back of my shirt and I could hear the seams tearing from stress as she gripped it for dear life preventing me from reaching my stick out to intercept the ball. That not only got me angered from her aggressive play, but it was turning me on! I felt my breasts tighten against my sports bra and my heartbeat speed even further than the adrenaline and exercise was already doing to it. Every little touch, grab, grope and shove from Paris' hands and body caused me to become disorientated as I tried to make hay of the situation the ball was in, and I couldn't take the fact that my plan was working out much better than I originally had expected!  
   
She had attempted to pull my hair a couple times in the heat of competition to bring me down to the turf, so I had to tear out the rubber band the braid was in and unfurl it before she could bring me down again. With that move though, Paris seemed to get this look on her face like she was an untamed animal. I was so aroused by the way she was playing the game I didn't even notice my teammates anymore; they were there just to pass the ball and start another session of untamed groping and collisions between Paris and I. I kept forgetting that phy ed was only a 75-minute class and kept losing track of time; Paris had also truly got into the game.  
   
Geeze, I was becoming so dirty! Everything on my person seemed to either turn brown or red; the red being blood shielded by my socks once Paris had taken a swipe at my ankles with her stick, I wasn't about to let the teacher know that though; she couldn't put me back on the sidelines if she tried. I heard yelling and cheering whenever Paris and I fought for the ball, and there was just something so hot about getting a chance to grab at her waist during a skirmish and not being yelled at for it. She wasn't objecting at all, things seemed to start working themselves out well.  
   
Just before the end though, is something that I can't stop but think about each time I go to bed at night. The score was all tied up and my team was starting to tire out, my body seeming to finally realize that I was being physically active instead of sedentary for once. All that energy saved up from dreaming of Kirk was dissipating and one of Paris' teammates had passed the ball hard towards her so she could attempt the go-ahead goal. Her face seemed to take on a look of shock for being trusted with such a tough proposition, and she was just barely aware herself. Her soaked shirt was tight against her frame and her eyes struggled to stay open, as I nagged myself for not telling her I intended for her to be so active.  
   
Still, something stirred up within as her stick touched the orange plastic sphere, and all I could think was I needed to not only save the game for my team, but find one last excuse to get aggressive with her before we left the field and resumed our pretty much solitary existences.  
   
I untangled myself from the grip of a guy keeping me back from the ball and ran for the other side of the field and towards her. She was pretty much open to make the shot, but when I grunted she turned around and I found my vision clashing with hers.  
   
I had an opening. She was looking down somewhere else (where I couldn't tell since my vision was a little blurred from a drop of perspiration in one of my eyes), and before her or I knew it, I had stretched my stick out and hooked it around her left leg. She stumbled around and regained her footing, keeping the ball in check.  
   
That didn't work, so as other teammates congregated around both of us in anticipation of the ball popping out, I rushed towards Paris and grabbed at her arms, causing her to yelp. I then found myself with very little footing since the rubber of my sneakers was totally caked with mud, and tried to steady myself by grabbing onto her other arm. I failed, and Paris and I tumbled to the soft turf of the athletic field together as the momentum of my crashing into her was far from over.  
   
I heard the sound of Paris' stick being dislodged from her hand, and the butt end rubbed up against the bottom of my stomach as we went down. All the other students saw the ball pop up from our small heap and down the field, and immediately raced to catch back up to it, our little predicament quickly forgotten in the heat of battle.  
   
My teeth maintained the growl from before, and the front of my skull hurt from bashing into Paris', but I was still somehow conscious. Paris' eyes darted back and forth, a good sign that she was fine, but I noticed that she was kind of stunned. Her mouth was opened and I felt a drip of sweat fall off my bottom lip and down into it between her teeth.  
   
But what I really noticed was the inopportune fact that her right knee was right between my legs, and was dug right into my crotch. That same fragrance she had when I watched her fuck herself in the dorm was in my nose, and I could swear she was clenching her legs around my thigh. Her eyes were transfixed to mine, and there was this little moment where I felt her breath in my mouth and just wanted nothing more than to kiss her and wonder if all this physical contact was all worth it in the end.  
   
But then the gym teacher got our attention and wondered if we were all right. The moment was lost, and we complimented each other on putting so much effort in the game, got up and dusted ourselves off. We had to take it easy for the last few minutes of the game per the teacher's orders because she thought we were getting a little too rough, and finished the game rather unexceptionally. Someone on my team scored one more goal and we won 9-8. Paris didn't seem broken up, but it was such a great match I had to congratulate her.  
   
I shook her hand and thanked her, and she gripped it pretty strong. In turn I tightened up my grip on her hand. I let go before she could catch on, and she started to trudge back towards the gymnasium building while the teacher complimented me on my effort and decided to give me a little extra credit for the way I took my academics and placed them into game situations. She then let me go, and I prepared myself to go back to class.  
   
It was about at the threshold as I got back into the building when I remembered the real reason I hated gym class. I looked down at my muddied and dirtied self, and had forgotten in the rush to build up that Paris pro, that I was going to get all messed up and I was going to stink for the rest of the day.  
   
"Shit, Rory!" I cursed to no one, and realized that I was going to have to jump in the shower for once, lest my A for the unit and extra credit was revoked. I had been in the stall many times before, but those times I rushed in and out because Hartford's water supply doesn't agree with my hair or body, at least in shower form. Also one day after class a couple years ago, Summer had teased me about my nakedness and whipped a wet towel at my backside to intimidate me. That pretty much killed my excitement for communal showers.  
   
Worse, this time I was going to probably see Paris nude and all wet as she cleaned off her own grime. The analytical side of my brain told me to ignore any feelings I might get from sharing a stall and ignore her state. _Relax, she might even be gone by the time you get in there, you got in late_ , my conscience tried to assure me.  
   
But as I got into the locker room and started to take off my gym clothes, desire had taken over everything as I looked over the results of my endeavor. My socks were soaked with a thin line of blood from Paris' stick slash, and I thanked myself for deciding to bring along an extra clean pair just in case that ever had happened. I took off my grey gym shirt and shorts, and didn't expect much from the game.  
   
Thank God I decided to change in a stall that day instead of out in the open! My breasts were fully aroused in my sports bra, nipples peaked and one of them had almost wiggled out of the cup, I could see the underside of my right one. I felt all flushed upon seeing that, but that would end up looking tame compared to when I pulled down my shorts.  
   
I looked down myself, and couldn't believe my eyes. Usually when I wear underwear they stay stubbornly opaque, and I wear panties with as much cotton covering the front as I can. But when I looked down that day, they had soaked through so much, I could make out the outlines of not only the area down there, but where the hair down there ended, and bare skin began. I brought a finger to the large wet patch, and could tell that wasn't just rain and sweat soaking them! All that competition had gone up to my brain like planned, but I guessed that with my thighs rubbing up against each other as I ran, along with all that lust of seeing Paris in such an aroused and competitive state and our collision where Paris' knee ended up against mine, those factors combined together to make me drip like a rusty spigot.  
   
"Oh my God!" was all I could utter as I took my clothes off, my lust-filled brain trying its best to not succumb to temptation, I wanted to rub myself off so bad! Somehow I shook off that feeling, and wrapped myself in a towel, grabbing my soap as I headed for the shower. I could easily remember the only other time I had gotten that wet; in that dorm room as Paris and I individually got ourselves off. My fantasies had been refueled, and I crossed my fingers, hoping that Paris took her time showering. Talk about killing all those showering fears!  
   
Let's just say the shower was sort of interesting. Paris was in there and I struck up a conversation with her about this whole field hockey thing we did. She was kind of jarred by it all and I hid it behind the cover that if I'm not active Ms. Paschke is going to be iffy about giving us an A in the class. I couldn't help but feel her eyes dart onto my body several times during the shower, and though it seemed light-hearted, there was a sort of pall over it. She didn't know my motives for the whole thing, and I couldn't gauge her reaction all that well.  
   
So thinking at the time it was a good idea, I decided to ask her a question that was so out-of-character, so unlike me, but that could make her mind spin for an answer. I just up and asked it without any hesitation.  
   
I asked her if my chest was too flat.  
   
Not a question you'd normally hear being asked by a girl to a girl; almost like if Jess dropped his pants one day and wanted Dean's opinion on his size. But it would certainly get Paris' attention away from the usually droll questions asked in school.  
   
Even through the spray of the shower, I could tell she was blushing and looking down towards me to solidify her response. She then laughed, and somehow I took offense to that and almost backed off, embarrassed. Thankfully she clarified that my breasts were perfectly sized.  
   
 _Damn, she firmed up on me_ , I thought to myself. So I then concentrated my eyes on hers, pointed at them, and faked a whine by wondering why her's were larger.  
   
Unfortunately it didn't have the effect on her I had been expecting, she turned back into her shy self, made up something about genetics being to blame, and Paris fled the shower before I could say anything else. The way she frowned before she turned around and left me in there stunned, I could tell there was something underlying that caused the casual conversation we had to come to a sudden halt. I felt horrible, but I had to get to the bottom of it all.  
   
However after the incident she seemed to start to ignore me, and I thought she was starting to catch on to my hints too much and was getting ready to give me the cold shoulder. Whenever I got within arm's reach of her the next few days, she either moved over, took the next seat or walked away. I wanted to apologize for the question but she would change the subject so fast there was nothing I could do but get back into the comfortable yet harsh groove we had been in before she asked me to be vice president.  
   
The worst thing was she claimed she had a headache she needed to take care of, and wouldn't drive me back home because of it. Maybe the whole thing was a bad idea, and as I got on the bus to school Friday morning, hoped that I could get some dialogue with Paris so I could clear things up without revealing the underlying reasons behind the whole situation.  
   
Too bad the situation felt like a nagging mosquito bite. Her silent treatment continued, even through a project we were assigned to do together in life sciences. The pit of my stomach felt like a stone, and I ended up throwing out my whole lunch salad because I couldn't even eat it, afraid it would come right back up. After school didn't get much better, as student government seemed to fit the mold of 'typical meeting' and she disallowed any attempts for me to debate or bring up issues. Francie continued delivering me dirty looks and hinting that her little plan to offer Atkins substitutes in the ala-carte line despite the harsh opposition of the school nurse and foodservice staff should really pass without opposition. _Yeah, enjoy your lettuce-bunned bacon cheeseburger Jarvis,_ I thought silently to myself as I gave her a bitchy look, _Can't wait to see until you become a fat cow with arteries clogged like downtown Boston during rush hour!  
_    
Working on the _Franklin_ that night seemed to feel like we were closing the paper permanently, and Paris wouldn't even comment on any corrections she had made to articles before I rewrote the stories and posted them to the printing network. There was a dark pall and everything about the situation was bothering me. So once all the other staff and Ms. Peters had left for the night, leaving me and Paris alone, I decided to try to get Paris to say anything to me.  
   
"I'm sorry about Wednesday," I told her, smiling. No response.  
   
"Come on Gellar, where did those witty 200 WPM comebacks I'm used to fly off to, you've been Marcel Marceau'ing it lately." She quirked an eyebrow and groaned in response. Having a one-sided talk with her wasn't exactly what I had in mind.  
   
I reached over and tried to grab her hand in a reassuring manner. "Look, whatever I said I take it back, it's nothing to be embarrassed about--"  
   
She reeled it back and got up from her seat violently, not looking at me in the eyes. "I have to get notes from the conference room." She then turned her back, and I gave chase as she walked out of the office and across the hall to the conference room, I couldn't leave this thing going all weekend.  
   
I caught the door to the conference room, and noticed she had pushed the lock on the door in. She must've really hated me because things just seemed to tumble downhill from there. "Paris, please talk to me, I don't understand why you'd act like such a question is--"  
   
"It's not about the question at all Gilmore!" Fuck, she was back to the last-name-as-a-slur thing from last year. "You don't ask that kind of question in a locker room!"  
   
"Well I was just curious about what you think and you seemed to have fun--"  
   
"Which you pushed me into involuntarily; you know how I feel about gym class!"

"God forbid I get some exercise and try to help you!" I whined. "I just wanted to know what you thought about yourself."  
   
"You see the coat?!" she chastised, pointing at her jacket as she moved towards me in a confrontational move. "I'm not Louise; I don't crop my uniform so that I look like a raging whore! I don't give a shit about 'body image' or Ophelia or any of this other bull the media tries to shove down my throat to convince me that I'm homely and dull!"

"That doesn't mean you have to clam up on me when I ask, come on Par! There's a feature about yourself you have to like!"  
   
"Yeah, my brain. I'm here for one reason and one reason only Rory; to learn and get into Harvard, nothing else." Her voice and treble seemed to get louder as she moved closer to me. "When I walk these halls, I could care less about the hot guy walking past me, and I've been hoping that you've been doing that too. Wait, I forget, I'm speaking to a girl who's been mind-fucking two men since she came here!"

She was getting more vicious by the moment and I felt powerless to stop her ranting. "Don't you dare bring Dean or Jess into this, they have nothing to do with--"  
   
I felt my figure shrink as her eyes became darker in mine as she went on. "You string Dean along even if you don't feel anything with him, and played with Jess like he was a pawn while you were trying to figure out whether to go for it with him or not. Meanwhile DuGrey was just your lapdog while he was here, I bet you miss him and want to pitch woo the moment you find out wherever the hell he is!"

Seriously, I wanted to slap that angry grin off her grille because she was getting me so pissed off at her when I just wanted to say sorry. But I took the bait anyway. "This coming from the girl with no sex life to speak of!"  
   
"Whatever, at least I'm happy without companionship!"  
   
"I'm sure you are, God forbid anyone gets into that cold little rock beneath your ribs you call a heart!"  
   
"DO NOT TEST ME!" she cried towards me, her face flushed with blood.  
   
"You know, I like you a lot Paris, I respect you, but I guess trying to get to know you if it doesn't involve a textbook is almost next to impossible, sorry I even try."  
   
"It's a waste of energy Gilmore, besides I bet you need that energy to get Dean to second base before revealing the ball behind your back and tag him out, leaving him with a stiff dick between his legs as he goes home unsatisfied, again!"  
   
I felt my teeth grit with anger as she made that assumption, and couldn't believe her gall. I wanted nothing more than to punch that commander-in-chief in the teeth. I tried to breathe in and out, but didn't feel any dissipation of my mood. I had to get her back.  
   
"You know what's fun Gellar? That I even have a boy to lead around, you bitter little bitch! All I wanted to know is if you like your body the way it is and why the hell you hide it under so many layers, I'm sure a guy would kill for you!"

"I don't want a guy to kill for me, and like I said before. I. Don't. Care!" We were so close that in another situation it would've been a turn-on sexually. All I wanted to do then however was one-up her.  
   
"I care!"  
   
"Fuck off Gilmore, your compliments do little for me!"  
   
"Well it's no matter Tristan never gave you more than a kiss, with an attitude like that I certainly wouldn't fuck you!" I shot back, and almost immediately wanted to take that insult back. She looked at me coolly, and made me feel really uncomfortable.  
   
"Take that back, right now!" she commanded to me, and for some reason or another I didn't back down.  
   
"I won't, because it's true. You just don't want some guy to sweep you off your feet and tip you off that high little pedestal you put yourself on. You're just too chicken to admit that you could be a lust object, and you're becoming just like your mother."  
   
She pointed a finger towards me and her monotone became even deeper. "Don't go there--"  
   
"Get a clue Par, she makes you ashamed to be yourself, and it's turning you into this sour little hag who, at this rate, might have to settle for some 'nice Jewish guy' on the Upper East Side with a small--" I didn't get the last word out as she finally got me to allegorically cry out 'Uncle' in such a way it almost broke my heart.  
   
"I might be a prude," she started, "But at least I don't have a chastity electric fence around my person preventing my fucking boyfriend from doing any more than heavy petting--"  
   
Then she tacked on the hated 'Mary' nickname at the end of her sentence, adding on 'Stone' to hammer home that I was nothing but a 60's sitcom girl who played with boys like building blocks. I lost it right there, and felt my jaw drop as the argument had its exclamation point tacked on to the end. I was too shocked to respond, and almost felt like crying as I left the room in a huff, made a beeline for my locker to retrieve my things and got out to the bus before Paris could catch me. I heard her apologies echoing in the hall, but ignored them. She brought up my most sensitive subject she could and smashed hari-kari through those boundaries I set aside. Not only that, it hurt for someone I thought I could love so deep to say such hateful things about me.  
   
But it was true. I didn't truly love Dean anymore, yet kept him along. I felt too distraught to think of anything else except the argument as I watched the headlights of Friday rush hour pass by in the northbound lanes, and I looked out of the bus window in despair. My phone rang in my backpack, but I didn't even bother to take it out. A couple minutes later I heard the chirp of my voicemail, and pretty much assumed it was Paris begging for mercy.  
   
Maybe it had been my fault. I was bringing her out of the shell too fast and perhaps being a little too forward. But I didn't expect to be perfect when I pursued the pro and con list since it was my first time playing the seductress. I needed to regain control and her trust, and hoped that putting space between us to calm down would put us back on an even keel.  
   
Once I got back home, I had to vent to Lorelai my frustration about Paris (leaving out all the girl-crush details, along with plenty of edited language) as we both got ready for Friday night dinner at Grandma's. I don't remember what I said, but it must've been a long tirade because I was still going strong about her as we got in the Jeep, and only stopped once we were midway between the Hollow and Hartford, I went on about almost the whole summer and most of the new school year. I didn't let Mom know about the field hockey stuff, but even with that as we pulled of the I-84 exit towards the mansion, she seemed to figure out something I hadn't been noticing as she glanced in my direction.  
   
"Whoa, calm down there kiddo," Mom told me as she put a hand on my knee, "The way you're talking about Paris I swear you're acting the same way you did before you and Dean got together, ranting on and on without an end because you like her more than you let on. Just breathe hon, she isn't here and the only evil forces in your sights tonight are Emily and Richard trying to steer you towards Yale."  
   
I swear when she told me that, I immediately turned white. Not at the whole college situation of course, but that she saw through my anger and towards my arousal unwittingly. I have my mother to thank for the rest of the night, because instead of stewing in my anger over being called Mary Stone, my body woke up to the fact that the whole argument had left me aroused and wet since it began.  
   
There I sat during Friday night dinner, a time I usually enjoy because my mother's quippy nature becomes mixed with the older, yet refined humor of my grandparents and things always get interesting between the two generations, and all I was thinking to myself was, _I'd rather be upstairs in that NSYNC'ophied bedroom scratching that damned itch Paris irritated_. I sat in my seat, legs tightly crossed and reanalyzing the entire argument and Wednesday's third period over and over in my mind, trying to find out where exactly pleasure had been triggered in Paris' responses because I sure wasn't noticing before Mom noticed my rant-track. I ate that evening slowly and deliberately, and tried to time my responses to any queries Grandpa and Grandma sent my way so that in the end my answer was satisfactory, they wouldn't ask a follow-up and I was free to go back to thinking about Paris.

Several times that night I wanted to ask if I could either use the bathroom, or take a nap upstairs before I left, but I held my tongue since that would have caused Lorelai to become ever more paranoid about the intentions of her parents. That, and the thought of masturbating with all those frilly covers below wasn't exactly conducive to any fantasies I've had of my classmate.  
   
So I waited until I came home, and after watching some late-late movie on channel 20, went to bed after wishing my mom a good night. By then however, the only thing I was feeling was tired, the turn-on from anger seemed to be fading, but I really wanted to get that tension out before I began my next beg-a-thon for Paris' forgiveness Monday in school. Thinking about that, I felt like crying, but I had to focus on the positives of the situation. I could do this with a heavy heart, or try to keep the flame strong. I silently read my pro-con list to myself (at the time it was a 28 pro-3 con tally), and got my cell phone out so I could listen to Paris' messages. I turned on the phone and noticed that not only did she leave about four voice messages, but a couple of text messages later after the voice mails.  
   
The voice mails were as devastating as I expected, her voice strained and subdued as I heard in the background soft classical music. The last one, left around nine seemed the most apologetic. "I know in the past Rory, I've told you that I hate you, especially after Tristan revealed our date was set up." Her composure seemed artificial as she went on, she was definitely on the verge of tears. "I do sort of hate you, but not for any negative reason. It's just that sometimes I feel like you're way too lucky in your life, and I envy that about you. Your mother speaks in your primary language and is your best friend as you say, and there's just this part of me that wishes I could go up to my mother and she'd act like Lorelai. But I know that's never going to happen, and though I know you didn't mean it, she is a bitter hag."  
   
That's when she started crying, full on. I've never heard her voice so desperate and sad, and it just broke my heart to hear her. "If I ever get like Sharon, I want to know so I can back off that track, because today, there was no doubt I was carbon-copying when she fought with Daddy and accused him of some affair that was impossible with his schedule and everything else. Anyways, please, I beg of you to call me back Gilmore, today we went too far with our fighting. I'm so sorry, and I'll get off the phone before I crumble apart here. Goodbye." Paris then hung up, and I read her short text messages, asking me if I was back home yet.  
   
I knew there was one thing I shouldn't do, so I decided just to go to bed and not think about Paris sexually that night since it wouldn't do any good to fantasize about her when our friendship was fractured. Instead, I went to sleep thinking about all I could do in order to patch things up with her. I knew she'd be sorry, but I was scared that the next time we'd find something to argue about we'd actually come to blows. The simple fact was, there was an untamed lover beneath Paris' façade, but that self was heavily guarded by so many conflicting emotions, problems, and guilt for not going with her mother's planning that she couldn't help but keep herself sealed off. That part of her was so much in her blood that the formerly carefree seven year-old she was, who ran around the playground not worrying about her image or how she came off to the trustees of Harvard or Hartfordian society was trapped beneath her iron bitch self.  
   
Really, that's the first time I really truly knew how my mother felt, and the reason she had to run away with me after my first birthday. Mrs. Gellar had definitely done so many things to screw with Paris' mind up to and including making everyone who didn't support 'The Plan' miserable. I remembered Paris' housekeeper almost dragging her out by the ear the night of the initiation. _Definitely hired by Mrs. Gellar_ , I thought, remembering the times she spoke in animated and happy Portuguese to 'Nanny' on her cell phone. I never understood what they were really saying, but her attitude was so much different than it was whenever Mrs. Gellar had come to school to 'check up' on her daughter. There was also the clear sign that whenever Paris and I were paired up for a project, we'd only go to the Manor if Mrs. Gellar was at one of her club meetings or on a business trip. That woman just makes me so angry that she can have this bright girl she foaled, but could ignore all the positives in her life and hammer home the negatives so hard, Paris can't help but have a bitter front surrounding her.  
   
That night, I didn't have a passionate, sweaty, and porn-without-plot dream with Paris, but instead I just thought of her and us, sitting at a table at Luke's talking for hours on end about anything and everything we could come up with, a true wild card night over a plate of chili cheese fries and endless coffees debating endlessly without interference from the guys or our mothers. When I woke up from it in the morning, I recalled all the good times we've had, the study sessions and the constant quizzing that never stumbled or ended awkwardly. There was nothing more that I wanted to do but resettle things down with her.  
   
But I had remembered the many times I had made peace with Paris, only to see it break and it was on my shoulders to make peace once again. There was a big part of me that wanted to drive out to the Manor and patch up things. However, this time I felt it was Paris who had to come to me since I did still hold some anger over the way she went off about my treatment of Dean and Jess.  
   
So I decided to wait for her to get off the phone and make her amends in person. I did my usual Saturday things, homework, studying, working at the Inn for a few hours, hoping the next person to walk into the front foyer would be a 5'3" blonde hellfire with deep, dark brown eyes. She didn't come by though, and though Lorelai noticed how anxious I was, I avoided her queries and blamed my worry on homework and the whole situation. We had a late night with a taped copy of the MST3K version of _Space Mutiny_ , and I went to bed at two thinking that the Paris stalemate would continue to fester for the next few months, continuing in that three months friends/three months enemies cycle we seemed to always be on.  
   
I was asleep and not dreaming, when suddenly I heard this strange rapping on the pane of my window. "What the--" I mumbled as I struggled to look at the green numbers of my alarm clock on the nightstand. It read 4:34 and it took me a bit to remember the little dot in the corner meant AM rather than PM. I sighed in relief that I hadn't slept fourteen hours accidentally, but was kind of scared about who was trying to get in the house.  
   
I grabbed the closest thing I had to a weapon nearby, Colonel Clucker (Yeah, I'll beat that burglar into a coma with a stuffed chicken. Stars Hollow isn't exactly known for a high crime rate, OK?), and slowly crept towards my window. I mumbled a tired hello and awaited a response as I wiped the sleep out of my eyes.  
   
"Rory?" the voice asked, and I could immediately recognize its owner. I clutched the string of my window shade and pulled it up to confirm who it was.  
   
Paris had driven all the way out to my town on an early Sunday morning on a crazy whim, and I could tell this wasn't well planned the way she usually did before we talked. Her hair was barely done, and her choice of a Harvard sweatshirt with dark sweatpants was an ensemble so unlike her. But what really hurt as I turned on a bedside light and opened up the window was seeing her face.  
   
Her usually spare makeup was gone, and in its place was a face full of worry lines, a frown, and eyes that were so forlorn and tired I was shocked that she could make a forty minute drive to my house, she was in a distraught condition that I never would associate her with.  
   
At first I felt bad about what we had done each other to create a rift in our friendship. Then my mind reminded me that she had called me a teasing prude who could care less about sex. Upon that thought, I opened the window and asked why she was there when she had made the assertion I never thought about sex, being extra harsh about my response.  
   
Instead of a heated argument ensuing like I had expected, Paris just asked meekly if I could let her in so she could tell her side of the story. The way she asked me, with a hoarse and sleepy voice, I couldn't deny her. So even though I was apprehensive, I let her in my room and listened to her carefully.  
   
I was expecting her to stall somewhat, but she went right into answering my question from Wednesday, in more detail than I could've hoped for in the shower.  
   
Thank God, because she only confirmed what I had expected; her mother controlled her body image. I didn't know what to say as Paris explained sitting at the desk that she had so many problems being proud of herself because her mother made her feel ashamed of her figure. When she said that she was forced to consider reduction surgery on her mother's behest though, I didn't know what to say. _No wonder she stays hidden_ , I thought to myself as she relayed to me that no doctor around here would do the surgery as long as she was 17, _her mother's too obsessed with her schooling to even consider her wants.  
_    
As Paris went on, there was so much seizing up in me that wanted to drag her over to my bed and prove to her that her body was perfect in my eyes. I continued listening to her relay her mother's insane plans for keeping her the dullest and least interesting girl ever, and couldn't understand Mrs. Gellar's motives at all. Why would she want Paris to be almost like a robot?  
   
Then I found out how her mother plans dates, by IQ and how good the boy's genes were. No wonder she kept her heart locked away; she was a hopeless romantic who was unlucky to have a mother who seemed to think courtship was like those Valentine's love surveys the student government used to hand out a few days before the 14th (and was one of the first things Paris and I outlawed, how can numbers and computers create the perfect match? With them in the mix, girls attracted to girls aren't even in the equation!). My anger over her remarks had faded completely, and I invited her to lay with me on my bed as I explained my side of things.  
   
"Par," I started, the words coming slowly, "you were just getting to me in the worst way possible and there was just a lot of baiting going on in that room, there's no justifying calling you a bitter bitch, just as I don't think you could explain why I could be called a tease. I pull away from Dean because he has to get the picture that I'm far from ready from doing that with him."  
   
"I understand that, completely, and I certainly don't frown on you staying a virgin." She lay down and started making amends with me. "You have my word from this moment on that I won't be making any more cracks about our sexual statuses, and I'm sorry I even asserted you were on the level of Louise. Not that's she's a bad girl, she's been my friend since kindergarten."  
   
"Hey, she isn't bad, just goes about things a different way than us two, and at least she does things in a safe way."  
   
"Thank me for that Gilmore; I just about drilled an entire sex-ed curriculum into her blonde little head before her first time."  
   
We both laughed and got off that whole messy subject of Friday night, and she went on and on about her relationships with Harold, her father, and her nanny. She explained that though Mr. Gellar wasn't always there, he was a true father in her eyes and she wasn't ashamed of him, and how Francisca had just about raised her up to her teenage years. Of course lots of details were left out about her mother, and I could tell she was trying to swerve around the topic as much as she could.  
   
So I made her an offer that if she had anything she needed to talk about or find a second opinion, especially about her mother, she could come to me, no questions asked. I wouldn't judge her, nor would I make fun of her.  
   
"Are you sure?" she asked me with some reservations. "What if it's a topic that would make you squeamish, like my love life? Sure, you aren't exactly Caroline Hax, but you know Louise, she's a little extreme, and Madeline, anything more taxing on her brain than fellatio and she needs a picture book--"  
   
I cut her off kindly before some icky mental pictures of Madeline were planted in my brain and took her left hand into my right, rubbing around her knuckles so I could calm her down. "Par, honestly I've already given you more dating help than those two, so what's a little sex talk between friends." I laughed and we turned to face each other. "I don't exactly know how to do much, but in some weird odd little way, you're the closest thing I've had to a kindred spirit since I came to Chilton. We fight and debate endlessly, but at the end of the day we're still two smart young women both vying for the big H and the valedictorian's slot, and probably bound to each other for life in some karmic plan."  
   
"True," she mumbled, and I noticed her grip on my hand become a little tighter, "Fine, I'll come to you for help, but don't expect me to give you advice about Dean, I'm kind of inexperienced."  
   
 _I think you have nothing to fear_ , I thought to myself as I acknowledged her and smiled back. From there we forgot all about everything and fell into one of those deep, thoughtful conversations that pop up at the oddest times. Paris and I talked about anything besides the way we think our bodies and families were, including some things about the newspaper and Francie. I had gotten just a little more dirt on the Puffs leader since I became her 'lackey', but nothing yet that would prove beyond a doubt that she was using me for a puppet. I kept silent on that front, but couldn't wait until I had so much taped and written evidence she would be a goner. I'm sure Paris would be mad at first for going behind her back, but she'd commend me later for my resourcefulness.  
   
By the time six had rolled around, I was starting to feel really sleepy, but also very comfortable. My bed was feeling awfully tight since Paris' body took up the right side of the mattress, but I didn't want her to go. She yawned kind of softly, and seemed so drowsy that I couldn't see her going back to Hartford when she was already sinking into my pillows.  
   
Paris tried to lift herself out of the bed and see herself off, but I kept my hand clasped in hers, and held her back with my open arm.  
   
"You're too tired to get back on the road, stay here." I gave her a pleading look, but she was still unsure.  
   
"Sharon might not be happy to let me stay, and really I just came to apologize, you need sleep, right?"  
   
"I don't mind Par; you're not a bad bed partner." I laughed. "Besides, does your mother **really** care at all?"  
   
I won her with the emphasis on that word, and she kicked off her shoes and brought the covers on her side of the bed over her frame. "I guess you're right, I'll stay."

"Great," I said, and shortly after wishing each other good night despite the sun rising over the horizon, we fell asleep. Not in each other's arms mind you, but close enough that her body heat lulled me into a deep slumber I didn't think would've been possible without her sharing my bed. We brushed against each other a few times, but my senses were cooled and after all that talking my only focus was on recharging my mind.  
   
I didn't have the good sense to set my alarm for my regular 9:30 am wakeup time so that I could get up and work at the Inn however, and forgot all about Lorelai in the rush to set things straight with Paris. Mom knocked on my door around ten, and was surprised to see that there was someone else sleeping next to me.  
   
"Rory, it's time to--" she flicked on the light, and saw the back of Paris' head, misjudging its owner at first. "Dean, what are you doing in my daughter's bed?"  
   
I rubbed the sleep out of my eye and for a moment thinking that it was indeed Dean in my bed, shook her awake vigorously.  
   
The long blonde hair I felt against her shoulder however gave me much-needed relief that everything about last night wasn't a dream, and I had made up with the girl I had such heavy feelings for her. "Mom," I mumbled, "that isn't Dean, it's Paris."  
   
As I roused her awake she was mumbling something about a guy named Milt and his radio show, and when she came to, she was surprised by the fact she was in my bed and in my room.  
   
Mom wanted to know everything that lead Paris to sneak into our house, so I told her about yesterday and how we were both feeling depressed that we tore ourselves apart, though instead of 'the flat question' I made up something about editorial differences with a _Franklin_ story, and Paris was only too happy to go along with the cover. That seemed to appease Lorelai, and Paris got up from her side, straightening her hair crudely by running her fingers through it.  
   
Perfect timing of course, for Lorelai to resume acting like the sixteen year-old girl she always would be in spirit.  
   
"So, you wanted to seduce my daughter by sleeping with her you harlot? I must say you're doing quite a good job," she joked, making Paris' eyes bug out, my eyes roll and both of us take on that familiar shade of red that's becoming familiar between us on our faces.  
   
"Mother!" I cried in an Emily-ish tone, and she laughed at my reaction.  
   
"What, I'm just saying that you have excellent taste in women my darling daughter." Paris laughed at my misery along with Mom, but I guess when you get into a situation like that, you're asking for it.  
   
I got up and secretly held out a glimmer of hope that Paris might decide to have a day of fun with Mom and I, even if it involved some work at the Inn. However looking at her in full daylight...yeah, her shirt and sweatpants certainly didn't scream out 'outing ensemble' at all. So after a quick breakfast she said her goodbyes and I watched her drive off, I got back into my regular Sunday routine, quite pleased that Paris and I had patched things up, maybe even permanently.  
   
This week, I've started to become a little bolder, and losing the excuse of trying to find things to put on the pro/con list. Madeline and Louise were off to troll around for guys lucky enough to be dates for their Halloween shindig and Paris' side of the table seemed a little lonely, so I've taken to sitting next to her at lunch. I sit a little closer than Louise has and can proudly note that Paris doesn't think I've invaded her space at all, and I've been able to brush against her arm a few times as we ate.  
   
I am feeling kind of depressed though. My dad decided to invite me up to Boston for Halloween, and with Sherrie being much more demanding as her pregnancy progresses ("What do you mean I have to take a lighter caseload Chris, I can handle six clients in one day!" she whines, and I so want to tell her gory details of what wrath I wrought gestating inside of Lorelai starting in February 1984), it's up to me to keep them both sane as they drag me off to some lame gathering where there are sure to be few girls I relate to, and I can't turn down my dad no matter how ridiculous the request. I know Paris really doesn't celebrate the holiday and it would've been fun showing her how October 31st in the Hollow was, but I better show some respect to Sherrie seeing as I'll have a sister from her soon.  
   
Also, it hurts that she ruined a perfect costume match-up with Paris being Roxie, and me playing the role of Velma. That dream kept me wet the night after Mads suggested it in jest. Paris could pull off Roxie, she was a top ballerina when she was younger and before she...filled out and became so voluptuous.  
   
A couple things make me feel better though. For one, that she's starting to become a little more cautious and unhinged around me. The other thing is Monday morning I met Paris at her locker, and was pleased beyond belief that the little pep talk I gave her in my bed convinced her to ditch the uniform jacket permanently and go with the blue Chilton sweater instead. It looks so much nicer and flattering on her curves, and makes her in class and extra-curricular activities so much more approachable to others. I steal a glance occasionally in her direction, and my mouth almost waters at being able to look at her in such a way.  
   
I lick my lips as I remember she almost swerved off the road on the way back home Tuesday night because I was reaching over to retrieve a book from my backpack sitting on the driver's side of the backseat, and my hand brushed up against the top of her shoulder. I don't know if I'll be doing that again though, Paris usually pushes 75 on the Wilbur Cross and is a very aggressive driver, managing to swerve in and out of traffic, even during the heavy jams we occasionally run into on route 84.  
   
Though I have to admit, the way she drives? Also a big turn-on...ahem, I should say pro. Yeah, I keep trying to convince myself that I should up and give up, renaming the list 'turn-offs and turn-ons', but if someone happens to glance and see Pro and Con on top instead they'll be less likely to read it if it does get in the wrong hands.  
   
Speaking of hands, I think I'm going to run mine through Paris' hair right about now. She looks like she wants to bite Mr. Mercurio's head off, and I don't blame her because once again, this class is boring! Her shoulders are all hunched up and from behind, it looks like she has this imaginary weight stressing her upper body. I remember what happened when I calmed her down before the date with Jamie and hope that this works too. Thank goodness the boy in back of me is too much of a Russian geek to care about what I'd do with the girl in front of me, he's freakishly into bad Russian fic and keeps raising his hand and butting in with these facts that no one gives a damn about, it's like going to class with a Trekkie!  
   
Wait, that would be an insult to Luke, oops. How about _Battlestar Gallactica_? Yeah, few fans supporting that fandom, I feel better now.  
   
At first, I comb through her hair with my fingers, then when I notice no one's attention drawn towards me, I part the middle so I can rub right near the back of her neck, noticing the thin gold chain that her Tiffany  & Co. Star of David necklace consists of. I've never seen it up close (she usually keeps it concealed beneath her shirt because of her conservative dress), but she told me that Sunday morning it was a gift from her father for her bat mitzvah, and that it had a beautiful brilliant blue topaz stone in the middle pentagon that denoted her birth month of December, and said it was in the same blue shade of my eyes. When she told me that I thought I heard her voice try to flirt, honestly. Hearing her repeat that in my mind sends shudders up my spine as I play with the chain and a couple of my fingers rub against the sensitive skin beneath her hairline.  
   
She starts to ease up a little and relaxes her shoulders as I go along, and then I feel a piece of paper jab against my knee. She passes me a note, and I wonder what it says. I sneak it slowly against my body until it's high enough to hide behind my _War and Peace_ copy, and I open it up.  
   
Paris isn't blunt about her disappointment with this class, and when she compares it with having oral sex with Boris Yeltsin you can't help but laugh. In her own little way she makes it clear she hates the class but loves my 'stress relief', so I'm very pleased.  
   
I hear her unsnap the end of her pencil, which means she wants me to respond. I scribble down a joke about getting drunk on that Russian favorite, vodka, and on a whim I decide to include a little flirtatious overture in the postscript. Surely she's getting my hints as I make them more obvious, and as I pass the note back wrapped around a sharpened pencil, I make sure that I brush her fingertips and linger the touch longer than needed, very obvious to just her.  
   
I can't see her reaction to the 'pleasure' I added on towards the end, but I can feel it. Her pulse is apparent, and I can feel it race oh so slightly, along with a sharp intake of breath that's unnoticed to anyone else but me. Seems like everything is slowly going according to the plan I'm making up as I go along.  
   
"Miss Gellar, can you read from page 337 all the way to page 353 for the class please, you seem engrossed in this story so much."  
   
Damn it Mr. Mercurio, why did you have to call on Paris, she's all tensed up again and I have to back off my little mini-massage! Everyone looks towards her, and I pull my hand back so I'm just touching her hair as she starts reading in a voice that suggests she'd much rather be reading something of substance, say a Hot Topic catalog. I frown on the outside, but turn to the back of my notebook and write _she loves a good back rub_ under the ever-growing pro column.  
   
I'm still nervous what everyone's reaction to my news would be, and still a little bit unsure of exposing my crush on Paris to her. But it seems that with her candid answer about her breasts when she apologized and the shedding of the jacket, I might have more than a kindred spirit, as I told her on Sunday, she might really be my soulmate and feel the exact same way I do. She is letting me touch her in class without trying to shrug it off, isn't she? That's a good sign.  
   
She's reading, and right now I'm curling a couple of strands of her hair around my index finger, retaining just enough of the words she's saying that I'll get out of here unscathed and my love of books won't be warped from reading this crap. I should be soaking it up like a sponge, but instead I'm sitting in this hard wooden desk chair trying to keep the fragrance of her hair out of my mind, and keeping my fingers relatively in control so they don't end up south of her neck. There's so much spinning around in my mind, and the only thing that makes sense is that she's a wonderful person to sleep in the same bed with, our fights pump so much blood around my body where it shouldn't be, and doing more things with Dean to try to dampen these feelings I have for her has lost its intended effect, since I'm now imagining her lips on mine instead of Dean's.  
   
I know one thing though; I'll break up with Dean before I do anything with Paris, because I'm certainly not keen on cheating on him, I'm sure she wouldn't take well to being a side project as Dean and I stayed together.  
   
Although there's never been anything said about fantasizing about a girl while you're still with the boy, so I'll try to keep those thoughts on a speedy boil. Hmm, there was that one I had last night where we were at the point of the Mary Stone crack again, I wonder what I could do with that if instead of stomping out, I shoved her on that big and spacious conference room table and let her know that the 'chastity electric fence' system I wore failed on girls, when it came to her I wanted to do much more than heavy petting, and that I lied about not wanting to fuck her back to fifth period that Friday?  
   
Yeah, I can work with that, and best of all as long as I keep my eyes on the book and occasionally change the page, Mr. Mercurio won't notice a thing. That's the great thing about having a very high IQ and a fast WPM figure (and lusting for the same); you already know how to get yourself off without arousing the attention of anyone, not even the girl in front of you. I better get started then; Paris is down to fourteen pages and she reads a page every twenty-five seconds, not a lot of time to get the friction going down there...  


* * *

**  
_To be continued...  
_   
**  



	5. Shirts, Skin, & Two Left Feet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gears of progress between Rory and Paris start to turn in unexpected and surprising ways as Paris remembers the last week as she prepares for one of the most important days of her young life.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Five | Shirts, Skin, & Two Left Feet  
Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Inspired by:** Past season two and early season three subtext, as I've said before. This chapter takes place between _Eight O'Clock at the Oasis_ and _They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They?_ with the timeline between episodes compressed for dramatic effect. A couple things to point out;  
   
· _Take the Deviled Eggs_ never took place in TomatoWorld since Jess isn't involved romantically in Rory's life and is actually fine when it comes to his education (Shane's been helping him out), and we'll assume that Sherrie worked herself way too ragged a couple days after that whole Halloween party I mentioned in the last double chapters, and was ordered by her doctor to have 24/7 bedrest until she gives birth to Georgia in February and to stay away from work (I promise this will be explained by Rory in chapter six). That means no baby shower, no Rory and Lorelai going to Boston, and no hard-boiled eggs being thrown at Jess' car.  
   
·I don't hate Dean, so don't take this as my personal attack on him and his character. This is just fanfic, I'm just not a fan of the whole Rory/Dean dynamic and I mean no harm at all (He's better with Lorelai IMO). Remember, this is Paris talking about Dean; she has a low opinion of him in general and this is the way I think she'd express it.  
   
 **Rating:** R (swearing, naughty femslash thoughts, self-pleasuring with a sexual fantasy)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters, not my show, they belong to Amy Sherman Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television. If they were mine, Dean would buy a clue and leave Stars Hollow in shame for cheating on Lindsay, and Rory would've chased Paris, settled things with Jess and kept him as a good friend before she tried to pull Paris off her flight to London this week, telling Paris she was indeed her type and to dump Asher. Fireworks would light up the sky over Hartford; they'd look into their eyes, and kiss in a way that would put the _Friends_ closure of Ross/Rachel to shame ;).  
 **Summary:** The gears of progress between Rory and Paris start to turn in unexpected and surprising ways as Paris remembers the last week as she prepares for one of the most important days of her young life.  
 **Archiving** : GilmoreGirlsSlash, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** I never expected to enjoy writing a story so much, but honestly, I can't wait until I get to open up Word everyday, be it at home or work (don't tell my boss ;) ) and start working magic with Rory and Paris because I'm having a blast, and getting to know so many new people, I feel so heartened by all the feedback being given to me. Whenever I find myself in a bind, someone gives me an idea or a brainstorm and I just love running with it, so if you're afraid to review or give me advice, don't be. I will listen and consider your idea with all the fervor of the others I've received.  
   
Raven and Cinn, thanks again for the awesome betaing, and the advice for the tail-end of the chapter, sometimes a guy just needs a little help, and you two delivered again. I also have two new people to thank, Christina for the wonderful conversations about femslash and music, and Vixen for our fun, hilarious and hot conversations about Rory/Paris, and Liza in general, I'm so glad you loved that little sneak peek I gave you earlier, and thanks for the future ideas!  
   
Also to all my reviewers and everyone on GGSlash, you're wonderful and write such great stuff. I'm glad to be in such close company, Rox's story is awesome, and I'm begging for more from all the other authors. Finally, thanks to Carlos for the Portuguese dialogue help.  
   
FF.net readers; warning #6 that this is femslash. Turn back now if you're not a slash fan, but I hope by now you're a loyal reader of this after four chapters, and gotten over your fears about f/f fic. See, it's not as scary as you might think; you just have to find the right story to get into it all :).  


* * *

There are a lot of things I loved about Tristan DuGrey before I became fixated on Rory as more than my rival or in the sense of a best friend; unfortunately most of them were stuck in the realm of fantasy. Those blue bedroom eyes, that hair, the way he looked shirtless, and his chivalry, those were the trademarks of my little schoolgirl crush on him, I would have done anything to be his.  
   
But even before he cracked the safe, I knew that the possibilities of a sexual relationship with him were, using a soccer term, slim to nil, since he barely acknowledged I was a female at all. I'd take the advice of Madeline and Louise in freshman year and slightly try to slut myself up whenever he was around, but to no avail. My ideas of flirting were far from his, he'd be surrounded by his fanclub whenever I tried to attempt it, and when I tried to pull a Phoebe Cates in _Fast Times_ strategy (sans taking off my top) one summer day at the country club's pool, he didn't get the hint I was trying to hammer home, that is 'Look at my breasts in this wet bikini as I rise out of this pool Tristan! It might be degrading to feminists but I'm willing to try anything to get your eyes on me!'. Guess he isn't a breast man in retrospect, figures I'd crush on the only boy in the entire school who doesn't fixate on them.  
   
As for the date Rory set me up on with him? Looking back, it was definitely obligation. I'd try to flirt and tell him he looked handsome, and he'd come back and say that I was 'fine', and not in that stretched-out 'street' way that Nelly, the rapper from St. Louis does either (What? I have to keep abreast on pop culture, so I soak in all types of music, doesn't mean I have to like it).  
   
Dinner was eerily quiet, and I played with the cuffs of the borrowed shirt from Lorelai's closet as he droned on and on about Summer and how he wanted her back, when it was so damn clear that he could've easily replaced that bitch's name with a certain 5'7" resident of Stars Hollow with long brunette hair, sparkling blue eyes and a well-evolved wit that I still envy to a point to this day. During the movie he didn't even stretch his arm across my shoulders, but considering the film had about 1/10 of a love story and 9/10 mindless violence, I wasn't expecting that armrest between us to go up and for him to slide a hand up my skirt.  
   
The last confirmation came during the kiss goodnight. I did enjoy it, but when I look back, it seems so pedestrian and dull. Yes, his tongue ended up in my mouth, but only touched the tip of mine for slight seconds before he drew back and said goodnight, leaving me to walk the steps back up to the front door of the Manor alone. No knees turning to jelly, no memorizing the fragrance of his shirt, nor did I head back up to my room and strip down to nothing wanting to finger myself silly just because of the whole date. There was nothing there, no attraction, just a puppy-love crush that was confirmed the next day when Tristan revealed all and I went off on Rory for no reason but to numb the pain, I certainly never meant to scream 'I hate you!' at her as I rushed out of the classroom.  
   
God, that was two years ago, but I might at well be forty years old looking back on young love, because Tristan is as far from my thoughts as possible, except when I compare this last whirlwind week around Rory to those nine years with DuGrey.  
   
I swear that girl is coming on to me, but I'm just too stubborn to confirm it, because I'm fearful I'm misreading her signals.  
   
So why am I sitting here in front of my little-used vanity on a very early Saturday morning, recalling the week in Rory and trying to mix and match makeup shades as I look myself over in the mirror, while trying to find that 'perfect dress' somewhere in my closet that will meet her approval?  
   
I suppose though, it might be better to start off by relaying what happened earlier in the week, Tuesday morning to be exact.  
   
It was an unseasonably warm November day outside, and though when I woke up it was dark, by the time I had finished my meditations, along with some leftover homework at 6:30am, my window was filtering in bright sunlight. I was really looking forward to this day because there were tough quizzes in Life Sciences, AP Honors Calculus, and Advanced Economics. Days like these psyched me up, and as I walked into my private bathroom, turned on my shower and disrobed, I was excited. There was also a special playoff edition of the _Franklin_ to put out that day since the football Blue Demons had made it into the regional semifinals, so we were charging a high rate for each ad and all the students would want a copy, special events like that make being into journalism a special thing for me.  
   
I was so into academics and publishing that morning, in fact, that I completely forgot about Rory. She had done her little 'flirting' on Monday, and was happy to see me, but was a little low-key since it was Monday. Even we academic types dread the end of the weekend sometimes. So I was blissfully out of my Rory funk for just a bit, and resumed my morning routine relatively unconcerned with the welfare of the girl I liked.  
   
Francisca carted in my breakfast into the bedroom as usual (the less I see Sharon the better, so I never eat with her in the breakfast nook), and I came out of the shower in my robe and ate my cereal and English muffin as Fran and I had a conversation in Portuguese about one of her children, apparently her daughter Caterina had been proposed marriage in Lisbon by her boyfriend Saturday evening, and accepted. I was so happy for her and told her I was crossing my fingers she was going to have grandchildren from Cat. We finished speaking as I sipped the last of my orange juice.  
   
I took a look at the clock, which read 7:10, meaning I was six minutes behind in my routine when I finished. Usually by that time I'd be in my uniform and sorting the books and papers from my desk and into my messenger bag by subject. I wasn't even dressed though, nude beneath my robe, so I was painfully behind in my opinion. I took off the robe and hung it off the bedpost, and walked over to my dresser to take out my lingerie and socks...

And then my cell started to ring! Sitting on the desk all the way across the room from where I was, and with the robe in-between, I was stuck in a rock and a hard place. I never had phone calls that early in the morning, so I had to assume that it might be Daddy having some kind of emergency since I kept my number from Sharon intentionally. I wasn't going to let it fall into voicemail, so I ran for dear life trying to catch the call, naked and embarrassed by my loss of the track of time.  
   
When I finally arrived after feeling like I was auditioning for a slot on the _Baywatch_ cast I read the screen and cursed inwardly. _Damn it_ , I thought to myself as I saw that familiar number, followed by 'Gilmore, L R' scroll across the color screen. I don't remember her forgetting anything before she left school the day before, so I didn't know why she was calling me before school. I picked up the call, ignoring my nude state as I began the conversation.  
   
"Hello?"  
   
"Par, I need a favor." She asked, sort of in a panic.  
   
"You want me to pick you up?" I responded, assuming she needed a ride in and missed her bus.  
   
"Actually, I'm fine, as a matter of fact I just got off the bus at Auer Farm and I'm walking towards the Manor."  
   
I asked her why she'd get off the bus about three miles away from the school and close to my house, and told me that she was house-sitting for a new guy in her town, going into quick detail about Dwight and his stupid clock that chimes off a novelty hit from the 70s changed to fit each hour.  
   
"....So I was leaving his house and watering his plants when his stupid sprinkler system starts going haywire," she complains, "and I'm caught in the middle, unable to turn it off since the idiot didn't leave me instructions on where the shut-off valve was. I was basically stuck and thank goodness Jess walked by, otherwise I'd have been completely soaked, and he found the valve for me. Who needs to water plants that much, its ridiculous--"  
   
I interrupted her and asked what the favor was as I tried my damndest to get into my panties and socks with one hand.  
   
"I need to borrow an extra Chilton blouse from you, mine is completely soaked and I'm shivering, my hair is drenched and I wouldn't normally ask since I have ten or twelve blouses in my closet, but today's laundry day and Lorelai has everything we wear down at the Inn, I'm down to the clothes on my back and desperate Par!"  
   
I laughed and felt sorry for her...sort of. "You mean Jess or Dean didn't have a spare shirt?"  
   
"This is no time to wallow in my pain," Rory nagged at me. "Please let me borrow one, I know you're a little...bigger than me but it's an emergency and I'm sure if the dress code police believe my story they'll let it go for a day, I promise it'll be returned in good condition."  
   
"Alright, fine," I said, no questions asked. "How far are you from the house?"  
   
"About 300 feet, I should be at the front door in a bit."  
   
"OK," I said, and I then let her know that Fran would let her right in and that she could come in my room, no questions asked. She thanked me and told me that she owed me a big favor one of these days, and I ended the call, ready to get back on routine from the interruption after I Nextel'ed Francisca and let her know to open the door for Rory.

Then I remembered as I snapped my skirt closed and started putting on my bra, the keywords from Rory's short little conversation moments before.  
   
 _Wet...soaked...shivering...desperate...Rory...  
_    
"Oh fuck!" I mumbled to myself, my breath catching as my imagination brought through an image of Rory wearing a uniform completely soaked through and sheer, the outline of her bra and what was contained within all but clear through her oxford shirt, and her hair damp with wetness looking all cute and irresistible to me. I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to take the image out of my mind. "She just needs a shirt, this isn't an attempt on her part to seduce me," I convinced myself futilely as I tried to focus on something else. "A shirt, that's all it is, my shirt on her body--"  
   
Where I was in a panic moments before, I then realized the golden opportunity being presented on a silver platter to me for the day. Rory would be wearing **my** blouse, with **her** fragrance, **her** essence, and **her** body heat leeching onto the fabric right in front of me, without a care in the world! At the same time, I could virtually have my arms wrapped around her in such a unique and erotic way, and she'd be none the wiser. She would smell me through the entire day and not realize that when I took it back, the plans I had for that uniform blouse.  
   
My mind flashed forward to a future bedtime, where instead of changing into my pajamas like usual, I'd take off all my clothes and wrap myself in that blouse, my nose aware of her scent as I slid a hand across my thighs and towards my mound, running a fingertip against my hypersensitive clit as I recalled each and every detail of that day, my love wearing something I had worn many times before and just maybe, taking my smell in her memory and thinking seriously about breaching the line drawn between friends and lovers.  
   
Just the very thought of that was getting me wet, and I was seriously contemplating locking that door and telling Fran to entertain Rory for the next ten minutes so I could bask in those thoughts. There was this seriously giddy smile on my face and as I got a relatively clean shirt out from my laundry hamper (just enough fabric softener fragrance yet to hide my scent to everyone, but keep it in the forefront of Rory's nose) my love for her was once again renewed. She could've just been threw her wet shirt in the dryer at home and ended up slightly late for school, or tried to get away with a non-standard uniform shirt. But she thought of me first, she asked **me** for a shirt! I put on my own shirt and started buttoning it, when I saw the doorknob turn across the room.  
   
I quickly got back into conservative and unexcited mode as she walked into the room, and though it somehow lasted on the outside, the moment she shut the door, smiled at me and wished me a good morning, I was internally thanking whatever higher power told that Dwight guy to fuck leaving Rory the sprinkler directions.  
   
She wasn't as soaked through as she was in my imagination, but she still looked very hot. Rory's hair was flat on her head and still slick, and her face was flushed red, her teeth chattering and showing off the very obvious sign that her jacket had acted as more of a seal of the freezing temperature of the water than heating her up. Everything on her person was soaked, and the only thing I could think at that moment is I needed to play her own personal heroine since I already was giving her the shirt off my back.  
   
I used the intercom down to the kitchen and asked for them to bring Rory up a cup of coffee, and though she was iffy about it at first (she thought for some reason that she invaded my space), I smiled and told her it wasn't a problem, telling her to take a blanket off my bed to warm herself off.  
   
"Thanks," she said as she took off her jacket and set it off to the side, wrapping herself in the afghan.  
   
"It's no problem, why don't you just leave everything here to dry, I'll send it down to the laundry with Fran and we'll stop by on the way home to pick up your dry clothes." She seemed to appreciate it, and I thought I was pretty much out of the woods once the cup of coffee got upstairs and she started sipping the warm dark liquid slowly. I was dressed, and I thought she only had to change her shirt, so we could probably make it to campus just a few minutes before first bell. This is one time where 7:35 wasn't when I'd first walk in the halls, but as long as I maintained perfect attendance I didn't care when I got in that day, because I wanted to spend a little unfrenzied time with Rory.  
   
She put down the coffee on the nightstand and I handed her the shirt, expecting her to change in my bathroom due to her shy nature. Once again however, she surprised me, undressing in my room as I put on my saddle shoes. I paid no attention and didn't mind it since she'd probably put my shirt right on.  
   
I turned around and asked her to grab her backpack so we could head to the garage, when she sat down on my bed, holding my shirt in one hand and throwing her blouse down to the floor.  
   
"Paris," she asked kindly with a slight hint of come-hither in her voice, "Would you mind warming me up? The blanket didn't heat my skin all that much and this hair," she pointed at her soaked locks as I turned around, "Will give me a case of brain freeze if it isn't taken care of."  
   
I couldn't believe what I just heard from her. There Rory was, the girl who usually stuck to long sleeves and covering herself to keep Dean's hormones in control, on my bed still wearing her Chilton skirt, but on top, a thin white tank of an undershirt that was even tighter against her ample bust than the gym shirt during the field hockey game. I walked closer to her and sat down on the bed.  
   
Sitting next to her, it was apparent that she was going braless to school that day. The outline of her nipples was perfectly apparent through her undershirt, and it was still a little damp, soaked by the blouse. She'd have to live with it however, it was 7:25 and we were running out of commuting time, not enough time to bring it downstairs.  
   
Rory noticed my stare, and didn't flinch as she excused her unsupported state.  
   
"Like I said, laundry day." Her words sounded like come-ons to my ears, and she laughed as I soaked in her hidden beauty. "Thank goodness my underwear didn't get soaked, could you imagine me without them?"  
   
"Uhh, not really," I say half-heartedly as I try to take my eyes off the slight bit of cleavage being exposed beneath the shirt, and well...any allusions that she would ever have nothing but air under her skirt. Unfortunately, my idea of distraction was to look at her arms. Her arms, with cute little freckles stretching from her wrists all the way to her shoulder blades. Until then I never really paid attention to the fact she had all these sexy little spots all over her upper body since she was usually covered up by the oxford shirt, but I became fixated on them, and though I tried to keep my gaze neutral, she seemed to get clued into the movements of my pupils, passing on the fact that she was receiving the signals herself.  
   
She reached over to the nightstand and took hold of my antique hairbrush and handed it to me, trying to prod me to speak. Thankfully whatever was in my throat cleared and I was able to concentrate on something else.  
   
"You want me to brush your hair?" I asked, picking some lint off my sweater.  
   
She nodded her head. "I just don't want to soak your shirt from my wet head."  
   
"Alright." That was a perfectly good reason to brush her hair, right? I got my hair dryer out of the nightstand drawer and plugged it in, and started drying her long brown hair as I ran the brush, passed down through multiple generations of my paternal side, through her hair. The strands slid right through the stiff bristles like silk, and I heard her sigh happily after several brush strokes, she seemed to find it to be something that was warming her up. I made a little small talk about the tests as I moved on to her front, my fingers seeming to somehow transmit erotic feelings through her skull and into her mind each time they touched the top of her skull. Her breathing seemed to become shallow and short, and her state of semi-undress was causing me to notice things about her that I never had before, even during the shower.  
   
The long, slender and classical column of her neck, also filled with spotty freckles and skin marks, so many I could probably make a whole day just by trying to count them in my mind. I glanced down as I brushed the top of her head and noted that each of her arms were goosebumping. That little denial part of me tried to attribute it to Dwight's sprinklers, but I couldn't lie to myself. Something was in the air, and I tried to keep myself in control as best I could.  
   
I moved the brush strokes down her back, parting the hair into three sections so that her hair didn't tangle in the bristles. I decide to stay within her mandate of warming her up, so to thank her for the neck-rubs she's been giving me in the Russian class I asked her if I could bring her shirt down a little so I could brush not only her hair, but bring the bristles in enough so that she can feel them up against her upper back. Rory didn't even shrug or argue, and helped me out, and I tried to breathe as I realized I'm looking at almost her entire backside nude and in almost relatively complete privacy.  
   
I brushed each part individually, and with my free hand scratched her back on the exact other side so that she had the feeling that both of my hands are on her back. I loved doing this, and though every part of my sexual being was on a high alert, it was thankfully numbed by the easy-going conversation that we had, it was almost as if we were betrothed already. Not everything in our worlds revolved around sex, this seemed to be just as if we were both winding down our days, and Rory had asked 'Scratch my back honey'.  
   
Everything about her is so graceful, yet sexy, even on her back where she can't see anything with her own eyes without a mirror. When I reached the middle, I traced the outline of her spine with my fingertip, going in a zigzag pattern as I winded slowly around each of the vertebrae that were apparent and exposed through her milky white skin, like a maze that's solved only when you get to the bottom, literally. When I knew she wasn't looking, I licked my lips and hesitated; if only she knew what she was doing to me by asking me to brush her hair, and silently consented to me scratching her back.  
   
I thought she sensed every little touch I was making; her posture was straight and when I'd bring a brush stroke down towards the small of her back, she had no objections. If there was all the time in the world that morning, she may have taken off her undershirt and let me go lower than where her bra line was.  
   
Sadly, there wasn't, and I knew it. I spent five minutes brushing her hair and scratching her back, and before I could fathom that much time had passed, the little alarm I set on my cell that signified the least amount of time possible to commute between the Manor and Chilton had chimed. It was 7:40, and that meant I had twenty minutes to drive from here on the northeast side of town, to the south side of the metro area.  
   
It stung to lose such intimate contact with Rory, but she was as stubborn as I am about tardiness, so I let her go and she thanked me for the great job I did brushing and drying her hair. We both smiled at each other, and she slipped on the blouse I lent her as we walked out of my room and down the stairs. It was strange because I expected after the chiming for things to be awkward. Instead, our bond seemed to become stronger, and as I drove out of the garage with her in the front seat, we fell right back into academic talk, with a little soap opera gossip here and there (which I love since I wouldn't admit watching them to anyone else).

Rory and I arrived at school with just five minutes to spare and had to race to the other end of the building after stopping off at our lockers in order to be in our seats when the bell rang. We made it just barely, both of us almost tripping over the threshold of the Advanced Economics classroom as the last seconds before eight ticked down and planted each of our asses in our individual seats.  
   
I have to say honestly, I would've taken the tardy, and though I can't speak for Rory, I'm sure she might have too. That morning was probably one of the most exhilarating ways to wake up I've ever experienced, and though not much was revealed in an actual conversation, the body language between both of us suggested that since the unexpected sleepover, we've made progress. Before then she may have been scared too shitless to call me and ask to borrow my blouse, but there's no doubt in my mind that she never even considered Madeline, who's closer to her on the route to Chilton, or Louise, probably because she would have initiated an extreme makeover on Rory besides the blouse (Sorry Louise, whore eyeshadow and blush absolutely do not work with Rory's skin tone!). She came right to me, and there were no arguments.  
   
She may have asked me to warm her up that morning, but when she called me, I hate to be sappy and all Hallmarkish here, but she warmed my heart. And damn it, she did look adorable in my shirt too. She was right about it being a little big, but she was able to hide most of it under a spare sweater she kept in her locker so she stayed within dress code. Thankfully I got to see her in just the shirt, untucked as we drove to school, and she looked so lovable. Too bad the weather was cooling down and Rory would know how to control Dwight's sprinklers after that, because her running into my room in a panic probably would only happen that day.  
   
The jitters that I thought would build up, having Rory in the same room and taking that test subsided since the pressure seemed to release, and the actual school day was about as exciting as usual. I sat down, I learned, took notes and raised my hand when I knew the answer and was confident that I'd score my usual A+ grades on the usual tests.  
   
OK, so I daydreamed about Rory whenever I didn't have a class with her. But I kept it clean, I promise.  
   
One thing I can't figure out; where was she during lunch that day? I sat down and expected her to sit next to me, but she never ate that day. I asked her when we met at our lockers after lunch and said she had to study in the library, but I didn't see her carrying any books as she approached the locker. One of her ankle socks was drooped down, her face did seem a little flush and some of her hair was in front of her face, not to mention I warned her to tuck her blouse back into her skirt since one of the tails was exposed...  
   
Oh God, I guess that explains why I could **really** smell her scent on my blouse after I got it back! I guess sometimes, I'm not the smartest girl in the state, for the love of Eleanor Roosevelt, why didn't I think of that?!  
   
Uh, getting back to Tuesday, the rest of the day was pretty dull, though the tests were very challenging, much more than I thought. I breezed most of them by the end of the day though, and the work on the special _Franklin_ went by with nary a hitch. We didn't have anything to do with government that day, so I didn't have to look at Francie and her army of darkness trying to push through things. I have to admit though; I'm a little suspicious that Rory's taking her side with issues, pushing me to bring them through. However I should note she's been talking about Machiavelli on our drives home, so I have just have this little feeling that Rory is still on my side, but has something in store for Fran later on. I'll ask her one of these days, for now however the issues being passed through aren't all that important and could easily be nullified by the student body president next year.  
   
On the way back to Stars Hollow after we picked up her clothes at the Manor, I expected Rory to change back into her newly washed shirt. She must really love the individually heating system on her seat though, because she took off my blouse after we left and didn't change into hers, causing me to have an even wider blind spot than usual! The artificial scent of her perfume had disappeared; replaced by what I could say would be a preview of our individual aromas being mixed together. My plan for her to wear my shirt worked better than planned, and though I didn't hold the darned thing to my nose when she was in my car, I took a secretive sniff of it as she threw it into the backseat.  
   
That drive home though was probably the worst I ever had, at least when it came to distractions and traffic conditions. Rory lay back in her seat reading a book with just that undershirt and her skirt on, and everything about her position was very distracting. I tried to make small talk with her in order to keep my mind on her voice and my eyes on the road, but nothing was helping. Traffic seemed to be cursed that afternoon too, as I found myself out of the way of the Hollow on route 691 instead of the Wilbur Cross Parkway because of a jackknifed semi that closed the interchange for 91 and the Cross. That added on even more time to the usual commute south, along with a couple traffic bottlenecks near the Cheshire exit.  
   
Being stubborn, I kept my eyes on the road, my hands at ten and two, and my thoughts on the shortest route to the Hollow off 691. My libido however kept requesting my eyes centered on Rory's chest, my right hand against that space between her inner thighs, and thoughts of becoming a sudden public exhibitionist in the middle of rush hour with the girl I had such a hard and insatiable crush on filled my brain. She sighed and pouted through the entire quagmire, and once we hit a dead stop two miles from the Route 70 exit, I finally decided to hell with being patient, I had to take advantage of the opportunity being offered.  
   
I turned towards Rory, and engaged her in dialogue about the traffic. "Think this stuff is ever going to break up?" I asked, and she put down her volume, heaving out an annoyed breath.  
   
"I was supposed to be at Luke's by quarter after five, at this rate Jess will have inherited the diner since his uncle's gone to the great greasy spoon in the sky," she responded, kind of angry about this all. "It's not turning out to be my day, isn't it?"

I told her there was always a new day and Wednesday was bound to be better. Then she did that cute pout she's seemed to perfect down to a science and tried to ask me something.  
   
"Why do you insist on taking me home every night, it adds on at least fifty minutes of commuting time for you, and we always seem to get in a traffic jam no matter what. I could be taking the bus and saving you fuel instead." Rory really was starting to think she was a burden, and I had to assure her that it was **far** from the case.  
   
That, and the hem of her undershirt had untucked from her skirt, exposing skin at her waist that was causing my mouth to water, any distraction from that was welcome. I set my hand on her thigh and tried to make it as asexual as possible in a reassuring manner.  
   
"You're not a hassle Ror, it came with being vice president that I have to bring you home, and if that takes a little extra in the gas tank, what's the problem, my mother pays for it anyways." I smiled at her and intentionally shook my hand on her thigh to keep her calmed down, and maybe send a few mixed messages to her. "Besides, you're way too good for the bus now, have you ever heard of any public official actually taking one to work? Never, and that's why public bus systems struggle to make ends meet, there has never been a politician who would be caught dead on one."  
   
I noticed Rory start to shudder as my hand rested on her leg, along with some shallow breathing. I moved my hand around a little more to reassure her, getting a feel for the soft skin beneath my palm. The hem of the skirt was mere millimeters below the tips of my fingernails. _Better than I thought, she's wound up_ , I thought to myself, internally triumphant.  
   
"So...uh, you really don't mind?" Words were coming to Rory's brain a little slower than usual, and I noted to myself to never touch her when we were debating together again since it really threw off her concentration. "Because I could always ask Gypsy if I can buy a used car on a loan from the bank so you didn't have to--"  
   
"I made a promise to you, and there's no way I'm breaking it, I will give you rides home all school year as long as it's a _Franklin_ or student government day. Hell, maybe one day I'll even let you drive my car home, I trust you Ror." I smiled before I put my exclamation point on the whole talk. "I admit, it's a lot less lonely on the way home with you as a passenger, it's as if the school day is extended another 35 minutes when you plant your ass in that seat."  
   
My hand drifted up just slightly above Rory's skirt hemline beneath, and though it was just mid-thigh, I was being a little cavalier. My eyes shifted up and down between her breasts, hidden in the tank top except for the very apparent and excited nubs of her nipples puckered against the rough cotton, and her face, pupils widened to their limit and her biting down on her lower lip. I then made an effort to cap the conversation as a couple of my fingernails scratched her skin, smooth as satin. "Honestly Ror, don't ever hesitate about this whole situation, I'm actually happy to be your ride home. I'll even open it up from the meeting-day only requirement, if you ever need a ride somewhere and I'm not busy with so-and-so from Harvard admissions, call me, I'll be there for you always, no matter what."  
   
Those were perfectly spoken words, if I say so myself. Hidden in that overture of unlimited rides was a promise that she had infinite access to me, even late at night or at the oddest times of day. She seemed appreciative of the gesture, and thanked me for the offer, making an unneeded pledge that she wouldn't abuse the privilege I had just given her.  
   
"No need for thanks, as long as you're here I treasure your friendship." Another inch up I moved my hand, and I was able to keep it on Rory's left thigh another couple minutes before the traffic jam cleared up and I had to bring the right hand back to two o'clock on the steering wheel. I made sure however, to ease the touch, letting my fingers drift down her left leg until the only part I was touching was her knee with my fingertips, and I finally pulled it back up. The drive seemed to ease up after that, but not her emotions. She put her own hand on her left thigh after that, and in the corner of my eye as I drove on the two-lane down to the Hollow I saw her face was flush and her skin was glistening from sweat, she had turned her side of the climate control system down to 66° and slightly opened her window. Despite the rapidly cooling 54° temperature reading on the outdoor thermometer, I didn't feel any rush of heat myself from my veiled attempt at flirting.  
   
When I pulled into the Gilmore driveway, it almost seemed like she didn't want to get out of the car. Rory was looking down at her book, the page she was on unturned for at least fifteen minutes, and I had to shake her shoulder in order to make her realize she was at home. She came to, and almost seemed to want to ask me for an impromptu Tuesday night sleepover. She unbuckled her safety belt, and I handed her clothes and bookbag from the back.  
   
"See you tomorrow Par," she said with what seemed to be a voice that was telling me she didn't want me to go quite yet. So I had to Band-Aid the shock with a little humor.  
   
"Hopefully you'll be in school in a uniform that's a little drier than this morning, right?"  
   
Her mood shifted, and she was back to the usually quippy and hilarious girl I knew well. "I'll wear a raincoat to Dwight's tomorrow morning, I promise!" She laughed, I laughed, and we both said our official goodbyes for the day, with me leaving the town with all five senses spinning into overdrive, and hopefully, God willing, my touch far and foremost front and center in her mind.  
   
After re-navigating the traffic jam, and taking so many detours away from the expressway I didn't know the name of the road I was on from the next, I finally arrived back at the Manor around 6:45pm, very behind for a Tuesday night. I did my homework in thirty minutes, and for once not changing out of my uniform, sat down at the dining room table and had yet another 'exciting' dinner with my mother, along with twelve other members of some service organization probably just existing to give Sharon and all the other members of the group a quick and dirty deduction on the ol' 1040 form. Six of the ladies had their daughters along, and I sat there picking at Francisca's meatloaf, counting down the moments until I could get upstairs to my bedroom. The girls blathered ad nauseum about the attributes of the newest piece of cinematic beefcake that had his premiere on the silver screen, while the older ladies and Mother made 'plans' for some social calendar event that was pretty much interchangeable with every other event on the social calendar seeing as it featured the words 'black tie gala' within the title. Trust me, there's so much loosening of black ties at those places in certain unmonitored places, and unless you count the endless liquor cache, the event is far from a gala. What I wouldn't have given for Rory to text message me for some math help, but I knew it was probably a longshot.  
   
That, and I was already wound up enough from the entire day, did I really need her voice in my ears again causing even more impure thoughts on my side? By about eight when I finished my dessert course, I had my legs very tightly crossed since every time I opened them, I felt a rush of cold, shocking air against my inner thighs, spurred on from the soaked panties I was wearing since I was thinking ahead to the scene that would ensue in my bedroom later.  
   
Finally, my mother's friends finished and their daughters were whining to get home, so I could get out of that stifling dining room. I got up and pushed in my chair, eager to make a quick escape from the situation, when Martha Beardsley stopped me. The lady was a childhood friend of Sharon's and both of them seemed to have a keen interest in trying to push me and Mrs. Beardsley's seventeen year-old son Vance II together.  
   
"Hold on Paris," she told me in that high-pitched richie voice that I swore to God I would avoid emulating at all costs later in life, "Vance has wanted to know if you'd accompany him to the Foundation for Historic Preservation of Connecticut's Antiquities Turkey Trot Dance in a couple of weeks, he seems really interested in you dear. What should I tell him?"  
   
 _Yeah, he's interested in me alright_ , I monolouged silently, _in my mouth to get his sad little cock off and my tits so he has something to paw on_. Vance was a sad, sad emulation of a Hartfordian Society version of a lounge lizard, and Louise and I still laugh at Madeline's description of his tiny little dick back in a seventh grade party where she spent seven minutes in hell stuck in a closet with that boy. Sure, he didn't mind it when he got off, but don't you dare have pleasure yourself if you're in his presence.  
   
So in my own succulent way, I told Mrs. Beardsley and her stupid son to fuck off. "I would go, but you see Mrs. Beardsley, I have something I'd like to call a life, you may have heard of it before. It's something where I live things out my own way, and not with your son, whose idea of high romance is to tell his date she has a nice set of breasts and ask if could he closely examine them, however, in a much cruder way than I've just expressed. My life therefore, is incompatible with Vance II, so you can just tell him he can go trot himself." I smiled as I left the room, Mrs. Beardsley trying to decide whether I was insulting her or trying to be complimentary. "Though I'm sure that won't be much of a change from his usual routine, tell Vance I'll see him in his dreams, and by those I mean the ones where he obeys everything I say in clipped and rough German. I'll see you around Mrs. Beardsley." I smiled to myself as I climbed the grand staircase to my bedroom, being able to use my vast knowledge of the English language to fuck around with stupid socialites and their inadequate and inbred offspring was a gift I'd always treasure from the instructors at Chilton. I'd also occasionally curse in Portuguese at that sad lot, and they thought I was speaking in gibberish, unaware that I had called them loose and used a very crude sexual term for a woman starting with the letter C in English.  
   
With all that out of the way, I was finally free. I wished Francisca a good night and told her to let Sharon know not to bother me anymore that evening. I then walked into my room, locked the door, and took the shirt Rory wore out of my messenger bag, savoring the scent contained within.  
   
It felt so odd being back in there without her nearby, because I could sense her presence everywhere around my bed. The end where we sat as I brushed her hair and massaged her back was a sharp contrast to the rest of the made bed, the places where we sat depressed and clear. I took the hairbrush off the nightstand table, and despite the single use by Rory, I could still place the honeydew scent of her shampoo mixed with sprinkler water that had greeted me when she walked in the door. Suffice to say there was quite a bit of pressure building up within me.  
   
I slipped out of all of my clothes slowly, shaking with pleasure as my fingertips ran against my bare skin as I took off each article. I felt so tired and worn out, but in a good way since I had to hold off the urge to fuck myself for such a long time. I finished undressing down to everything except my underwear, and as I passed my vanity mirror on the way back from putting my school clothes in the hamper, I really looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in a carnal fashion.  
   
A little shy, I slipped on the blouse Rory wore and covered up my breasts, but kept all except for the bottom three buttons open so I could have a little fun with myself in front of the mirror. I recalled the conversation in her bed a couple weeks back where she told me I was well blessed, and though with that confirmation, kept my mother's words about reducing my chest on the forefront. After all, it was just one girl who told me that, who else would be able to confirm something like that?  
   
Madeline and Louise for one. They noticed my change of uniform from the jacket to the sweater, and though they knew I could carry myself in a formal gown, thought I was beyond reproach when it came to everyday dress. They both confirmed Rory's opinion, albeit a little more muted. What got my goat though was that even though I was luring Rory, I expected the occasional boy to comment on my newly-found curves beneath the uniform of Chilton blue.  
   
I'm afraid poor little Brad's compliments don't really count, even if he was the only one to make a comment. To be fair though, he was in that usual timid mood he seemed to be around me, afraid to say the wrong thing.  
   
 _Do you really need their approval?_ My mind questioned. _Your friends agree, and damn it, Rory agrees too, and this is why you're trying to do all of this, it's all for her, to lure her in. If some guy says you look hot you're not going to do anything but thank him, did you forget already just how close you were to losing control in that car and sliding your hand in further?  
_    
"Oh God," I moaned, recalling that I almost did drift that hand high against Rory's inner thigh, and if that traffic jam hadn't cleared up, that things could've have taken the turn of revelation in a swift manner.  
   
That day, I made so much headway when it came to touching; I think that I'm beyond reproach when it comes to admitting my feelings to Rory. I have to know if she feels the same way about me. But looking at myself in that mirror, with nothing but silence and corrupted thoughts in my ears, I was aching for release.  
   
I started out with my breasts, rubbing the fabric of the blouse slowly against each of them, trying to make sure every piece of erect tissue within the two areolas was aroused to a level that caused me to groan out harshly as my hands brushed against them. I imagined Rory's small and delicate fingertips in place of mine, elegantly balancing the line between worship and outright carnality of my tits, recalling her looks at the swell of my bust over the last two weeks, and electrifying the sparks sent up my spine from her back rubs in order to get a sense of her touch there.  
   
My gaze went from my own body to my mirror image, and I found myself being turned on looking over myself. My lower lip quivered as I became adventurous, pushing the shirt aside to expose a breast. In my mind, I brought over that image earlier of her biting her lip in the car, and pinched the nipple softly, thinking of how she would kiss and nip at them, her soft lips and tongue teasing them to the point of almost a true and solid state. I yelped and felt this mix of pleasure and pain which I hope to reproduce with better results with the actual test subject one day, I wanted much more.  
   
I could feel Rory all over wearing that shirt, against my shoulders, all over my chest, and in my nostrils, her perfume permeating my senses. I also could feel her up against my lower section, and brought my eyes down towards the very apparent wet spot on my silk panties. I ran a hand down my midsection, watching in the mirror as the tip of my index fingernail traced its second maze of the day around my bellybutton. A fantasy was building up involving the events of the morning, and I wanted to keep it brewing just a bit longer before I walked over to the bed and basked in the sexual brainstorm.  
   
My God, I had some fun in that mirror; doing everything I had dreamed of before the crush on Rory started heating up. I ran a finger against my wetness, feeling the skin beneath the cloth tingle with each touch of fingertip to satin to skin cell; my sex must have really been needy for attention all day. I ran another hand against the back of my neck, failing to replicate in full Rory's unique way of easing out all of that tension and pushing it from my neck and lower. I would moan her name recklessly and without abandon, creating new syllables for that combination of four letters out of thin air as I teased myself with her in my thoughts. I thought of her in her outfit that morning, only I took the skirt she still wore off and imagined her in matching white panties, and I still clothed, though taking the chaste idea of brushing her hair much further as I felt ready to wallow within my dream situation. I started walking towards the bed a little shaky...  
   
 ** _I'm at the point where I'm brushing her hair, but instead of merely asking her to shrug down her undershirt, I ask her to take it off. Rory questions my motives at first, but I assure her they're completely innocuous. She complies, a little leery, but notice she's not complaining about my request.  
   
I remember where her bra line would usually be, and start to brush her hair just slightly above it, trying not to arouse suspicion. Instead of scratching Rory's back however with my free hand, I bring it to the nape of her neck and start rubbing against each side of the bottom of it. I can slowly feel whatever skittishness she had before slowly ease out, so I decide to go a little further.  
   
"You like that Rory?" I ask in the best seductive tone I can muster, though in my ears it sounds as if I'm auditioning for 'Red Shoe Diaries'.  
   
"Yes, a little faster, on both counts." I can hear a smile in her voice, and hasten the movement of my thumb and forefingers against her neck. I dig into her hair a little closer to the plate of the brush, and my strokes become a little faster. My face moves closer in order to feel the warming body heat basking off of her, and I notice the sunlight of the room from the window is almost directly at us. Rory's shadow is apparent against the wall, and detailed, and since I can't make out her bare front from the point of view of behind her back, I have to make do with the shape of her shadow, the delicate rise and fall of her chest apparent in her dark form against the wall. The swell of her breasts formed into the perfect tip of a water droplet as it comes down, and I caught a breath as I realized my heated breath was apparent against her shoulder, and could be heard as very shallow and short.  
   
I want to take it back as she catches on to my signals, her shoulders tightening on her frame. I feel embarrassed and want to shirk away from her.  
   
Then her dream self gives me the all systems go, and I have to shake off the feeling I was hearing things as her words become apparent.  
   
"Par," she tells me in a shy, yet assertive tone. "I think we could miss class just this once, don't you?" She then backs her neck towards my face, a very blatant move on her part. "Is there something you've been keeping from me?"  
   
I gulp down some saliva, afraid to answer. "Not really, no."  
   
"I notice the fine details Paris." Rory's confidence slowly was picking up. "The small signals, the lingering touches, the obvious foreplay that's expressed in our voices rather than our bodies. What your voice does to me, the way you state things…" she wandered off a moment, and turned around, her eyes fluttered closed. "That's the kind of foreplay that makes me wet when I go to bed at night."  
   
My eyes wander down to her ample, yet small breasts, perfectly proportioned to her body. She brings her left hand up to my face, and brushes a couple of hairs out of my eyes. Her eyes are full of arousal, and it's obvious to me that she wants to breach the boundaries usually holding us back. I watch her lips, transfixed by her words. "Dean used to give me 'amor', as you'd say in Portuguese, but it's never been enough. From the beginning of Chilton you've been there, through anger and sorrow, joyfulness and victories. And now I want to reward you for being there for me, since you're the 'amor de minha vida' that's been yearning for it for so long. I feel I'd give you that promise, and much more."  
   
And then she closes the distance and kisses me. A small, simple kiss at first, but something Rory knows will just instigate me into taking the kiss far from being innocent. The way she's kissing me, I can tell she's been saving her major league stuff for me, and leaving Dean the kissing style she trained on from AA Beloit. I hasten the process and bring her closer in a hug, her full and wanting tits squashed against my own. I deepen it further, and before I know it, she's moaning my name out and asking me permission to undo my uniform.  
   
_**The situation is perfect, and as I bring the covers down on my bed and lay down on it, the track of my mind has been reduced to a base level, hand to pussy. I don't bother with the teasing and put my left hand right in, my thumb against my clit within seconds. "Fuck, oh Rory!" I scream as she shock pours through me, it doesn't take all that long for my hand to become damp with the arousal building up inside and finally getting at least a little release. I spread open my legs, and place a finger on each side, writhing in place as I tried to imagine Rory becoming a little adventurous.  
   
 ** _The dream I have heats up, and for about ten minutes I try to picture each of us giving each other slow and teasing foreplay, trying to ease ourselves into a comfort zone. She unclasps my bra by reaching beneath my blouse, and starts kissing at each of my breasts through the blue shirt I wear above them. Rory is trying to help me out, and wanting to go with the flow, I comply with her wishes, holding off on her pleasure as long as I can. Somehow, I manage to feel like I'm not returning the favor, but she doesn't seem to mind, struggling with the snaps of my skirt in order to throw it off of me. She grits her teeth, swearing at the elusive little snap.  
   
"Come on damn little guy, fly free, fly free!" she says, and I can't help but giggle at her desperation. Somehow, Rory is finally able to disengage the snap after about a couple minutes, and I'm only too impatient to slip out of the plaid article and throw it off to the side of the bed.  
   
She finishes unbuttoning my blouse, and I shrug it and the bra off, along with each of our shoes and socks coming off , leaving us sitting on that bed, kissing with fervor in our panties. Rory plays with my breasts for a few moments, running her index fingers around the inner circle surrounding each nipple, then the outer fringe 1 3/4" away from the inner circumference where the aureoles begin, turning a rosy shade of pink from my sort of darkish Mediterranean skin tone. I feel the tips of her nipples just below the undersides of my own breasts, and I cry out in agony as she licks her fingers, then brushes the saliva onto the tip of each nipple. She blows a puff of air onto each one, and I shut my eyes as I feel every nerve ending within my torso, and my extremities transmit the pleasure all over my body.  
   
"Yes Rory," I answer with a crackly throat, and then with no need to ask my permission, she suckles the top of one of my breasts with her mouth, wrapping her lips around the skin below and biting hard into it as she made this little suctioning action that was definitely more than an innocent gesture of appreciation for my body. I made a high-pitched little whine and tried to keep my concentration on what I was doing, kissing her forehead since my mouth craved any contact with her.  
   
After one last nip, she releases her mouth, and I bring my gaze down as she hovers above me, appreciating her handiwork. There, on the top of my right breast and what would barely be hidden by my bra cup, was a dark purple bruise signifying that I was hers to treasure, a hickey.  
   
I looked up at her, sort of swooning, sort of mad that she did something like that. But those usually innocent blue eyes instead reflect her adoration of me, and that even if I could control our order in the world of textbooks and Harvard, we would be nothing but equals as lovers. The Rory I dream of knew I was a control freak, but by giving me that love bite, she had turned the tables around.  
   
"I want you all," she commands in a mix of her 'what's up quippy?' pissed-off voice and that nervous one I'd seen her use around Dean. "And if you'll let me, I'd like to be your first and last."  
   
There was no need to elaborate on her motives, Rory moving up to my lips and giving me a lingering kiss as she hooked her fingers around my panties. I knew the message she was sending; she was getting over her sexual inadequacies in order for me to get over my own. I felt her thigh rub against mine harshly as she starts kissing down my middle, causing me to moan that I needed her now, along with plenty of sexual cursing.  
   
That only causes her to tease and linger on something each time I demand she obey me. First she stops right in the space between my breasts until I settle down, agonized beyond belief. Rory continues. and I go on being wound up, and then suddenly, she stops just between my belly button and the upper edge of my pubic hairline. She pulls my panties down my legs slowly, causing me to gasp from the new rush of cold air caused by my tingling and sensitive flesh being exposed.  
   
"Now, now Par," she admonishes in a sarcastic tone that could only be perfected by anyone with Gilmore blood in their veins. "My tongue won't be able to do its work unless you stay completely still for me, I've been practicing for this in the mirror for months, bastardizing those WPM-improvement tapes you gave me for my own twisted needs. Not only can I do 200 WPM now, but I think I can bring you to a powerful release in mere seconds." She then smiles up at me like the cat who ate the canary. "But for you I think I can stretch that out for an indeterminable amount of time."  
   
Desperate to see how she'd be at cunnilingus, I close my mouth and try to keep any unexpected words from coming out, and think of Summer and Dean mating together in order to temporarily gag my sex drive.  
_**   
Boy did that help me out a lot, since it gave me just that much time to throw my underwear off to the side and spread my legs wider as I put the three middle fingers of my left hand into my mouth and moistened them with my saliva. Despite the fact I had a vibrator in my drawer off to the side (Louise bought it for me as a gag gift, but I actually use it occasionally), sliding wet fingers inside of me seemed to be a crude, but effective way to Xerox the effect of Rory's tongue down there.  
   
I reenacted most of the tease myself as my hands drifted down my upper body, the cooling sensation of my spit stiffening almost everything on my person, with my thoughts giving me a little help.  
   
After a little trepidation and a paranoid look both ways around the room to see if anyone was watching despite the locked door and drawn shades, I ran a finger against my clitoris, which seemed to have a life of it's own. I barely touched that flesh and whinnied deeply. If that alone was enough to take me over the edge I had to slow down the fantasy a little.  
   
So I took my time. DreamRory didn't go down on me right away so that I could give other parts of my body some attention. I ran my dry hand against my breasts, and tried to keep my session going as long as I could. I turned around in the bed and rubbed up against my sheet, trying to bring the fantasy to a short halt. The shirt Rory wore was causing me to feel things that Tristan or any other guy never would have caused.  
   
I teased my slit in an agonizing manner, enjoying every little shudder and moan that went through my system as my wet fingers worked their magic, though keeping myself silent with the pleasure was becoming an iffy proposition. There was this butterfly-ish tingle in the pit of my stomach that I had never felt even when I built myself over a matter of weeks in my Tristan days for a powerful orgasm. I closed my eyes shut, and eventually, parted my lips again so I could slide my fingers all the way into my slit, imagining Rory down there...  
   
 ** _Rory starts out slow, and I can tell she has some shaky nerves, never getting to the step of oral pleasure, even with Dean. I hear her sniff, trying to psyche herself up a little, though she's seems assured and confident. I feel her nose tickle against my hair, and suddenly she reels back a little.  
   
At first I'm scared that she finds me unworthy, until she holds her nose and pinches it closed. Rory sneezes, and all I could do was laugh back at her as I hand her a tissue to blow her nose.  
   
"You're not allergic to me, are you?" I ask, and Rory rolls her eyes as she wipes her nose and blows into the disposable handkerchief.  
   
"Ha, ha, ha Gellar, you're so funny with that joke I forgot to laugh." She smiles so that I don't take her joke too seriously as she comes back down for a second try. "Now be quiet and still, I want to do this right."_**

 ** _I find her saying that cute, her trying to be a perfectionist when it comes to oral sex. But it was kind of annoying, since the first time should be far from perfect. I prop a couple of pillows up against my back, and beckoned her closer to ease her into this. I took her head in my hands and tried to help her start a consistent rhythm, rubbing her scalp reassuringly.  
   
"You'll be fine hon," was all I could get out as Rory sticks out her tongue, and within moments eases it into me, immediately finding just that right spot.  
   
"YOU'RE BETTER THAN FINE!!! YES!!!" I scream as her tongue works its magic below, and I'm seriously thinking that I want to reciprocate all of this with her. But then I remember what she told me before we started foreplay; that she could wait another night, for now this was all about me, the girl who needs to be worshipped by someone not involved with the Princeton Review.  
   
Usually, someone who tells me that makes me feel like an old maid. But with Rory, it caused me to become even more turned on. She takes my ass into her hands, and holds onto each side for dear life as she tries to find her perfect rhythm, my hands moving her mouth around whenever she gets off-track, guiding her back to my clit. It's really needy for attention, and I can feel it throb with each stroke of her tongue. My eyes roll into the back of my head and I swear to God there was nothing more I wanted to do with my life thinking of her that way; Harvard could reject me, the only job I could get would be as copyrighter for some shopper in Providence, and I wouldn't have as much money as I really have. As long as Rory is with me, I don't care, because she's the one I've been living for lately.  
   
_**I go on and on with the fantasy, fingering myself with more fervor than I ever had in my short sexual life. I thanked my Daddy for having the forethought of granting my dance school wishes when I was six; without them I wouldn't have broke, and I couldn't have penetrated myself deeper than I had that evening. I could still smell Rory's scent on the blouse, but sweat was building up all over my body and my own essence was quickly overtaking hers. So before I could forget I brought it closer, and with an impure thought of Rory floating in my mind deciding to slide her hand up her skirt in my car as I drove down the road, I knew I had to take care of this itch I had, and soon! Goddamn, she smells good!  
   
My clit seemed to harden with each touch of my fingertips, and I kept putting the saliva-coated hand in my mouth to keep the dream of Rory eating me out going. I tasted myself when I slipped the fingers in my mouth; I thought I tasted fine, but I don't know if I could easily taste the flavor. Something that's both bitter and with a hint of sweet at the same time, but not too sweet, nor too untasty. Better to just imagine Rory thinks I'm a divine flavor...  
   
 ** _"You...liking...that...Par?" she gasps out as she tries to come up for some air. I can tell she's starting to wear out a little, and I press her to continue before her jaw stiffens from such heavy use. Her tongue slides in and out of my slit, and I'm still in shock that organ can do so much more than blast off witticisms and observations at a speed I didn't know was possible.  
   
"Fuck Rory, yes. Fuck me, fuck me." My voice is raspy as I bring her head closer, so close in fact that I can feel the front of her teeth mash against my lips, I hope she can breathe! But she seems to be just fine, as a matter of fact she's speeding her strokes. I arch back on the bed as I feel her hands tighten even harder on my rear. I look down at the hickey she gave me earlier on my tit, and feel another gush of arousal coming down from my stomach. Oh God, oh my God...  
   
She's thrusting her tongue in and out like a little cock, but so much better. The sandpaper-ish like tingle of the organ against the sensitive tissue of my cunt, I felt like I was dripping my juices into her mouth so much she must be ready to drown soon. She heard my gasps and my anguised cries for her to make me come soon, and picked up the pace quite a bit.  
   
_**The dream was starting to really work its magic, as each touch of my clit seemed to tingle with even more power than the last. I was starting to feel dizzy from all the desire, moaning Rory's name as if she was actually there. The shirt felt even heavier as I went on and my fingers became sore; almost like her slim figure was right on top of me, weighing me down. I think back to that night in Washington I finally succumbed to my desires; this was as far from that as could be. That was simple basic lust I was dealing with in the nation's capital. Here though, there was a slight chance that in the next few weeks, Rory could reciprocate my feelings. I seriously wanted to finish myself off by that time since my eyelids were weighed heavy with sleep, and any more use of my hands and I'd have to make up an interesting excuse for the reason it was stabilized by a cast since I wore down the tendons.  
   
Alright, so I'm exaggerating just a smidge there. Seriously though, I stroked, pinched, scratched, did almost anything to bring myself over the brink. With Rory's help, it worked wonders...  
   
 ** _"That's right, make me cum baby, make me cum, I love this Gilmore, I love you." Sentences didn't make sense anymore to express what I felt for what Rory was causing me to feel, and she was starting to tinker with not only getting me off with her tongue, but had slipped a finger between my legs to hasten the process. My long mane of hair was pretty much done for, tangled and soaked, and I'm sure that Rory would need to hop in the shower to clean her face of my cum as I recovered from the orgasm she was causing.  
   
Finger, tongue, finger, tongue. She was in her groove now, and I feel that large butterfly being pushed down my stomach faster than it had before. I feel the liquid stirring up inside of me, and there was going to be a lot coming out once I reached my peak. She fucks me with her tongue as if she knows how to work my parts, and the brunette I had started out hating was swiftly becoming a person I couldn't live without.  
   
Before I knew it though, she had hit that perfect spot. I try to hold it back for as long as I could as her tongue sweeps across my swollen clit, and start to warn her that she might want to move out of the way. "ROR, I'M--I'M--GONNA--CUMM..."  
   
I can't even get it out and barely get the sentence out as I feel my pelvic muscles contract within and my eyes tighten, all I can see in the darkness caused by my lids is stars and swirls of many colors. I was expecting her to retreat her face back, but she keeps stirring me up, her tongue still in my slit and prepared for the onslaught.  
   
She doesn't make it out of course. I arch and curl my toes as the orgasmic feeling spreads from my belly and my pussy, to all over, I can feel it everywhere. The tips of my hands, the blades of my shoulders, each root of my hair, and especially in my breasts, God, I never had known an orgasm could be this good! I scream out every exclamation and curse I can possibly think of as the feeling washes over me, and Rory takes in my unique sense and taste. I call out her name as I ride out the waves, and finally, about a couple minutes later, I stop as she lifts her face up from between my legs, and grips at my side to bring herself up to my face level.  
   
I'm tired out, sleepy, every chamber of my heart beating at quadruple the normal rate and want nothing more than to take Rory into my arms, spoon into her, and have her watch me fall asleep in her arms. She smiles at me, and for at least a bit, the Gilmore wit and sarcasm she usually has is replaced with amazement that a girl like her had just done that with a girl like me.  
   
She smiles, and I run a finger through her hair and down towards her jaw as she settles down from it. "That was even better than I thought," she told me. "I just wonder though, maybe we could do it again in a bit, and this time I receive?"  
   
I laugh weakly. "Hon, you know I would, but you wore me out! Now I know why Lorelai was irresistible to all the men back when she was a teenager, you got her genes." I laugh as she fakes a scowl.  
   
"OK, not wanting to hear about my mother at all, nor her 'oral habits', as you would put it." She scrunched her nose, and I kissed her as I cuddled her closer.  
   
"Sorry Gilmore," I say as we look into each other's eyes. "I did love that all you know, and I love you Rory."_**

 ** _"Right back at ya," she says, and the dream fades out as we fall asleep together...  
   
_**Now you'd expect me to cut back to past tense Tuesday night around nine here and describe in detail what the whole thing had done to me, how much I came and that the center of my bed was totally soaked with my arousal, and that I basked in the afterglow, happy despite my solitary state. Also, there would be a serious craving for some kind of tobacco product or chewing gum to finish off the night perfectly.  
   
Well, you'd be right. But you'll have to move that description up to the next morning and change some details around since as with my dream self, I immediately passed out after I came and before I knew it, the backup alarm from my Palm was beeping, I was waking out of a deep and dreamless slumber, and I found myself looking at black-on-green numbers on my alarm clock reading 6:43am.  
   
I still felt a little dazed despite the nine hours of sleep I had unexpectedly fallen into, and since I couldn't get back into my normal position, felt a stinging numbness in each of my widened legs, having to shake both of them to get blood flowing again since the vessels seemed pinched. After I realized how much time I had left, there wasn't enough time to think of anything else but getting ready for school, so I got up and started my routine in a rush of activity, and seriously needing trip to the bathroom and a shower.  
   
Crossing my fingers that Rory didn't get into trouble with the sprinklers at Dwight's again, I jumped right back into my routine, killing any thoughts of her as I showered, dressed, ate and organized my schoolwork so I was out the door by 7:20.  
   
As I merged onto the bypass around Hartford, it came to me that I had forgotten one important thing; to make my bed! You know how embarrassing it is to have to call back home and let the housekeeper know not to enter your bedroom, and that you'd take care of your own bedclothes later in the evening? Yeah, my housekeeper is that much of a bitch that I'd probably get a lecture that 'good girls don't do that' from Sharon if she found out why I went to bed at 8:30 the night before thanks to Celina relaying in detailed Spanish every stain she found on the sheets!  
   
I arrived at school on time on Wednesday and I had expected Rory to be in a good mood about everything that had happened between us. Unfortunately, she was distant and out of it all day, and though she did sit close to me as usual and still play with my hair in Russian Novels, she was down. I couldn't get anything out of her about what was wrong at lunch, so I waited patiently through the day until it was 4:30 and we were in the press room monitoring the week's _Franklin_ run.  
   
I asked her in a stern tone what happened, and made it clear that her demand to hear everything about my life, including Sharon applied in turn to her also in my eyes, and sat her down in a chair as we watched the run of 1,800 editions fall into the tray below.  
   
She seemed to be playing with the bracelet Dean had given her, and it was only after I heard her mumble out that she had broken up with him because of the inopportune fact that Jess happened to be the warmest body nearby to help Rory turn the sprinklers off, and his brain, which seemed stuck in the Paleozoic Era reasoned 'Other guy help Rory with sprinkler - Rory fuck him behind my back - club her, take her back to cave after killing Jess - make her lame housewife' that I realized what she was doing.  
   
Rory was trying to take it off, symbolically cutting off her love for him.  
   
"I'll help you out with that," I told her as I took her wrist and retrieved an apple knife from my messenger bag, concealed as a tube of lipstick in order to keep the paranoid teachers from applying those annoying Columbine aftermath policies on me just because I wanted to cut a piece of fruit in half. I was kind of nervous though, afraid I was going to accidentally pierce into her skin and open up an artery since my hand was so shaky. I asked her one more time if she was sure she didn't want it on her wrist, making sure it wasn't caused by a heat of the moment.  
   
"Paris, I'm done. Last night was the breaking point." She smiled, and had no tears to cry for her first love. "First with Tristan, then it was with Jess. When you say something about his girlfriend and him in it for the sex and not the love right in front of their faces without a regard to their relationship, it's time, he's a control freak who's better off without me."

"What did he say to you?" I asked, my heart skipping a few beats as my mind wrapped around the fact Rory was as free as Carrie Bradshaw.  
   
Rory then initiated a dead-on impersonation of Dean's lunkhead voice. "Rory, it's clear he's in love with you, he doesn't give a damn about Shane and uses her as a living blow-up doll, imagining she's you. Jess doesn't know how to love, and neither does Shane. You know you're the only one for me, blah, blah, blah, love, love, love, never get out of my sight my love because I have all the appeal of an evil Lifetime movie boyfriend played by Ivan Sergei, and so on."

I laughed at her act, and couldn't wait to hear the result. "Let me guess what happens next, Miss Patty hears, spreads the gossip, then Jess beats Deano within an inch of his life."  
   
"Actually," she told me, "he was just coming down the stairs, and Shane had heard almost everything working in the back room washing dishes. Dean pretty much lost his concentration and argument after she said 'Wow, that's news to me Produce Pete, considering I got a promise ring from Jess Saturday night and he confessed he loved me. Then I told him I loved him too and gave him a ring of my own' as she walked over and gave her boyfriend, my **boy friend** with a space in the middle never to be combined together, a pretty intimate hug, then a cute kiss."  
   
"Oh boy, how many shades of red did Jess turn once Dean turned around and had to face him?"  
   
"I think Jess was in the darkest part of the red color palate as he told Dean to leave Luke's and never come back unless he wants his uncle, Taylor, and Shane to kick his ass all the way back to Winnetka!"  
   
"And you?"  
   
"Told him to call me back once he finally turned seven and until then to fuck off!"  
   
"Actual words?"  
   
"I was editing, dickhead finished off the sentence." She beamed a bright smile towards me, and that was when I knew without a doubt that her and Dean were as history as J-Lo and Chris Judd. I told Rory I was proud of her, and with not much effort, I used the apple knife to cut through the thin yet resilient leather, baring her left arm permanently from his influence. I handed it back thinking she'd simply throw it in the wastebasket, but she suggested that it might be more fun if we used our student body presidential key privileges to make a little stop in one of the chemical sciences classrooms.  
   
We both grinned like clowns on Ritalin and crystal meth as we both took tongs and dipped Dean's bracelet into a beaker of hydrochloric acid; the pithy little strap and cheaply forged little coin charm never stood a chance in the volatile liquid, and we watched it disintegrate into a dark black mess of burned cowhide and metal. She then had me drive into downtown Hartford after all our work at the school was done, and she threw what was left of the former bracelet off the Founder's Bridge and into the murky waters of the Connecticut River below, the debris spreading like ashes onto the waterway. What I thought was her trying to back off her track with me the last two weeks, instead turned out to be what I think might be the turning point in our relationship.  
   
We walked in downtown Hartford for about an hour, watching the nature pack up for winter and the last leaves fall off their trees in Bushnell Park. When we approached a bench with a perfect view of the skyline and the dome of the Statehouse, she had me sit down, and seemed a little nervous. I wondered why, and my heart started skipping again, considering all the possibilities of what she might say next.  
   
Was she moving away from Connecticut? Telling me she was having a secret fling with Tristan? Running away to become a model in New York? She took my hand in hers, and asked me the most important question I've ever heard, nothing before that in a class or in my life prepared me for that moment.  
   
"Paris?"  
   
"Uh-huh?" I found myself trying to be evasive, and then I listened to her ask her favor.  
   
"I need another favor, would you be my partner in the Annual Dance Marathon we're having in Stars Hollow Saturday?"  
   
I certainly couldn't ask her to pinch me (bye-bye any hidden feelings and hope!), so my mind recycled the question, and brought up what I could remember from our 'seedy side' article.  
   
The famous 24-hour dance marathon. The one officiated by Taylor and usually won by Kirk every year. The event that starts at six in the morning on a Saturday, and ends at six as the sun rises on a Sunday morning. An affair that Lorelai usually brings out all her blood-thirsty tactics for to win, but usually fails because she consistently makes the fatal mistake of wearing heels as dancing shoes.  
   
The one event...where my body would have close, and very intimate contact with a certain other brunette's body for between as little as a minute, or if God allowed, a full revolution of the earth (give or take a few seconds or minutes).

There I was, being asked to be her dance partner. I didn't know what to make of it, so I asked her why she would ask me.  
   
"Lorelai has a hotelier's convention to attend in Nashville until Sunday evening, so she won't be able to partner up with me this year. But I really, really want to win that trophy and prove to my fellow citizens that I can dance with the best of them. I have to keep our strong rivalry with Kirk going, and I figure you're just the girl who can help me win it."  
   
"But how, I have--"  
   
"--Had a strong and successful dance side project career thing going before you were eleven, when your mother pulled you out of there to have you focus on getting into Harvard and nothing else. Not only have that, your 'talent agent' suggested you quit since puberty was taking quite the toll on your formerly slender figure despite having one of the most supporting teachers in New England. This wouldn't only help me out, but Paris; you could be victorious in this and let your mother know that you had something good going there before she went school-insane!"  
   
I was then reminding myself never to have Louise recount my childhood in excruciating detail to Rory during a boring study session ever again. That, and I had to lock up every award, trophy and ribbon I ever earned from those five years I pursued my childhood hobby. I remember the day I quit in December of 1996 many of the parents in my ballet, tap, ballroom and modern dance classes celebrating the fact I was no longer there to beat their children during my recitals.  
   
Since then however, I had lost my touch. I gained two left feet from ending my dance career, and with my social life being defined by Madeline and Louise, two men in a little box (Brian Lamb and Alex Trebek) and one real boy in Tristan, fell out of the whole dance scene altogether. I'd still watch the ballets and ballroom dancing championships on PBS and Bravo like a little child in awe, along with figure skating, but it wasn't the same. Sharon had taken me out just before the swing craze broke out across America, and instead of becoming a dancer like I had dreamed as a kid, I became yet another Harvard-obsessed girl, drowning my former dreams by becoming fixated on politics and journalism, which thank God I'm good at on both counts. I love them, but dancing still holds a special place within.  
   
I looked at her, wondering what to say. I tried making up excuses in my head to say no. Technically I was having fun, so the whole endeavor didn't violate the Sabbath. And I certainly couldn't tell her that being that close would cause my hormones to go haywire, causing a full-on lesbian reenactment of _Dirty Dancing_ that would be a day long.  
   
I came up with one that I thought would pass muster. "But I don't know if I can stay awake that long Ror." I smiled at her kind of weird, and she put on a little frown.  
   
"Well there will be coffee and plenty of sugary sweets and pizza, I could get one with soy cheese since I could probably request that from Joe just for you, plus you get four twenty minute breaks throughout in order to put your feet on ice and catch a few winks. And don't tell me you're out of shape, I'm sure if you can really think back, you'll have your old moves back in no time!"  
   
"What about school? This will certainly mess up my biological clock."  
   
"It's on the weekend, so you could get your homework done Friday evening, sleep until about 4am, then come and dance. You can resume your sleep schedule after an abnormal Sunday nap."  
   
I stared at her like she was on crack before she started playing with my knuckles, then unconsciously I found myself doing the same thing. Rory asked me to make eye contact, and as I looked at her, into her pleading eyes, those two orbs that enchant me the most, and that cause my resistance to fall, along with her smile.  
   
"Paris," she started, being serious as a heart attack. "You don't have to say yes to it, nor do you have to feel pressured that I'm asking you to go. I just want you to know that I think of you as becoming my closest friend soon, and that I'm coming to you with this invitation because I know you'll put all you have into this. I know it's going to be a challenge staying awake, but you put your heart into this, we're going to win, Kirk's not going to have a chance in hell. I just want you to think back to two weeks ago when I challenged you on the pitch in gym class. You had a blast playing that field hockey game, didn't you? This is something that we can take, and Par, I wouldn't come to you with such a favor unless I really needed it. I was already iffy on Dean and I winning before last night, but with you on my side and in my arms, I think we both have a shot."  
   
She smiles, and I don't know what to tell her. It's such an obvious request for her to be my partner, but I don't know if I could be ready to attempt to solidify my feelings for her in such a short period of time. I'd only have at least two evenings to prepare, and though there'd be no doubt I could find my footing again on the hardwood of Minutemen Gymnasium, I'd be seriously thrown for a loop, balancing my competition instinct with that of my arms wrapped around Rory's neck, sharing an intimate 2x'2' box and swooning with every little touch and tingle.

I thought about it for a couple minutes, swinging between yes and no for an answer. I couldn't decide right then and there, and thought perhaps that she might have someone else she could get on such short notice.  
   
 _Don't let it slip by_ , my conscious told me. My mind went the more analytical route. _Don't do it, you're not ready_.  
   
But the truth is, I was ready to go, I just didn't know if I was **that** ready. Rory made it clear in her words that it wasn't a date, which it certainly wasn't because of the abnormal time frame of a full day with her, but it was still too much too soon, Dean still had to be fresh in her mind. So not feeling ready to answer, I decided to leave it open for another day.  
   
"I'm not sure yet," I told her, smiling. "Honestly, I need a day to think this over Rory. I'm not saying yes, I'm not saying no, but if I gave you a response by tomorrow afternoon, would that be OK? I still have a few things to work out before I decide to go for this."  
   
I expected her to pull out another card and tell me to forget about it.  
   
Instead, she smiled back at me, and gave me a reassuring pat on my hand. "Take your time, I want you to know for sure if you do say yes, but it's not the end of the world if you tell me you can't."  
   
Rory thanked me for my honesty, and we headed back towards the parking garage so I could run her home before I spent a night in seclusion, deciding my fate. The mixed messages she's been sending me started jumbling in my brain as soon as I left Stars Hollow, and I continued to be my own personal Florida, separating the good votes from the bad and checking for chads in the decision, going to bed around ten still not sure if I would go or not.  
   
I had a dream that night, of the entire marathon situation and my close proximity to the girl I loved. The most important item in it all had never seemed to come up until then; what would the residents of her town think of two young women dancing together? That was definitely frowned on at any Hartford ball, and at Chilton, you never even considered it within the realm of the upper class. I thought of Rory and I dancing together in a mix of slow and fast songs, trying to get my footwork from the old days back desperately, and though struggling, staying up. Everyone in the crowd looked at us as if we were the only two on the floor, and I felt their eyes move with each sweep across the floor, both of us in tune with the music.  
   
Of course there had to be a nightmare portion of the dream, and Dean filled those shoes snug. He sat off to the side of the proceedings, muttering in my direction that I was an usurper out to ruin his life by stealing Rory away from him. In that situation I felt like 'the other woman', there to fill an emergency need for Rory to have a partner. He'd say cruel things I don't wish to share, but I can mention that words beginning with the letters F and Q were directed by him towards the both of us.  
   
The dream ended abruptly when my mother and Dean came out of the crowd to try to break Rory and I apart by any means necessary, including violence. I woke abruptly, and read the clock at 3:45am, trying to make sense of it all. Dreaming of the situation hadn't helped things at all, and I was left even more confused. Would Dean dare to disparage me?  
   
I needed an impartial third party to this all, so despite the early time, I decided to give my nanny a call, wanting her opinion. I dialed up to her quarters upstairs, and Francisca answered in a tired voice. Since she knew my feelings for Rory to a small point (I was telling her a few things here and there, but leaving out some of the more mature content), I was able to ask if I should go with Rory to the dance marathon.  
   
"Tell me Paris," she spoke in English, "Would you have wanted to go back when you wanted Tristan to be your _príncipe_ (prince)?"  
   
"Of course I did."  
   
"If he offered you the world without any questions, you would have taken the opportunity."  
   
I certainly didn't have to think on that. "Yes, I would."  
   
"Then I have a simple question for you my _menina_ (girl); why would you not want to do this? You haven't let anything like this ever get you down before, and every day you look towards the telephone hoping that Mistress Gilmore calls you back, and the front door hoping she'll come by for a non-school visit. You never had a passion for wanting Tristan like you have Rory."

She paused for a moment to refresh her English. "The girl, whenever she comes by here, loves to get lost in everything that you do, she envies your library and loves your room. And if you'd open your heart, your _alma_ (soul) to her, you'd know she that she'd fill it with her love. She gave up safe love for a chance with you Paris, and is ready to take the risk."  
   
"You're sure?" I asked. "I don't want to regret this and find out that everything she did I misread."  
   
"Paris, she wouldn't have invited you out of pity, you know she's above that. You also know that before, she would've made it work again with her old love, no matter if she could or not. She loves you and wants to see you return to the dance floor, something I've been aching for you to do since you turned away from it at the behest of _sua cadela de mãe_ (your bitch of a mother)."  
   
I laughed; thank God my mother knew little Portuguese except for the basic commands, since Fran has called her just about every slur in the book. "You really think Rory is my _a única_ (only one)?"  
   
"That is up to you _minha_ _menina_ , I can't tell you for sure. Don't let this slip through because of your mother and some ignorant individuals, that would be horrible to me. I hope I've helped raise you to be a strong young woman who goes after what she wants, and right now, you want to fall in love. Do what your heart tells you and if it says don't, you shouldn't. But I think your torch for Rory is strong and bright, and I'll be ready Saturday morning to turn you into her personal pretty little _cisne_ (swan) before you leave for Stars Hollow, promise."  
   
I felt a lot better after listening to my nanny's words, and though I wouldn't decide for another twelve hours, I was ready to give in to the opportunity. " _Eu te amo Francisca, obrigado para o conselho_ (I love you Francisca, thank you for the advice)."  
   
" _Você é bem-vindo minha menina, dorme bem._ (You are welcome my girl, sleep well)". I fell back into bed, and had a restful and happy sleep after that.  
   
I went through the day still a little unsure, but by the time seventh period had rolled around and a Latin lecture that meant little to my grade since I knew the words being tested already, I had daydreamed of the marathon, but in a much more positive way than my subconscious had mixed up in my sleep. Rory seemed to back off just a little, in order to keep my mind clear and to keep her influence out of it. I missed the backrub that day, but all that did was make the decision easier.  
   
With nothing to do that evening with student government or the paper, and an in-service keeping everyone except the teachers home for Friday, I met her after school in the courtyard, and we sat down on a bench away from any of Madeline's sources just in case they wanted to spread something that might not end up being true. She seemed scared, and as she sat next to me, asked if I had considered her offer in a neutral way, unaffected.  
   
"Rory," I started, "I would be honored to be your partner Saturday. I think I'll survive being up for a day plus--"  
   
Everything else I was going to say after that was muffled by her sweater vest as I heard what I thought was a gushing her squeak "Really?!" out, and she hugged me. Very tightly. No one else was in the courtyard so that the gossips could bastardize it, but it felt good, wonderful. And it showed me that Rory was thankful I had said yes.  
   
"OK, Gilmore, I kind of need my lungs for respiration," I muffled into the top of her right breast as she squeezed a little down towards my diaphragm.  
   
"Oh, uh, sorry." She felt kind of embarrassed and released it. "I'm just so excited, Kirk is going down and you're going to help me!"  
   
I let her bask in her almost-victory for a bit, and as we walked out to my car, I decided to ask for more details about the whole dance, like the theme and such. I was pleased to learn that it was themed on the early forties, and though some modern music would be played in the late evening hours, most of it was going to be classic big band and torch singers.  
   
The only problem was what I was going to wear. My wardrobe seems to consist of either corduroy pants and cashmere sweaters, or my uniforms. I brought this up to Rory and she said if I was desperate for a dress I could come to town and try some out. I took it under advisement, but honestly didn't think I'd need to.  
   
Because after I dropped her off, and in an over-giddy voice said I couldn't wait for Saturday (see what the heck that girl's doing to me? I'm losing my serious edge!), I remembered that Francisca's had inherited her mother's wardrobe, and her mother's prime was during the 40's.  
   
She was only too proud to help me out with the choice of a dress, and I spent all Thursday night twirling to and fro around the ballroom downstairs in many of those dresses, trying to find the perfect one for Rory and ironing out my dancing kinks while I was at it. It had been all those years after my abrupt retirement, yet I was still graceful when it came to modern and ballroom dancing. I counted 1,2,3 to myself as if I was ten and carefree, remembering all the steps like the pro I used to be. Despite my larger figure since my last competition, my breasts seemed to behave just fine. Fran encouraged me on further and kept telling me all these stories of the war years in Lisbon involving her mother, and since the southern tip of Europe was neutral during the entire conflict, there was much more entertainment there than in say, London, it was awe inspiring hearing her describe all the dancing her mother did when back then in the war years. I fit the each of the dresses perfectly to mine and Francisca's surprises, but unfortunately, I could only wear one.  
   
I then spent most of yesterday stretching my body out and continuing to practice in the ballroom, thankful that Mohegan Man was keeping Sharon very distracted from anything I was doing. I left her an excuse saying I was to be in Boston today until early tomorrow so she'd be unaware of where I was, and she shrugged it off as she let me know she was flying out to San Diego for the weekend with Mohegan Man, something about a convention on a yacht or some other bullshit excuse.  
   
That entire description now leads me to here, at five in the morning, sitting at my vanity putting the last touches on my makeup (which I can do fine, surprisingly), and looking behind me at the three dresses I'm down to hanging off hooks on the bathroom door. Rory's going to be wearing a bright red dress with tiny little polka dots all over the fabric, so I have to pick out something that either relatively matches or contrasts. I was going to go with one that was a dark maroon to match my eye color, but that wouldn't match up with her well. So I was down to a dark green, a dark blue, and a dark orange dress.  
   
I held each one to my front, thinking of Rory in front of me and her eyes floating up and down my form, but each of them seem to clash with my ideal. Most of them seemed to be a little on the conservative side too, and as I slide a pink rose into my Lana Turner-inspired hairstyle (once again, Fran being a lifesaver with my hair, I would've gone with just a simple ponytail otherwise), I found myself in a sort of panic, sitting there trying to brainstorm if any of the other ones I rejected would be nice on a second look. They're spread all over the chaise lounge on one side of my room, and I go through them one more time, trying to find the perfect dress.  
   
I'm about ready to just give up and get one of my dad's suits from his closet. If I'm going to seduce Rory, why not go full-tilt Hollywood fantasy and call myself the man in the couple...  
   
But my eyes suddenly catch one on the bed I had rejected before as a little too much for Rory, without trying it on. "What the heck, it can't match up any worse than the others," I told myself as I decided to change right into it instead of going with a dry run.  
   
The dress is a rayon black halter with a pattern of tomatoes and onions all over the fabric, and my heart catches as it realizes how this all started, back in the dining hall with our shared salads the first day we met, the first thing we had in common that wasn't academic. It seemed ironic that I'm trying on a tomato dress, but I shrug the coincidence off as I slide into it.  
   
I love the feel of the manmade vintage fabric against my legs, smooth and sliding over my bare legs like it was exactly cut for my waistline. The skirt seems to run just a smidge below my knees, yet it flares out just enough so that during a spin the dress rises up with me, giving Rory a nice view of what I know she's been closely noticing. This again, isn't the time to bring out to bring out the stockings. Though I do have a set of unopened fishnets in the bottom of my dresser...nah, too much, and I wanted to have as much skin as possible exposed.  
   
As I brought it up my body, I realized that this wasn't a very conservative dress...it was a halter dress. I snapped the straps in the back together in a loose position, and found myself looking in the mirror at someone who could turn some heads.  
   
I looked hot. I, Paris Gellar, social wallflower, had found the one dress in the world that seems to be perfect for my body type, and which flattered what I wanted. My legs within the dress seemed long, the intended effect, and along the waist, the fabric seemed to be cut so close that when I walked around the room, I could feel the rayon tighten and release against my thighs, the dark color and bright pattern also helping to hide my pantyline, which since I was going to be hand-to-hand with Rory for an extended period of time, I decided to make it special. Lacy and thin dark red silk, that way something that day besides my dancing shoes (sensible, yet flattering on my feet) would match up with my conservative nature, yet still be sexy.  
   
As I looked in the mirror towards my chest however, the two clear side effects of wearing a halter dress that bared my back and sides were apparent.  
   
My matching bra wasn't going to work today. I'm wearing the perfect dress and the other thing Rory notices about me besides my eyes and my legs, I think, are my breasts, and I'd look just plain silly wearing the dress I have on with a regular ol' two strap bra. Once again struggling to think, I dug out my lingerie drawer trying to find something, anything that was strapless, Louise had to have lent me one somewhere down the line for some social gathering...OK, maybe not, considering my cup size, but still it was worth a shot in the dark!  
   
I hauled the entire drawer onto the bed and searched around for anything, but it seemed to be a lost cause, there wasn't a single strapless bra in that entire dresser drawer, not even one of those three-in-ones where the strap would go over my back like a bikini and stay hidden underneath the dress.  
   
I was ready to stop at the Wal-Mart just outside of the Hollow and go with whatever gaudy patterned strapless bra I could find on such short notice at five on a Saturday morning, I would take leopard print if that's all the heck they had, I wanted to dance with my girl!  
   
But then, I had a total recall moment of my dreamed-up situation Tuesday night, and of all the lingering stares Rory's eyes were giving my bust over the last few weeks. I even remembered back to the night of Jamie's date all the way in August, where when I got ready and was in this same predicament, she was making me try on every outfit I had no matter how horribly matched up it would be. "Hmmm," I pondered to myself, a serene smile playing on my lips, "Was she trying to keep me in just my undies for as long as she could?" All these months later, it did seem odd that she had me try on an ugly crotched sweater from my maternal Aunt Mildred, combined with a horribly matched skirt, and then had me take it off almost immediately after I got my head through the top hole, taking an awful long time staring at me as she struggled to match up another outfit. Then that damned 'Am I too small?' question in the shower stall that my stubborn pride almost used to tear apart my friendship when she was just trying to flatter me...  
   
Testing something out, I undo the back snap, and decided to take off my bra, trying to get a gander at what I'd look like in the dress without it. I then brought the halter straps back up and played with my boobs a little, holding the straps up with one hand as I pushed my breasts up with the other. I didn't know what to expect as I found what I thought was the perfect position, as I snapped the straps into place, then tied the slack tight just in case the dress got a sudden idea to fall apart.  
   
Back to the mirror, and the verdict from the fashionista portion of my brain. I turned on the Hollywood lights surrounding the mirror that I never really used (I usually depend on the sunlight from my window as I put on my makeup), and gave myself a once over again.  
   
I called myself hot before, but wearing that dress unsupported by anything underneath, I had to catch a breath, because I looked absolutely perfect, a fucking Venus de Milo-type of goddess. At first, I thought I seemed a little slutty because the back of the dress plunged beneath my bra line, but I took another look and saw that it was pretty conservative. The deep-cut back isn't all the way down to exposing the small of my back at the tip-top of my rear, but it's right in the middle between that and my bra line. I had an immediate thought of Rory's fingers intertwining against the naked skin, and her running them along my spinal column and my sides in order to keep me awake, or relaxed if Kirk pulled something out of his bag of tricks in order to throw off our concentration.  
   
It didn't take me long to go from completely unsure, to very turned on from just that. I brought my gaze down to the front, and found myself thankful. There is just a slight bit of padding in the front that's over my breasts, and it's quite enough to hide my nipples from peeking through the dark fabric, at least for now. Hour twenty-one, not sure, but at least I'm not going to be having underwire digging into the underside of my boobs all day and all night, wearing it well past eighteen hours.  
   
Best of all, I'm sure Rory will notice all the cleavage I was bringing to the party. The neckline isn't as deep as Madeline and Louise have worn before (and they've risked going as low as Jennifer Lopez's Grammy dress at times), but being pretty scandalous sixty years ago, it was a big risk for my being. Bending down into the mirror though, it's going to make her mouth water, and I'm sure there's going to be plenty of looking down towards my midsection through this whole endeavor.  
   
I look great, almost like Lana Turner, but with my own spin on things. So I guess it's time to gather up all my courage and walk out of the Manor with my confidence and spirits on high, and any sexual thoughts about Rory dampened at least in the beginning here. For the first time since I was nine, I'm walking out of my house without a bra on, and I feel so free.  
   
No, not just in the physical 'my goods are out there for Rory to ogle' sense, geeze, that's my inner pervert talking, ignore her! Just three months ago, I thought that my love was totally unrequited and I was cursing myself to spending the rest of my life pining after her like...hell, I'll admit it, like Tristan before that, and probably marrying someone unworthy just so I wouldn't be an old maid. I could've never thought however in my wildest dreams, that Rory would be reading my signals, and changing our friendship around in such an abrupt way. In all these three years I knew her, we never had intimate conversation, and barely talked about anything unless it prefixed Harvard. But in one month, everything's changed.  
   
Rory Gilmore might want me. She's been getting awfully close to me, and I in turn have welcomed the contact, giving her so many clues myself. Just this week, she's let me give her a very intimate hairbrushing, put my hand on her thigh for an extended period, and after giving Dean the heave-ho he's deserved since she couldn't say 'I love you' to him right away, here I am getting in my car on an early November morning, completely nuts because I'm about to dance for a full day (hopefully my feet don't fail me) just so I can get that much closer with the girl I love.  
   
I can't wait to see how she looks. I can't wait until six, when our fingers intertwine, and I slide my hands beneath her arms and feel her cool skin chilling every part of me. I can't wait to see how Rory will try to keep me awake through all of this.

Most of all, I'm excited because I've done all I can with myself with some of Fran's help to keep Rory from resisting my charms. I've spritzed orchid-scented perfume in all the right places and washed my hair with a very expensive, yet fragrant shampoo instead of my regular store-bought product. By the time the sun rises over the village tomorrow morning, her head will be bowed and tired due to exhaustion, and she'll find her head resting on my breast like a pillow, taking in the extra fragrance I've sprayed into my cleavage. I have so much hope for today that it would be a loss if we not only lost to Kirk, but we didn't run into our feelings more than we have so far.  
   
I want to give Rory the time of her life, and even though we haven't said it aloud, we know it's a date. This day is going to be interesting, in more ways than one, and I'm smiling wide at all the possibilities. I wonder, what the odds are of Taylor letting Rory and I have a hot little tango together...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	6. Endings, Beginnings, and New Legends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory's ammunition to be with Paris builds even further and she starts bringing everything into place to convince Paris to be hers. Meanwhile the end of Dean and her is nigh, and someone finds out about her secret.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Six | Endings, Beginnings, and New Legends  
Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Rory POV  
 **Inspired by:** Between _Eight O'Clock at the Oasis_ and _They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They?_ with a sped-up timeline for dramatic effect that pushes _Take the Deviled Eggs_ out of this fic world.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, naughty femslash thoughts, self-pleasuring with a sexual fantasy, and some homophobic comments from one character towards another, but not a personal attack towards the character)  
 **Disclaimer:** If you don't know it by now, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone, and Warner Bros. Television own _Gilmore Girls_ and their characters, although from the finale two weeks ago, I've deluded myself into a few things. First, RealRory kicked Dean in the balls before he could get his pants down, and ran off to Europe to join Paris for a summer of love. Second, when we came back from commercial, that was Lorelai's evil twin daughter Schmory, played by Alexis' evil and less-talented twin Infinitee Bledel coming out of the room with Dean and we'll find out over the summer that this was all a cruel joke which backfired when Schmory and Dean are run out of town with a pitchfork mob, and currently live in Chino with all the other _OC_ unbeautiful people. Finally, Dean has all the sexual resiliency of a horny hummingbird on speed. What was that, two minutes between the Luke/Lorelai kiss and Schmory and Dean coming out of Rory's room? No wonder Lindsay has good reason to be bitchy with him!  
 **Summary:** Rory's ammunition to be with Paris builds even further and she starts bringing everything into place to convince Paris to be hers. Meanwhile the end of Dean and her is nigh, and someone finds out about her secret.  
 **Archiving** : GilmoreGirlsSlash, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** My goal was to get this out by Saturday June 5th (Liza's birthday), but it wasn't meant to be. My betas advised me to edit a couple of scenes, and upon further review, I found myself displeased with the quality of my writing when I reread them. So instead of a long drawn-out breakup scene with Dean, it'll be only a few paragraphs and we're going right back to what you came for, Paris/Rory. I was also intending to introduce Shane as more than a minor character, but it was suggested that her role in this fic should probably be something else.  
   
Thanks again to Raven and Cinn, who have betaed this and been so loyal, doing a wonderful job, and probably saving me from making a couple mistakes with the storyline. Even with Raven going to Belize for a few weeks, she's still going to read (Thank you to whoever invented the satellite phone!), I promise the updates will still be as frequent. Thanks to Vix for her help about certain scenes (plus inspiring Paris/Rory conversations), and Christina for being a loyal reader.  
   
Those who reviewed on GGSlash, thanks! Rocky's new script helped me out at a tough time and got me reinspired for this chapter.  
   
Do I even need to tell you ff.net'ers again for the seventh time that this is femslash and if you don't like don't read because Rory's drooling over Paris instead of the guys? I will anyway just to cover my rear. And of course if you like, review constructively. To those who've asked the major reason I have signed reviews on is because of past attacks of my writing and the concept of femslash in anon reviews, so I could never identify who was attacking me to defend myself. So if you have any negative words, you'll have to sign on with your ff.net account or review me through my email, I'm not taking any chances.  


* * *

There seem to be milestones to your life that you always go back to in the chaos that is your photographic memory bank, and though you don't remember most of the surrounding details, say the weather, day of the week, type of dress and what may have been spoken before that moment took root, more often than not, you can easily imagine what the actual event is, and maybe even an extraneous item that helps you recall when the event might have happened.  
   
For example, my first day of school when I was five. My mother had been a big fan of _Twin Peaks_ as mocking material, so she taped all the episodes off channel 8 and we had a marathon of it the night before I walked in the doors of Stars Hollow Elementary to begin my academic career. I couldn't even tell you what the heck the show was about then, nor can I tell you today because I was too buried in _Ramona Quimby, Age Eight_ to really pay attention. But I can still tell you I know my first day of kindergarten I had strange visions of this Laura Palmer lady and her mystery. Knowing that instead of that boys are gross and/or cute probably set my wallflower path in stone instead of being a social being.  
   
Then there's my first kiss with Dean, that's what we'll go into detail about. I almost didn't go to Chilton because of him, and for that I'm still kind of bitter about, since without Grandma and my mother yelling back and forth about supporting my education, I may have pulled out, simply because of a boy. That's another tale for another day though. All I know is I can't even remember the details before it all except for an argument about regional cola terms, and that he asked me to pick the hand out with the soda. I was nervous as I chose, and then when Dean bent down and kissed me sweetly, I found out that it was all a ruse for him to finally express his feelings for me. I ran out of the store at eighty miles an hour immediately after with a stolen box of cornstarch in tow, and couldn't believe the sparks I had felt. I was shocked that my body has responded to his kiss, and in such an odd way.  
   
For Dean, I've always remembered the large, grandiose gestures he made for my love. I recalled the bracelet, the perfect ¼ year anniversary dinner, the car, and the heavy makeout sessions. I'll remember always with reverence those things he did.  
   
What I won't remember happily however is that he always treated me like a china doll.

I guess the fact I'm the product of a teenage mother, and my own innocent looks played into the stereotype that I was the living equivalent of a china doll to Dean, meant to be browsed, examined and looked at with his eyes, but never to be touched. There were so many times I tried to give him signals that I wanted more than a replica of a relationship in the 1880s Victorian period, but he was too much of a wuss to take the bait.  
   
The night I dressed up like Donna Reed, for example. Beneath that damned cursed TV mother skirt I wore the thinnest underwear I could find, and decided to go with a strapless bra, hoping for God's sake my brainstorm wouldn't only prove that women should be equal to men, but that I wanted to use that rare opportunity of being alone to have him initiate more than chaste French kissing from me. He never took the bait, and I left that night still in like (note the absence of love, we'll get to that in a bit) with him, but with a huge sexual knot inside of me yearning to be released. Dean then ruined the opportunity presented during our ¼ year anniversary with his demand I tell him that I loved him in that wreck of a car he was building, and it took even after we reconciled on the last day of Chilton for my sexual feelings to become renewed again.  
   
Strangely, even after Paris had put a stop to our friendship with that ticket mess, I wondered if she was watching as we made out in the front drive.  
   
I seriously thought that the second chance for Dean would lead to a renewed and arousing love, but by July of that year with my charity obligations for Harvard, he had renewed his bellyaching again that I wasn't there enough for his liking, and backed off from touching me in any way that might cause a minor arousal in my system. He was always so boring, pedestrian, and as he got even more into the car building with Todd and his buddies, I could sense all those damned fumes he dealt with in building it eating away at his IQ.  
   
Instead of talking about books, he'd talk in Detroitese about how he needed a converter or SAE wrench head or some other kind of crap that I had absolutely no interest in at all, and also talked ad nauseum about that stupid robot boxing show he thought was the height of Western culture. The only thing I thought when I voluntarily watched an episode was the robot controllers were definitely using their machines to overcompensate for a certain reproductive part of their anatomy that had to be smaller than average.  
   
Thank the Lord Jess came in just in time and I started realizing I was thinking of Paris as more of a rival around last November, because if he hadn't come in and I kept thinking of Paris as just a friend, I seriously think Dean would've gagged my intelligence, he's that dull! Did I forget to mention that Clara, his sister, is the only child I've ever wanted to give a nice, hard slap to because of her annoying, prattling attitude and diamond-cutting voice? I'm nothing but glad to be rid of any member of the Forrester family in my life.  
   
That's right; I'm now a single woman, at least for now. But hopefully in about an hour, I'll be starting to make progress with Paris. For now though I'm sitting in my bedroom at five on a very early Saturday morning, bleary-eyed as I try to look for the right things to go along with the look I'm trying to perfect.  
   
Why did I just say Dean is a footnote in history? Probably best to turn back time to Tuesday morning so I can explain everything up to this point, to when I was watering Dwight's garden.  
   
When that bachelor left me in charge of his plants and everything, I had expected things to be easy. Of course Lorelai pawned everything off on me since she had Inn work in the mornings, so for the next few days I went over to his house after my stop at Luke's, watered his plants and made sure everything was in order, then left on the 6:50 bus on the loop around Hartford. It was a routine that was going to be easy to fall into, at least I thought at the beginning.  
   
However, I failed to account for a few things as I woke up on Tuesday morning around 5:45. I got out of bed and made sure that everything was in order for my Chilton uniform, and took a shower before my mom, keeping my mind from wandering to the fact that in my sleep I had an interesting dream about the girl I had my eye on, and also about how I would go about breaking up with Dean beforehand. I was still undecided about cutting him off so abruptly, and my conscious was telling me to wait for an opening, which in our snooze of a relationship might take months.  
   
I got out of the shower and prepared to put on my lingerie, when I found that there was absolutely nothing in my bra drawer, and Lorelai was nowhere to be found. I still found a pair of panties buried in the bottom of my shirt drawer, but nothing to support my breasts. Throwing on my robe, I ran out of my room, and found a note on a plate with a couple of pop tarts on it telling me the whereabouts of my brassiere collection.  
   
 _Kiddo,  
   
Decided to do all of our laundry together at work today before I went to Nashville tomorrow, so combined it in one pile before I left for the Inn while you were showering, you'll get it all back tonight. Have a great day at school :)!_

_Mom_

__I forgot to set aside at least one before bed to shove in my blouse's breast pocket like I usually did, and I hit my head on the wall for my stupidity! How could I forget that Mom was going out to Tennessee for a hotelier's convention until Sunday and decided to give me as little to do as possible while I was home alone? I blame the long two-hour conversation I had Monday night with Paris about the tests we would be taking on Tuesday, along with some brainstorms about the special _Franklin_ edition we were printing later in the day about the football team's run to state. Lorelai had shouted something about laundry, and I probably yelled back 'yeah, go ahead' so fast I didn't realize the topic my mom was bringing up because I was too busy swooning to the sounds of Paris' voice.  
   
I cursed God out, and quickly figured that if I just kept on my normal tank of an undershirt beneath the blouse and sweater, no one would notice that I was as free as a hippy beneath it all, thank goodness for my B cup that wouldn't be too noticeable beneath all those uniform layers. So I put on my clothes, ignoring that lovesick little voice in the back of my head that told me Paris might be taking more interest in my chest that day than usual. _Come on, nothing can get any worse today, can it?_ My mind thought as I finished dressing, organized my backpack, did my hair and prepared for the day ahead.  
   
You all know that after you say or think that, you're cursed, right?  
   
Seems in the panic about my bra, I forgot to realize that the sprinkler timer at Dwight's was timed to water his annuals every Tuesday and Saturday at 6:45. I went into the house to get the watering can, and within moments of coming out of his home, I found myself in a nightmare that made my day even worse.  
   
The sprinklers came up from the ground, and on full blast, the water came from all directions, basically covering the entire property with no little dry space along the front walk for me to escape their wrath. Since the timer was set to water for ten minutes, and he had locked the back door in the kitchen with a deadbolt lock he failed to leave me the key for, I was stuck in a very wet pickle.  
   
I found the manual shut-off and tried to turn it closed, but it seemed to slip in my wet hands and I couldn't get a very good grip on it since it required a wrench rod I wasn't able to locate. Trying to save my academic day and thankful I decided to get a watertight bag two years ago, I threw my backpack past the picket fence and onto the sidewalk in order to keep my books dry, I wasn't ready to owe Chilton $600 for wet texts! It landed with a thud against the street's curb, but everything stayed in. My work was safe.  
   
My own self, however, was getting totally soaked. I wasn't about to bring out my cell phone to call Dean lest it be destroyed by the soaking water, and the fact he'd be whining and making jokes about my stupidity for the next eight days because I couldn't turn a simple fucking sprinkler off! So I continued to struggle with it, my socks becoming soaked and my sweater swiftly becoming a glorified sponge from all the water being soaked in. I could feel the liquid seethe into the blue blouse above, and into the only other layer, my undershirt. Since it was cold water being sprayed all over, I started shivering in seconds. I cursed at Dwight for having such a screwed-up watering schedule, and I wasn't willing to go further in his front yard since the sprinklers in the front were on a higher jet setting than the ones towards the back, which would cause me to become even wetter.  
   
Jess happened to walk by then on his way to walk Shane from her house to school, and with him being a guy who could probably remedy the situation, I yelled for help. As he made some snide crack about me being perfect for the cast of _Blue Crush_ , I told him I needed him to turn them off, and now.  
   
"Why didn't you call the bag boy?" he asked snidely as he found the control rod to turn shut the spigot hidden in a crack along Dwight's front walkway.  
   
"I don't want to bother him, I thought I could do this myself," I screamed over the loud spray as he jumped into the situation and put the rod into the plate containing the watering controls. "He'd probably get this big superiority complex in his head for the next week and rub in my face that I was Periled Pauline and he saved me from the big, mean sprinkler!" I added on with a bitchy and bitter voice.  
   
He laughed at my situation and Dean as the water started to finally stop flowing. "How about me saving you, isn't that the same?"  
   
"No, because you're totally nuts about Shane and you're just a friend helping a friend out, and you have nothing but friendly intentions for me. There's a big difference there, it's too bad Dean can't get over the fact that boys can be friends with girls."  
   
He finally got the flow of water to stop, and him also soaking, brought the control rod out of the plate, brushing off my complaints about my boyfriend. "See, all you have to do is apply a little pressure next time."  
   
"Uh, thanks," was all I could say. I decided to take this opportunity of Jess wet to test out my sexuality a little as we looked at each other wet. In a perfect world, I'd be swooning over him and seriously considering taking him away from Shane.  
   
But immediately my thoughts inexplicably drove me towards an alternate universe where Paris was the one who came in and turned off the sprinklers, getting her own self wet in the process. Let's just say with her breasts and her legs, within moments that thought of her damp body, had I not shaken myself back into reality, would have wandered off into a late-night pay cable track that would be very embarrassing.  
   
Looking at Jess, I saw nothing but a loyal and trustworthy friend. Yeah, he kisses well, but Shane deserves those lips much more than me, especially when I'm smitten with someone else and considering my mom's unsaid feelings for Luke. We're already making progress in getting my mom to like Jess, so we both weren't about to ruin that, along with the hope she'd finally hook up with Luke by getting into more than a platonic relationship. Besides that, he admitted his love for his girlfriend Shane on the bridge Saturday night after a romantic dinner, and she's keeping him out of trouble, helping him a lot with school.  
   
All right, so they got one ticket for lewd conduct on Taylor's watch because they almost had sex in his car parked next to the town square. They're in love dammit, give 'em a break old man!  
   
Jess helped me gather everything back up and I took my soaked sweater off, hoping by wearing my jacket over my blouse it would dry off on the way in. We said goodbye to each other and wished good luck with our days, and he told me he'd take the sweater to the inn so my mom could throw it in the wash. I handed it over, and just barely made it to the bus stop and got on with a soaked head of hair and still shivering.  
   
As we got on the expressway, some smart guy figured that on a 52° day, he was still hot. So him sitting in front of me, he opened up his window and on the way up to north Hartford (I get off towards the tail end of the route on the south side of the city, because of transit cutbacks they don't have direct service to Chilton this year), I ended up even colder than before with the 55 mph wind blowing right in my face. My hair was drying a little, sure, but everything else was staying stubbornly still, or making me freeze even more. I could feel that my breasts were hard in my shirt, the rough cotton undershirt rubbing harshly against my nipples, and I shut my eyes trying to concentrate on some answers for one of the tests. It wasn't happening, and even closing the coat to build up body heat failed to do anything but bring the damned shirt closer and make me even colder.

Oh, and he occasionally took a glance back as I read my book, trying to peek at my breasts through the wet shirt. I got out my huge Advanced Economics book and hoped that would be enough to deter him. He still looked however, the idiot.  
   
I was about ready to give up hope and grin and bear the entire day through chattering teeth and snide Chiltonians commenting on my sheer blouse's state, when I realized where in north Hartford I was. Gellar Manor was only a few blocks away from Simsbury Road, and the bus was traveling south on its way to Main Street, where Chilton was along. I'd have to walk along a few gravel shoulders, sure, but I could find a place to at least dry off and...  
   
 _I could borrow one of her blouses_ , I thought to myself, and suddenly there was a brilliant flash of light going off in my brain, and I started smiling. Suddenly, Dwight's evil sprinklers didn't seem to be putting a damper on my day.  
   
As the bus came within a quarter-mile from the intersection with Auer Farm Road, things started to take shape. I, Rory, was wet, along with my blouse. She, Paris was probably dry and would never bring herself down to the level of a gardener. She also happened to be at my school, wore the same uniform, and was my current object of lust. Paris also was hinting at those same feelings lately, and though I couldn't confirm them 100%, certain little things I was doing to probe her sexuality were hinting towards the fact she had some thoughts about me. The neck and back massages, and lingering touches back and forth between us. Don't forget that we also shared a bed one morning with no argument and I'd found myself wanting to leave my current boyfriend for her.  
   
As for my state at that time, it was almost perfect for a little seduction. With my mother's sudden whim to throw everything but the clothes on our backs into the washing machine at the Inn, I had no bra on, and was shivering cold. Every time I took a step or the bus went over a dip or bump, the tips of my nipples would rub against the fabric of my shirt, and I had to think of things that were unsexy in order to calm them down and numb them. Say, the effect of Dean's tongue against mine lately while we kissed.  
   
I was already seeing it in my mind; I'd walk into her room, she'd hand me a shirt, and I'd take it off, revealing the thin shirt that fit my body like a glove. I could almost see her eyes drawn down, and her interest piqued. Paris would probably be thankful I was in that room, and hand me a shirt right away in order to calm her own nerves and her hormones...  
   
Which meant even when she was out of the room I was in, she'd be with me all day long in that blouse, wrapped around my arms with her scent and essence in my nose, and feeling her own small, yet voluptuous form all over me. The shirt would definitely be larger than mine, and I could run my fingers along where the swell of her breasts would usually be, thinking of my own fingers in the real world against the bottom of her ample tits...  
   
If not for my clothing and own well-being since I'd catch a cold staying in this shirt all day, I had to get that blouse with Paris in order to calm myself down, since thinking all those thoughts seemed to cause another liquid that wasn't water to seep onto my panties. If I didn't get off that bus I'd be having an Herbal Essences moment right in public! That, and once I was off the bus, Paris couldn't turn me down, she'd be concerned about getting me to school on time to keep our perfect attendance records going.  
   
The bus speeding along at about 45 mph, I pulled the stop cord, heard the bell, and gathered my stuff together. At first, the driver thought it was a prank chime and started to speed up.  
   
"Whoever did that, it's not funny!" he yelled into the bus' PA system. Apparently not many people took the bus from that upper-class part of town.  
   
So I got up and yelled his head off. "No, I want to stop here! I've had a bad day so far and you better pull off to the side and let me off, don't forget my $40 a month pass is paying your salary buddy!" Boy did I sound like a prattling housewife.  
   
Everyone on the bus looked at me, but I could care less. The driver grumbled out "Whatever, here you go girlie," and stopped, and I made my way to the front. I still felt a little bitchy though, so I thought I'd give Window Guy a piece of my mind. I bent down to his eye level and let him have it good.  
   
"By the way you undersexed idiot, next time you see a very wet girl get on the bus and sit behind you, you might want to consider keeping your dumb window shut! It's warm, but not **that** warm!" I then gritted my teeth and finished off my put down. "Oh, and you're not my type, sorry to say. Next time take your eyes off my boobs and try to **TALK** to a girl, you might get somewhere!"  
   
All I received was a pair of rolled eyes, and I got off the bus wondering if it was worth it to have a ride like that every morning, when Paris' car was much warmer, drove over bumps like a monster truck, meaning I couldn't feel them at all, and had a much better driver. A luscious looking speed demon one at that...  
   
Uh yeah, I got off the bus and took out my cell phone from my coat pocket, scrolling through the entries until I found her number. She picked up, and seemed to be struggling a bit with something. I didn't know what, but I figured she might have been getting dressed. Ignoring the thought, I started a long ramble about Dwight and his stupid sprinkler system, and before I knew it I was only two blocks from her house. I was about to go into a whole rant about horticulture, when she interrupted me.  
   
"Gilmore, I know you love rattling off every detail about something like a monkey on speed since those tapes you bought improved your WPM, and I'm sorry you got soaked this morning, but I need to know what you want before the first snowfall of the season."  
   
 _Me on top of you_ , my inner vixen screamed out in desperation to mute Paris' annoyance, and I blushed red as yes, that exact thought got planted in my mind's frontal lobe since I was probably going to be in her bedroom. I shook that dirty thought out and asked for one of her blouses and promised to take good care of it, revealing the state of mind I was in since I was literally down to the clothes on my back.  
   
Though she was a little surprised by my early morning appearance, she said yes without any hesitation surprisingly, and gave me instructions to get in. "Ring the buzzer at the front gate and I'll have Fran let you in, she'll guide you right towards my room through a shortcut past the kitchen and living room. I don't want you to have to run into my mother and have her question the reason you're visiting."  
   
Things were still unclear between her and Mrs. Gellar, but at least she was starting to warm to the idea of me in her bedroom, much less her house. I hung up with her and finished walking towards her grand house, and Fran greeted me at the door after I got in the gate with a happy greeting.  
   
"Hello Mistress Gilmore, Paris said you'd be coming by." Francisca looked very young for her age, and I could tell why she was one of the few lights in Paris' life. "Follow me upstairs. Did you want anything to eat or drink?"  
   
Paris' nanny seemed sincere with the invitation, but I didn't want to make her feel like I was being an inconvenience. "No, thank you ma'am." We both headed towards a back patio in Harold Gellar's study and got into the house through there. I could make out the arguing voices of a richie-voiced woman and a younger man with a very fake British accent, three rooms away.  
   
"So are we going to San Diego this weekend Sharon? I'd like to show you around the yacht I'm planning on using to tour the South Seas," the man said, and I could immediately deduce that the Sharon he was referring to was Paris' mother. As Fran guided me through the study door, I eavesdropped to Sharon's response, and couldn't believe the audacity she had, cavorting around with that guy and ignoring her own daughter.  
   
"We should, my daughter is starting to become a pain in the neck again. She keeps asking me about moving out of the house and into an apartment near my ex, but I'm not having it. As long as she's under my roof, she's under my control, and I'll use her however I want." I blocked out the rest because it turned into a disgusting woo of him. I couldn't believe that Paris was only here because her mother was using her as a bargaining chip. December 25th couldn't come soon enough; because that's the day she turned eighteen and could finally get out of what clearly was Sharon throwing tens of thousands of dollars towards the judge a couple years back, and getting at least the custody arrangements and use of the house weighted her way.  
   
We stopped near the stairs, and Fran noticed my clear anger at Paris' mother. She turned around, and I admitted I had been listening in.  
   
"Paris is going to use part of the opened trust she'll get on her birthday to buy out the house, throw her mother out and take it back for her father, there's at least $15 million coming for her from her late paternal grandmother," she told me, honest and open. "Sharon is living off that man and Harold's alimony and that's basically it, the house hasn't become a wreck because the judge refused the throw out the staff for upkeep since Paris' father pays all of us, along with the fact he had a landmark status put on years back just in case everything that ended up happening, did, that way there would be big fines levied on Mrs. Gellar if she let this place fall into disrepair."  
   
It saddened me to hear all these details about the inner gears of Paris' family, but it brought my heart closer to her empathy. Her nanny would have married Paris' dad had she not had a love of her own already; they had a relationship just short of Tracy and Hepburn, despite the fact they were employer and employee.  
   
"Is Paris happy in this house?" I asked Fran as we climbed the stairs.  
   
"She grew up here at the Manor with many positive memories, though the bad have outpaced the good in recent years." Fran smiled, and gave me that look that said she knew I was loyal and trustworthy. "It's only been recently however that her lost _felicidade_ has came back, despite all of this." The woman set a hand on my shoulder, and rubbed my cheek. "Somehow, I think you may have a lot to do with that. When she came back from the _Distrito_ where you accompanied her, she was in a mood she never had been since before she was forced to quit dance."  
   
Louise had told me about Paris' days as a top dancer in Connecticut when she was younger, and showed old videos of her performances one day while we were over at her house studying for a test. Sharon had tried to destroy the videos, but Louise snuck them out before she could locate them. Paris tried to ignore them and went in the other room to study as Louise and I watched her smaller and more petite nine year-old self put Jennifer Grey and whoever the body double in _Flashdance_ was to shame with her moves. I could still see her beauty, even through the haze of eight-year old VHS tape and the occasional shaky camera. She was on stage, and as she strutted her stuff to tunes from old Broadway musicals and 70s rock, her eyes told the story as well as her moves. Learning that Mrs. Gellar had choked Paris' dream the moment she needed a training bra and being told by her husband that he would not allow Paris to starve herself in order to save her dance career on her suggestion, it made me sick. She still had a bright career, and it was but another thing snuffed out by Sharon's dream of putting a 'My child attends Harvard' bumper sticker on her Audi's bumper.  
   
I came back to normal time, and tried to shrug off Francisca's insinuations that I was the one who gave Paris her best summer yet, but she treated me as if I was the best girl ever to come in her life. We went down the grand hallway and finally arrived at the doors to her room.  
   
"This is it, of course," she told me. "Are you sure you don't want anything, maybe a leaf blower to dry you off?" She smiled, and I couldn't help but laugh at Francisca's joke.  
   
"No, I'm still fine, thank you; she's letting me borrow a shirt for class today."  
   
The woman nodded back at me, and bid me a good day, turning around and headed towards the grand staircase to resume her duties in the Manor.  
   
I opened the door, my inner pervert getting it's hopes up that I may be able to catch her in an undressed state. Paris was at her dresser almost fully clothed though, and I wanted to pout. Despite that though, she still looked cute, watching her out of her usual element. She was buttoning up her blouse and turned towards me.  
   
"Hey Gilmore," she said, and I was thankful that my last name had retaken the playful nickname status that it had before the whole shower incident. She seemed to pause for a couple moments as she looked over my condition, as if she was trying to gauge the amount of water and freezing all over my person.  
   
"Hi," I said back, my voice a little shaky from the cold permeating my skin. "I'm actually OK--"  
   
"Nonsense, you look like you're in the first stages of hypothermia, that coat isn't helping at all. Sit on my bed, take off your jacket and wrap yourself up with that afghan," she told me in a maternal tone, though it was more warm than nagging. "I'm going to call downstairs for a cup of coffee so you can get some caffeine in your system to cause your mind to think that it's warmer."  
   
Though once again I appreciated the offer, I tried to turn her down. "No thank you Paris, I don't want to seem a bother in your morning routine--"  
   
"I don't mind Rory, really, now sit down and warm yourself up while I give you a dose of your favorite drug." She pushed a button next to her bed and asked for it as I sat down, suddenly warming to her motherly instincts. "Charles, I need a coffee bowl full of Maxwell House up here as soon as you can, straight and black, I have an urge for it this morning." Apparently the kitchen staff was pro-Sharon, but I didn't care, I was getting a chance to warm up in Paris' presence.  
   
As I thanked Paris and she told me I'd get my wet laundry back on the way home from school, I took a look around her room, sort of dim in places, but in most having bright sunlight bouncing on and off the violet-colored walls. I wrapped the blanket around myself, and with Paris concerned about getting ready for school, was free to think to myself. I brought the blanket close to my body trying to dry the blouse so I wouldn't have to borrow hers, but I could tell it was a lost cause. Seeing Paris in her natural habitat was interesting to say the least.  
   
She walked around her desk gathering up her books and complaining about the speed of the Manor staff getting my cup of coffee up there. It was as if I was watching that episode of _The Jetsons_ where Rosie the robot went all insane perfectionist on the family because of a malfunctioning microchip. _A place for everything, and everything in its place_ , I thought to myself, there was no place in the room that was cluttered up or out of order. Maybe her corkboard above the computer desk that was just as packed with crimson-colored pennants and materials as mine, but that was one of the few exceptions.  
   
As I watched her get ready for school with her back turned and I tried to warm myself up, I found myself with a chance to look at her in a way that I thought she wouldn't notice. Paris bent over a little to pick up a book off the ground, and my eyes were drawn towards the back of her legs. Her skirt rose up a little, and I found myself stunned in place, part of her upper thighs exposed. My breath caught, and suddenly I had yet another perverted thought of 'accidentally' getting up a little too fast, and slamming into her so I would get an even better view of the back of her legs...and maybe her rear.  
   
 _Stop it, stop it right now!_ My monologue admonished. _You're not here to ogle her, you just need a shirt. You're going to be wearing her shirt all day and you won't think a single dirty thought about it...  
_    
However, it was too late. As her servant handed her my coffee in the door and she gave it to me, I could tell she was going all out to make me feel so comfortable, and that I should be appreciative for the gesture.  
   
At the same time however, there was a sexual buildup flowing through me as the warm and familiar aroma of the boiled _coffea arabica_ plant went through my nose. She certainly knew by now that the way to my heart was through my caffeine addiction, and I appreciated that Paris didn't take it to an extreme level. Starbucks would've been nice, but as I sipped my coffee at a moderate clip, I started warming up, slightly.  
   
The scent of her afghan alone was getting to me, canceling out the coffee altogether, and I found myself bringing the blanket even closer. I read the clock over on her Mac's screensaver. It read 7:24am, and I would usually be in one of my large shuffling panics, hoping I'd get to school on time. But being in the room of the girl I was falling for, something inside of me made me want to stretch out that time out to an infinite period. My mind analyzed what she might have been doing on the other side of the line as I called her; something like dressing or just coming out of the shower, maybe something besides those things entirely. It wasn't like she had a webcast to her bedroom, but whatever she was doing was certainly distracting to my subconscious as I set the groundwork for the events for that morning.  
   
I kept sipping the coffee, though I was sure I wouldn't finish the cup. Sitting on her bed was really getting to me, stirring up some strategy in my brain. My wheels were turning, and there was a golden opportunity being presented at the moment. I had on a wet blouse, and she was getting hers for me. Beneath my blouse, an undershirt that was causing me to feel more exposed that usual. And in my eyesight was Paris' ass, hidden to a point by her flared skirt, but towards the top I could make out her form. She put on her sweater in front, and I deduced that she was ready to turn around.

My chest is smaller than most girls, yes; but it's still enough to lure. I moved my eyes towards Paris' nightstand, noticing the golden antique hairbrush sitting on the top. Paris had probably used that multiple times; if I could get those bristles in my hair, there would be another connection to me right there.  
   
Then suddenly, I had my most erotic brainstorm of the day up to that point; her hands would be all over the back of my neck, and my actual back as she tried to brush my hair. She would have to touch me, and I had a completely justified reason for it.  
   
I closed my eyes, and my analytical self took it and tried to make it a reality in my brain. I could already feel Paris' breathing in my ear, her body heat against my backside, and her hands drifting all over the place. It would be only be a few minutes' time I could enjoy it, but I was going to stretch that moment as much as I could.  
   
I took one last sip from the coffee bowl, and Paris turned around and handed me a shirt.  
   
"You can go ahead and change in the bathroom," she told me off-hand, then turned back around and walked towards the corner of the room where she kept her shoes.  
   
My usually shy side was taking a nap however. I kept on staring at the girl, and I brought her blouse up to my nose, despite the 97% chance that it probably had nothing but the scent of Downy and Martinizing.  
   
After I smelled it however, I was intoxicated and thankful that the 3% chance it was Paris' unique bouquet was in play instead. It was a little wrinkled, probably straight from her hamper, but that certainly wouldn't be noticed beneath the spare sweater I kept in my locker at school. There was a small hint of vanilla perfume around the collar and her usual melon shampoo, and her own pheromones everywhere else. I just can't describe her scent without fragrance in words, I don't know, but I do know that it was sort of calming my mood down from bitchy and angry earlier, to something resembling lovesick and lustful.  
   
 _There's something here_ , I thought, looking at the hairbrush, down towards Paris' shirt, then down at my wet shirt. I found myself connecting a seductive set of dots and finding another place to get in some touching with this whole situation. I had wet hair that needed to be dried. Thus, Paris would use the hairbrush on my head. I was also cold. I'm sure she had a hair dryer, and that her touching could do more than chill me for once. I also had fifteen minutes to go before we really had to leave. I smiled to myself and looked towards Paris, slipping into her socks. _If this doesn't distract her attention_ , I thought to myself, _I don't know what else will_.

So with her eyes on her shoes, I went for it. I shrugged the afghan off and took off my blouse, still very soaked and completely damp, I actually wrung out little droplets of water with each button I unhooked. I could feel the effects of desire start to take over as skin was exposed in the front; I never had noticed how much space there was between the bottom of my neck and the neckline of my low undershirt before. I undid the last of the buttons and the cuffs, and got out of the drenched article of clothing. It was time for the plan to go into effect.  
   
Paris turned around just as I got my left arm out of my blouse. "OK Rory, grab your backpack and let's get down to the--" I dropped the shirt to the floor, and held her shirt protectively. She paused, but somehow completed her statement. "...Go downstairs to the, uh, garage."  
   
She was caught unguarded, and I knew it. Her deep brown eyes had turned from an unaffected look to something that could be defined as part lust, part scared shitless that she was facing her rival and friend, wearing nothing but a newly hemmed up skirt and an indecent tank top that almost showed off my entire upper body. The exposition of a little more chest to nothing but air caused my nipples to firm up even more, and I really woke up as I straightened the shirt over my chest and felt the cotton rub against the tips like sandpaper. I almost gasped, but bit my tongue so I could continue the slow and painful seduction of Paris.  
   
I told her in a low voice that was about a fourth-generation copy of Louise's dulcet tones, which I always thought would make her a top phone-sex operator, that I wanted her to warm me up. Before I finished saying 'warm me up' though I realized I was being a little **too** forward, so I tacked on the excuse that I didn't want her shirt to become wet in turn.  
   
She muttered something that sounded like 'sure', and she sat next to me on the bed. I immediately felt everything within firm up and on high alert, and my nose could certainly sense her presence. We hadn't even touched, but I already felt things inside that never happened with Dean right up against my chest when we made out. My pelvic muscles seemed to want to do involuntary Kegel exercises, tightening and releasing, as if wanting to tell me to screw this whole ruse and just take Paris onto the bed and let her have her way with me, if she was thinking that way.  
   
There didn't seem to be any doubt though. Her look, usually stone cold and hard or as relaxed as a girl like Paris could be, was instead in that same gaze I remember her giving Tristan back in sophomore year whenever she was giving him a loving once-over, admiring the body she knew he was hiding in that uniform. I couldn't see her eyes, but I could feel them. The gaze she was giving me felt like it was all over my upper body, from the freckling all over my shoulders and arms down to what was obscured by the undershirt.  
   
I smiled and let her know that I knew she was going to ask about where my bra was, so I was honest and told her laundry day stopped me in my tracks. Then, I made an unsettling comment that had I not found those stray panties somewhere in my dresser, I'd have nothing beneath my skirt.  
   
That got me going, as I felt her stare even more. I felt not only internally giddy, but very stirred up. I had partaken in my feelings for her again a couple nights ago during a very unsettled sleep, and I craved...no, I demanded any contact I could muster with her.  
   
I reached over to her nightstand, and not saying a word, watched the movement of her eyes as I felt my hand grip the cold metal handle of her antique hairbrush. Touching that alone gave me tingles, and I handed it to her, though it seemed like her brain had a sudden seizure and was in carnal state of mind instead of that of the average teenage girl. She seemed distracted with her sweater, and asked if I wanted her to brush my hair.  
   
I gave her a good excuse that I didn't want my hair to soak her shirt, and Paris took the brush from me. This time instead of a lonely linger on her fingers, she took her time getting a grip on it from me, her hands almost seemed to grab mine. I released it, and she stretched over and grabbed a hair dryer from her nightstand drawer, plugging it in on a side outlet at bed level.  
   
At first, she had the dryer on high, and it seemed like she was trying to find a way around brushing my locks. However, the sprinkler water had done quite a number on my style, so eventually she relented, and within about a minute, I felt the stiff bristles of her hairbrush deep within my scalp. Mmmm, just remembering how smooth that brush went through my hair, and comparing that to my crappy pink Goody from the beauty shop, there's no comparison, I'd get together with Paris just to have the right to use hers anytime I'd like.  
   
Judging from how I envied her hair, I knew Paris wouldn't disappoint with brushing mine, and that's what she did. She alternated between fast and slow strokes, hitting all those right spots. She'd slow down for a bit, I think trying to get a feel for what was in back, and then start back up again, running the hair dryer down and over, then smoothing it back straight.  
   
Then, she stopped suddenly, and turned off the hair dryer. I couldn't feel any heaviness against my skull anymore from water, but my head was feeling dizzy. The heel of her hand had barely grazed my head a few times, and I was wishing for more touching. I felt my heartbeat rush up, and then she spoke.  
   
"I'm going to part your hair so it doesn't tangle up in the brush," she told me as she started running her fingers through in an innocuous way. OK, nothing at all suspicious or with an ulterior motive there, Paris wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. It was an expensive brush after all...  
   
"Ror, would you mind if I brought down your shirt a little?"  
   
 _Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop this train!_ My mind immediately reeled as my ears took in her words. They weren't in her normal monotone at all, there was a bit of a smile in her voice along with a little...flirting? Can Paris do that?  
   
"I want to warm you up," she tried to clarify, but now it was obvious, she was trying to use this opportunity as much as I was. I hadn't even let Dean see anything more than my bare shoulders, and what should be, in a normal dull completely heterosexual world just a girl borrowing another girl's shirt, was becoming much more than that in the confines of Paris Gellar's bedroom. Despite the situation, I agreed without argument, and stretched the neck out so I could get as much as my back exposed to her as possible.  
   
She parted the hair slowly, and I watched the time tick up on her computer clock, trying to keep my concentration on things other than her fingers against my back. I thought about a safe topic, like the Economics test. _7:31 and thirty-four seconds, 7:31 and thirty-five seconds, 7:31 and thirty-five seconds, the concept of supply and demand. Yes, perfect example! New Coke sucked, everyone demanded Old Coke back in 1985, but the supply was dwindling with the demand...I'm demanding Paris' touch and I hope she'll supply me and satisfy my needs...  
_    
Oh yeah, I did a real good job of distracting myself once I found out how exactly she'd warm me up, uh huh. Her brush not only smoothed out my hair, but she was deliberately bringing the tips of the bristles against my back, and it was feeling so good. It was like heaven having her do two things at once, and I never knew that she could distract me to that state. I thought the morning couldn't get any better.  
   
That however, was before she brought her free hand to my upper back and began scratching the other side as she brushed each of the parts she created with my hair. I felt myself stiffen as her fingernails scratched against my skin, and I felt myself respond to her touch. Involuntarily I felt my legs sort of part a little and my back relax even further as I felt her trace patterns with both the brush and her hand, I swore I felt her signing my name and hers into my skin with her thumbnail. The fingers in her hand she was using to brush would occasionally tickle against my scalp, and all those erotic and tingly feelings in my head were being sent down my spinal column all the way down to where I could **really** feel it! I started struggling for both breath and thought, my lungs filling with the air she breathed and all the innocent and negative notions of her disappearing into the ether. I tried controlling the arousal wanting to leech onto my panties; nothing was helping and I was sure by the time I left I'd be dealing with much more than a damp undershirt.  
   
I then tried to start conversation about the test to the best of my ability. I used my vocabulary to attempt a block out of every erotic feeling Paris was sending through, being purposefully wordy so that my brain had to concentrate on academics instead of sex. I rattled on for two minutes about Albert Greenspan's economic policy, and hoped that would do the trick.  
   
It did, at least until Paris' index finger decided to trace around each one of the vertebrae along my spine up to just above the fringe of my tank top, she dug in her tips pretty deep. I was lost after that, as my arms developed full goosebumps, and my lower body started to tingle with what I can only describe as what felt like my groin becoming very hypersensitive to anything in and around my walls. The arousal was building down there, and I was seriously thinking of asking Paris if we could be late to Chilton just that once so I could choose from one of two things to scratch that nagging itch; solitary care, or...well, convincing her to try and 'cure' me of the problem she wrought.  
   
I shut my eyes and couldn't think straight; my breathing was even more labored than it had been previously. Paris was killing me with her idea of scratching my back. God, Dean had never done that before. Yeah, he massaged my back, but over my clothes and in a way that suggested he was less than enthused with the idea. I was putty in her hands, and if her next words were for me to commit some kind of crime, I would've done it if that were my reward after. I smiled serenely, and intended to keep this morning all to myself.  
   
When I opened back up my eyes, I found that those ten minutes had sped by in a blur, it was 7:40, and Paris had told me she was done and that it was time to go, we had a pretty tough commute to navigate in the next twenty minutes in order to get into class before 8:05. I brought myself out of my turned-on state, and got up from the bed, really not wanting to move, but ready for the day ahead. What had been a crap day the moment I got out of that shower, had with being so close to Paris quickly become a day where things were changing at a rapid pace into something wonderful.  
   
"Thanks for brushing my hair, and the massage," I told her in appreciation, and she didn't vocalize it, but was just as thankful for everything. We raced out to the garage, got in the car and immediately peeled out, the rush of trying to make it on time fueling us onto the road to Chilton. We had a wonderful conversation on the way down as she peeled in and out of the rush hour traffic along Main Street at a pretty good clip, I was surprised when we passed a couple of police officers and saw her speedometer display reading fifty in a forty zone. Her father must pay off them off in order to let her indulge her inner speed freak.  
   
I don't know how the hell she did it, but I found her Jaguar going under the familiar wrought iron gate of Chilton Academy with about six minutes to spare. Thank the Lord that Charleston gave her a close presidential parking space right next to the front doors, and we got out of the car before the engine cooled down after she turned it off, rushing our way into the hall and stopping off at the twin set of lockers Chilton seemed to curse us with. We threw both our unneeded books in and I grabbed my sweater, putting it on in a hurry like I did that one morning I hit the deer a couple years ago.  
   
Paris and I got into the Advanced Economics classroom with fifteen seconds to spare, and with the policy being ass in chair at bell, we avoided tripping over the threshold of the classroom together and made it in our seats just as the first trill of the bell denoting class was in session rung. Thank God Madeline and Louise don't take that class, because with all that running we both did, I could feel that I was flushed, and Paris' face was shaded red from the exertion. If they did take the class, I could picture Louise bending down into my ear and asking me "So, did you both get lucky before school?" as both of us tried to refute the rumors.  
   
I don't know what Paris did to me that morning, but my concentration was sort of shaky through all four of the morning periods. In the two classes in-between that we didn't share (gym's bi-weekly so this week was all academic), I went over the scenes in my mind all over again as the instructors thankfully gave us silent book work to mull over for those classes. I kept imagining the person in the seat in front of me was Paris, but thankfully I kept the urge to play with their hair bottled up. I read silently one passage in my AP Honors Journalism class as 'When you want to make an interview subject less intimidated by your presence, try to touch their inner selves.' I immediately thought of Paris, and my fingers doing exactly that. Flushing red, I shook that thought out of my head, and read it back in reality as 'try to get in touch with their inner selves.' Her damned shirt was getting to me in the worst way and I found myself trying to bury my neck within so I could get more of her scent. The teacher called on me a couple times and I almost didn't respond to his queries from the distraction.  
   
By the time I got into fourth period and my seat behind Paris in Russian Novels, I was convinced that this day was going to be far from boring. Instead of waiting for me to come to her, Paris splayed her hair across my desk as she sat down in a way that was far from an accident. Usually she'd keep it tucked behind her chair so that it wasn't a distraction and I'd have to pick out the strands, and for almost the entire class period, I found my fingers and pencil winding around several strands whenever a student in the back got the lucky reading duties, and when I got up my courage to play with her necklace, the moment I touched her, I received yet another flash of arousal.  
   
 _OK, you can keep this in control Gilmore,_ I tried to think to myself as I kept one eye on the dull reading material and the other on the back of Paris' head. Mr. Mercurio was far from attentive towards the middle of the room, and as the midpoint of the class period neared, I found myself recalling each and every touch, sound, scent and taste from the morning in Paris' room.  
   
My brain's pleasure center started to create interesting scenarios as my eyes wandered around the room, uninterested in the translated literature assigned to me. The classroom had a window into the courtyard, so it wasn't hard to imagine having interesting conversations with my row-mate in front of the school's fountain. I shut my eyes, trying to will any non-scholastic images out, but it was for naught. Paris' hot breath against my bared shoulder, her hushed flirting voice and her untamed emotions from when I walked into her room all the way up to five after eight, all those things were stirring up emotions I thought I could control within the stone walls and hardwood floors of Chilton.  
   
I hated to think it, but with her gold necklace chain in the ridge of a couple of my knuckles, her luscious hair tickling my hand and remembering her at her most seductive? I was becoming aroused within that class. Unlike the last time I secretly partook in my feelings during, I suspected I wouldn't be able to get away with silently coming with no one the wiser. My clit was throbbing, every shift in the seat I made was done slowly since I could feel friction each time I moved, of course the only pair of underwear I could locate was indecently thin and meant for when I wore a pair of jeans that was just that much tighter on my waist. I felt my heart beat at a double pace, and ignored any words coming from the teacher as he discussed yet another boring plot point.  
   
My eyes opened up wide as I looked out the window towards the courtyard, and had this image of being backed up inches away, my skirt pooling on the surface of the water as Paris gave me a hot, passionate open-mouthed kiss and ran her hands up my legs, trying to get at my crotch. Even from inside, my ears could pick up the dripping of the centerpiece of the beautiful open-air quad surrounded on all sides by the four walls of Chilton's upper classmen building over the lecture and hum of the overhead projector, where Mr. Mercurio was circling points I already knew from my Cliff Notes book. I was losing the will to stop the fantasy, and with the lights turned out so the class could see the notes better, there was getting to be a huge temptation to cool my feelings within that classroom, or pray he'd let me use the bathroom pass so I could finish myself off in there before lunch.  
   
Problem with both of those things however, as I said before, I'd definitely be loud since my entire body was on overdrive, so no secret pleasures of the flesh at my desk. The bathroom wasn't safe either, since Francie had been using her study hall to congregate her newly-organized secret society to replace the Puffs in there to make plans behind Charleston's back. Jarvis was the last person I wanted to find me out and expose my secret. So I gulped it all down, cooled my libido down by ending my massage of Paris' neck and hair, and thought of how dull and complicated sex was in French Revolutionary and Napoleonic times. That stopped all thoughts, with all the layers of petticoats and dirty French and Russian men and women becoming possible partners, so the rest of the class period went without nary a dirty thought of Paris.  
   
Finally, the bell rang, and I got out of my seat, ready to eat lunch. You'd think the threat of hunger would kill my sex drive, wouldn't you?  
   
Well, when Paris got out of that seat in a different way than usual, my thoughts, instead of food, went to eating of a different kind.  
   
Yeah, that other one. Let me set up the scene;  
   
I switched over to the desk on her left for a bit to talk paper strategy and wondering if I should get a couple different interviews during my other classes with the faculty to see what they thought about the run for the championship. She told me she had what she needed and we'd be ready for layout the next afternoon. Paris was about to get out of her seat, when it seemed like her right foot's shoe didn't get a good grip on the hardwood floor since the polishing job the school does in August had faded away, leaving sort of slippery floors, which caused so much chaos with the compulsory saddle shoes. It slipped, and I never expected what I saw next.  
   
She rose up a little from the seat, but with her shoe not getting a good grip on the floor, she started to do this weird sort of sideways split. She tried to regain her footing, but it was too late. She fell back into her desk, and unexpectedly, her legs went into the air a few inches. She did something that resembled a spread-eagle, but thankfully there was a metal safety bar between the chair unit and desktop so she didn't fall through that space and bash her head into the next desk over. My mouth dropped open in shock, and I thought she might have been actually hurt.  
   
That was before I saw a slight patch of white. The downfall caused her skirt to rise up a bit into the air, and as she came back down, my eyes, usually looking at her face where they were, were drawn down with the distraction, getting a nice complete gander at Paris' legs, all the way up to her junction. In the short space of thousands of nanoseconds, my mind went crazy as it got an unexpected view of her silk panties. She landed in the seat and the skirt came down, but it was of little comfort. The photographic portion of my memory had taken a mental picture of Paris beneath her skirt, and as I panicked, I was afraid that her eyes had met where my gaze was directed and the last three weeks of progress would be quickly forgotten.  
   
Meanwhile, my inner vixen did a dance of joy to the tune of _I see London, I see France, I see Paris' underpants!_. I really, really wanted to ignore anything being sent down the sexual pipe by that side of me, so I put on my innocent face as best I could, and quickly offered a 'Are you OK Par?", a hand, and some assistance getting on her feet again.  
   
She took it easily, and with a tight grip on my hand, got up from her chair steadily, cursing Mr. Mercurio.  
   
"You know, the janitorial crew would come in here and rewax if he just asked," she told me, and something told me that my little sneak peek indeed went unnoticed. She ranted a little bit as I suddenly became newly aroused. I couldn't hear a word she said as a fantasy started building within my mind without my permission unexpectedly. God, I knew what she looked like nude already, but in such an unexpected way, that little slip was turning me on. Beneath I felt the floor beneath my feet take the texture of wheat bread as thoughts of my face between said other girl's legs shouted loudly over my regularly academic conscience.  
   
Oh God, the way she was looking was absolutely cute. She had raised her own hemline at least a couple of inches as I did, and as Paris rambled on, I did my own interpretation of how the adults in Charlie Brown's world talked and thought of her saying completely different things. "Don't you agree that we should campaign Charleston for a compulsory polish and wax for all classrooms Thanksgiving weekend?" seemed to turn into "Ror, don't you think the surface of Mr. Mercurio's desk would be a great place to get between my tanned legs and eat me out?".  
   
I had to get out of there, before I vocalized that I wanted to do a different kind of buffing on her than floor waxers did!  
   
"Yeah, it's a great idea Gellar," I told her honestly. I wanted to say 'Let's go to lunch' and resume the day from there, hoping I wouldn't think about her slip for the rest of the day.  
   
Leave it to my busy mind however to decide to go on a different track, and I said something completely different as I felt myself become even more turned on. "I think I need to refresh my mind a little before the Life Sciences test, so I'm going to go do some studying in the library for the first half of the period." I then extended a branch, hoping she'd take it. "Care to join me?"  
   
"No thanks Gilmore, I have the material pretty memorized," she answered as she got up and regathered her books. "Want me to save you a plate of food?"  
   
"Sure." I smiled at her and we said our goodbyes as she went towards the dining hall and I went to the library despite not having anything to study.  
   
I intended to stop at my locker on the way to the library to pick up some of my materials and go over them alone in a carrel until about 12:25, when I'd leave for lunch. I was trying my best to distract myself from what I had just seen in the classroom, ignoring the powerful vibes being sent from my mind and my body. Every time I took a step, the process started anew; everything rubbed up against each other and I thought again of what would happen if Paris were able to keep going with her hairbrushing and backscratching past 7:40.  
   
 _Stop it! This is school,_ my conscience chimed in, but my body was seriously having problems dealing with all these lesbianic thoughts of Paris. My feelings for her were hardly dissipating; Tuesday morning alone they seemed to build even further. Now I was walking down the halls of Chilton having dirty thoughts of her. Denial again, seemed the best course of action, so I blocked them out, thinking of Dean. _Wonderful, cute, dependable, boring, safe, asexual, settling for less...  
   
_I'm afraid thinking of him didn't help; it only made me recall my entire Paris pros list, which I went over with fervor as I headed down the corridor. A minute had passed since the end of class, where I found the hall traffic surrounding me fading, and my eyes looking up at the plastic slate above the door that read _Franklin Offices_ passing me by.  
   
Now in a normal unisexual and completely academic situation I may have walked right past, heading towards the library, studying like the good little girl everyone thought I was, then heading to lunch when I finished.  
   
All the sudden however, I was getting this strong and nagging urge to demean the privileges vested in me when I took the oath of office for Chilton Vice President and Paris' assistant editor at the paper. In my backpack's front pocket, sat the master key to almost every door in the school, given to both Paris and I as a reward and a privilege for earning our titles by the vote of the student body.  
   
In front of me, stood the door to privacy. No one ever did _Franklin_ work at lunch, so I'd have the entire office to myself for the next forty-five minutes.  
   
I usually hate to be blunt and profane when it comes to my sex life, but I can't think of any other way to say it; I was overly aroused, horny as hell and the entire morning had caused my mind to go haywire. It flashed one of my most sexual dreams between Paris and I, getting hot and very heavy in the paper's darkroom. I paused in front of the door and felt my body excite as the mirage of eerie and haunting red glow from the light bulb above the developing area cast a glow on our prone bodies as we made love to each other on the table in the middle of the room.  
   
Who was I kidding? I could've snoozed through the entire year so far and still gotten at least a 97 on that life sciences test, I wouldn't forget the material that easily. Considering whose shirt I was wearing, and how my right hand was against my thigh, craving to make its way above the hemline of the skirt, I'm sure I wouldn't be caught getting myself off in the office. Everything on my person felt so sensitive, and my pussy was begging for attention.  
   
60% of myself didn't want to go through this whole perverted situation, but the other 40% consisted of my pleasure lobe, the thoughts I had of Paris and all my sexual parts. I certainly couldn't ignore all those parts. I recalled the way she had rubbed and scratched my back hours before, the soft and somewhat calloused feel of her fingers against my spinal cord, that breathing in my ears, her voice, sounding very sexy in a hushed whisper.  
   
Not to mention the extra item that was the blouse that fit her curves quite perfectly residing on my body, and looked very cute and oversized on my form. I could still smell her scent within, and there was a voice in my head nagging me to pay her back for her generosity. I was losing all my hunger for food, and in an extreme mood to sate my appetite for her.  
   
Paris' blouse seemed to be the next best thing to her warming body against mine. "Here goes nothing," I whispered to myself, taking the keychain from the clip in my backpack pocket, and unlocking the door to the newspaper.  
   
Once I got in and after locking the door behind, I noticed how quiet and desolate the room was when the paper wasn't being put together. Desks stood empty, the hum of the 24 monitors in energy-saving mode seeming to be the predominant sound in the sort of shoeboxed office. I set my backpack down on a layout table, threading my fingers through my hair as I brought down the shades on the outside and inside windows, hoping to God there was no one around. Even in my aroused state, I was paranoid someone was watching me, so I checked to make sure there were no security cameras killing my urges. None to be found, and I tiptoed on the hardwood floors towards the room with the eerie red glow, thinking about Paris' current overtures all the way over in the twenty feet between the backpack and the door to the darkroom.  
   
I shut the door, and what might have been a hot place in my dreams to fuck Par turned out to have some problems. Namely, the drying photographs hanging from clothesline around the room, moments from all of Chilton frozen in place. I started unclipping each one from their individual clothespins, and turning them around so that their eyes wouldn't see me and throw off the entire fantasy that was being brainstormed. After about three minutes, I finished turning all of them around, seeing nothing but the genuine Kodak paper logo staring me in the face from almost all four directions.

There was a part of me that really hated planning out the seduction of myself into an orgasm, the same little voice that keeps nagging me to grab Paris in the hall Francie-style, push her up against the wall and kiss her numb. However, I couldn't, because I like taking time on my fantasies. Slowly, I unbuttoned the sweater over her blouse, trying to watch myself be seductive in a mirror that stood just off to the side of the sink. My hair was still somewhat flat from the sprinkler incident, and as I opened the sweater and took it off, I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror for the first time since I put her shirt on.  
   
"She chose the right shirt," I told myself as I untucked it from my skirt, trying to muster up something sexy. Then I smiled at the way I look. I know it pisses Paris off when the moment I get in the car I strip myself of the tie and untuck the shirt, but lately she hasn't been commenting on that. She's been even more concerned about the road than usual, and I can tell there's something inside that tells her I've become as much of a distraction as a phone call from Sharon asking her twenty-one questions on her anytime minutes.  
   
I smiled to myself, and with nothing stopping me, inhaled the scent of her blouse with my nose as I sat down on a hard metal stool. I spread out my skirt so I wouldn't sit on it and for easier access. Honestly, I thought I'd be able to keep myself under control.  
   
Watching my eyes trail my hands, I undid the pesky Chilton tie that I usually felt like would choke me, and unbuttoned the two top buttons on the shirt, exposing some skin on my front. I could feel myself flush as my shy self realized the gravity of the situation, but the sort of thrill of being caught despite the two locked doors in the way of the catchee spurred me on further.  
   
I brought my hands to the front of my shirt, stroking the material in a slow and wanting manner, imagining my palms on Paris' waist, bringing the material up her body and getting a small glimpse at her stomach. I could feel the cold steel along the edge of the drafting stool against the bottom of my thighs, and already felt myself wet with desire at what I was coming up with. I moaned her name as I undid a couple more buttons on the shirt. So far, so good, I wouldn't mind sending one salad to the trash that day, because I was going to take my time bringing myself to orgasm before 12:50 with the fantasy that was brewing in my mind...  
   
 ** _Instead of thinking of a future situation with Paris, I decided to dredge up something from our past where we may have been able to fit in our relationship. It's the night of last year's Bracebridge Dinner, and I changed around a few details to fit my needs. Instead of lying down to fake a buss as Romeo, Paris went ahead and gave me a kiss that was so full of love and wanting, that I wanted more. After the curtain was drawn on the scene, we started making out backstage, knowing where everything was going from there on. We didn't quite get to second base that night, but we were both hooked on each other from then on. So I broke up with Dean citing his jealousy, and started seeing Paris behind everyone's backs. Whenever we could get a moment, at the Franklin, girl's night outs in Springfield, Mass. restaurants that were far from the Chilton and Hartford gossip mills, sleeping over at each of our houses and getting close and intimate once either Lorelai or Mrs. Gellar went to bed, we were slowly building up a relationship behind everyone's backs.  
   
Then, my mother got the idea for the Bracebridge Dinner. She'd invite everyone in town for a free supper, sleigh rides and a night at the inn. I didn't know whether or not to invite Paris since she technically wasn't a citizen of Stars Hollow, so a couple days before the day, I dropped a hint to her as we had a tryst in my mom's Jeep that she might want to drop by with some newspaper work so that she had an in. With that, Lorelai was sure to tell me to share her room, and we could consummate our relationship with no one the wiser. Of course she said yes, and we put the plans for the evening in motion, knowing that Madeline's writing style somewhat resembled Usher's, who in turn stole it from Prince, who originally took it from ee cummings. Seriously, is there any originality in publishing or music anymore?  
   
I couldn't wait for her to be mine finally, wholly and fully, as I looked myself over in the mirror and put on a green dress made out of silk-like material. It slid over my form, and I really felt sexy as I walked out of the room and my mother told me that I looked like I was ready to turn heads. There was only one person who I wanted to have all of her attention; and Paris fit that role wonderfully.  
   
I did my usual Inn stuff once I got in; the place settings and things like that. I also do some room service by putting mints on all the pillows, and getting a look at the register beforehand, I saw the only room that had a blank spot under it was the Presidential/Marriage Suite. I thought that was perfect and fortunate; my mother would have to give a room like that to her if she stayed; Paris would technically be an invited guest of mine, and with that she did need a room. I knowingly smile innocently as I walked in the room and place the mint on our pillow. I just had a feeling I'd forget about that later as we ached to make love to each other.  
   
Finally, the time had neared, and after putting that final touch on each of the rooms, I go downstairs to the front desk and start checking the townspeople in. I do my best to keep my face unexcited each time the door opened and instead of Paris, someone like Gypsy or Miss Patty walks into the front room instead.  
   
Dean comes in a few minutes later, his hand being held by a girl I'll kindly say was just a little less whorish than Summer, and who would be fit perfectly later in life into his 'subservient little housewife template' he had made up in his head. He regards me with all the enthusiasm an ex-boyfriend can muster for his former love (read; barely any), and they go off and join everyone in the dining room to prepare for the event.  
   
Thirty minutes later, she still hasn't arrived, and I get worried because there's some snow starting to fall outside and she may have spun out on the road down. I start pacing the room, hoping that she's OK, but there's not much to fear, as moments later she walks into the inn, her hair covered by a cute brown knit cap and with a bright smile on her face, her jacket hiding the body I've gotten to know so well over the last couple of months. I want to smile back, but we have to keep the cover going, so we both settle for a non-sexual handshake and snuck blown kisses as she goes over the Franklin stuff we have to look over during winter break.  
   
Thankfully, it's not long before we can find an opportunity to be together, because there's a couple of horse-drawn sleighs in the town square that go around a couple times, and at a slow clip. We both decide to go after we go through the little mirage of I inviting Paris to dinner and Lorelai giving her the Suite since the snow is starting to come down a little, and we get into the sleigh together, wrapping ourselves together in the comfy woolen blanket over our bodies.  
   
We watch the scenery together, and I just love looking at Paris' face in the cool December night. Her eyes are wide as she looks into mine, cheeks flushed and rosy, wanting to be warmed by my love, and her lips…well it doesn't take long before we're able to sneak in a soft kiss as we hit a dead spot along the makeshift trail.  
   
I'm thinking I won't be able to do all that much with her in the sleigh, seeing as it's so public. But all the sudden, she starts talking about some obscure book she had just read and how much she loved it to me, when I noticed her hand hardly at her side, instead it was drifting up the skirt of my dress.  
   
I intake a sharp breath and thank God for blankets, as I try to control her wandering hands. She uses the talking as an evasion topic all the time in order to get into my pants in my fantasy.  
   
"Paris," I admonish her as I grip her wrist. "Not until we get into the room! Geeze, I thought you were going to be more well-behaved than Dean."  
   
She gets this cute guilty smirk on her face. "I guess you're right Ror. After all, I'm just a repressed private schoolgirl with a high intelligence quotient and lesbian tendencies trying to seduce the same type of girl, namely you, how can I help it though? I'm repressed and you're making me come out from my cocoon." Then, she gives me this serious hovering look that makes me want to either slap her or bring the blanket even higher against our persons.  
   
I get an evil idea, and start to play with the buttons on her jacket, trying to get it unbuttoned so I can get at her breasts above her full cashmere sweater. At first she resists, until I decide to relent and let her move her hand higher up my thigh. So we end up spending the entire sleigh ride not taking in any scenery, and instead building ourselves up for later in the night, playing with each other beneath the blanket wearing all our clothes. When we get off the sleigh, my mother is there to see us in, and notices that Paris' jacket is open and my dress has seemed to develop a sudden case of static cling in the front.  
   
"You two better straighten your clothes up before you get in, Taylor's going to be grumpy if he sees you two at the dinner table like that." We both laugh nervously and straighten out our clothing, hoping that no one noticed what we were doing as we made the double circuit around the gazebo.  
   
_**My eyes glazed over as I got into the fantasy further, and I loved the slow burn I was causing to myself. By about that time I'd unbuttoned the blouse a couple more buttons down to just below my breasts, and felt the warm air of the darkroom against my undershirt, straining my nipples right against the cotton. I felt the tank top shift a little up towards my bellybutton and could see the fringe of my panties under my skirt. I used my other hand to hike up my skirt a little for easier access to my clit, massaging it through the blue material. I could already feel myself wet with desire, and moaned out with each slow agonizing and teasing stroke.  
   
I could taste Paris in the air as I started to sweat a little, and could sense her scent. I wish I could've gotten a peek at her bathroom to at least get a hint of what kind of toothpaste she used. _Probably Tom's peppermint, she's the kind that goes all natural_ , I thought weirdly to myself. Why did I suddenly fixate on how Paris' mouth tasted? I knew she went for something off the pop culture radar when it came to a mint choice, because when she needed to fill up her gas tank on the way to Stars Hollow occasionally, she'd pull into the 7 Eleven and along with the gas, bought a tin of vanilla mint Velamints...  
   
Sorry, I got a little off-track there. Sense my excitement here? Anyways, I was starting to feel pretty hot sitting on that stool getting myself off, and could feel the thin wood board that padded the metal seat start to soak up. I ran a finger slowly against my pantied slit as I went further with the fantasy...  
   
 ** _I fast forward the fantasy through the dinner, where even though Paris sat next to me, not much happened except for the occasional hand against a thigh here and there or my foot against hers. Sadly, she couldn't dress fancy because of our little Franklin work scenario, so she had to wear loafers instead of dress shoes, but I still was able to coax Paris to brush her socked foot against mine here and there.  
   
She loved the dinner (and the company that came with it), but nagged at Lorelai for some specific problems with the believability of the activities, including the servers wearing shirts not made from cotton, or wool. My mother just laughed off the complaints, and I could tell Paris was being playful with her words. Of course I found her attention to detail something I loved in her. Especially when it came to our long talks with each other and going over everything in our relationship with a fine tooth comb.  
   
Finally, after some more fun pomp and circumstance, it was finally time, Paris and I could go up to the hotel room, and we could finally go farther with our relationship than the occasional backseat groping and cramped coupling sessions that so far had defined our secretive dance. As much as I loved her lingerie, I wanted to feel Paris' fingers inside of me. If her handwriting was that beautiful, imagine how'd she make me come with those hands.  
   
We linger in the front room for a bit, talking with my mom about what we were going to do over the winter break. It was idle conversation Paris and I really weren't getting into, just enough to keep us in control until we got up the stairs. The last person climbs the stairs, and after we hear the door shut, we look into each other's eyes, filled with lust and want and smiling at each other. Thank God Lorelai's still under the assumption that we're good friends.  
   
Paris and I run up the stairs and into the suite, our hands intertwined as we locate the 'do not disturb' sign and she hangs it outside on the door, hopefully no one is on to us, but I doubt it since the townspeople should know how exhausting Chilton's curriculum is and that I'm thankful I get such a long two week break.  
   
The door hasn't even clicked before Paris has wrapped her arms around me and starts playing with the back zipper on my dress. She eases me into a luscious and cute open-mouthed kiss, and that awesome feeling of her lips against mine sends a chill up my spine as we slowly navigate the space between the door and the bed.  
   
"Don't you think we should light a few candles, get some romantic atmosphere in here," I stumble out between kisses. "I mean it's our first time…"  
   
She shushes me up with a finger to my lips, my eyes following the digit as she brings it from my lips and into my hair to run it through. "We can do candles and flowers and chocolate kisses on Valentine's Day, right now all I want is you Ror." She kisses my nose softly, and I almost want to tear up, that she wants only me, not the other things that surrounded it. "Though that bowl of chocolate ice cream with peach slices I had for dessert probably has something to my sudden craving for you."  
   
I laugh, as I run a hand against the bottom of her breasts through her red speckled sweater and try to muster up a seductive tone. "I suggested that for the menu just for you, I read once that they're sensual aphrodisiacs and I know from experience that you love peaches."  
   
She moans out, the whole seduction is working so perfectly. "Would've been a better dessert if you would've been feeding me though." I move my hand down and into the shirt, and she brings me down with her onto the bed.  
   
There are no words as she starts to bring down the zipper holding my dress together, and I try to move her shirt up so I can get a hold of what I really envy about her, God I love her breasts, they're like pillows that I've ended up sleeping on a few times when I got Mom to let her sleepover after one of our meeting of the minds where I'd bounce paper ideas of her, and Paris would return some more. I knead them through her bra sensually, running my thumb against where I guess her right nipple is. She gasps out and cries my name as I find just the right spot.  
   
"Oh God," she says, and Paris is distracted from her task for a moment as I hear the slight sound of a rip coming from the back. She finishes unzipping my dress, but the shock of my touch apparently made her grip the material, causing it to tear below the end of the zipper.  
   
"I'm sorry, I guess I got a little too wild there, I'll pay--" Her apologies are muffled as I kiss her again, trying to bring her focus back to the task at hand. I decide not to get revenge on her by ripping off her sweater, and she lifts it off and throws it off to the side. I look at Paris' chest, covered up by her bra, and still think she's wearing too much.  
   
I slide out of the shoulders of my dress, and I can see the giddiness in her eyes as she finds there's nothing between it and my breasts. I decided to go without intentionally just so I could see her reaction. Her mouth drops open, and she somehow finds words to comment me on my gutsy move.  
   
"I thought I had the shy one," she gasps out, and she looks at my naked front with this reverence that's usually reserved for an article or a well-produced debate argument. "I'm going to die young if you keep on shocking me like this."  
   
I muster a sexy smirk and wind my arms around her back, her body hovering over mine as I get a deep view into her cleavage inside of her bra. "I am Mary you know, puritan and clean on the outside..." I trail off as I stretch out the bra hook and release it, hearing a satisfying snapping sound as Paris' tits are freed, "But inside I'm yearning for you."  
   
We tangle together, and we get more intimate as the minutes wear on. Shoes, socks and hosiery get kicked off, and I manage to make surprisingly fast work out of stripping Paris of her corduroys, revealing her wine red-colored undies, already damp with building arousal. With her watching me, I brought my nose down to just above her stomach, taking in her fragrance. There was nothing in there but untamed wanting and longing for me, my body, and my heart and soul, looking down at me as she released her hair from an uptight, conservative ponytail.  
   
Foreplay with her is amazing; I can tell though she's never had to do it before, she's been reading plenty of books on the subject of sex, and trying to learn from the mistakes her mother and father made in their years together. She's harsh when needed, but there's this side of her that's just happy someone loves her. She plays with my breasts and kisses down my torso just as much as I do to her, and I love the slow torture that she's giving me. I reward her with the same attention she deserves, taking a hold of her body and showing her I may have been a sexual slouch when it came to Dean, but that was only because I was not only with the wrong guy, but the wrong sex altogether. Somehow, my oil and her water mix perfectly when we're together.  
   
_**I shut my eyes and go with the flow of the fantasy as it continues. I'm not even watching the clock as the blouse Paris lent to me was fully open, I took my right hand and brought it beneath the undershirt, trying to tease my breasts. They're both firm and hard, excited beyond belief from not only the mixed signals, but what I've been dreaming about; imaging Paris giving each one attention. I slipped a finger in my mouth, coated it with saliva and moan erotically as I run it against the outer circular areola; the tropic temperature of the darkroom heating my body so much I had to keep myself from fainting.  
   
My other hand was just as occupied, loosening the snaps of my plaid skirt as I dreamed Paris was doing that instead. I opened it up and ran the hand against the blue waistband of my underwear. Because of the dark color of the room I couldn't actually see how damp I was, but from the sense of air flowing beneath my pussy, my lips were quite damp. I couldn't take everything off obviously; so I had to make do, trying to shove the skirt as off to the side as possible so I could access my clit and get myself off. I could hear the unbalanced stool shake beneath me, the feet not properly aligned with the floor, so I started to be scared I was going to fall off the chair and onto the hard linoleum floor below.  
   
Thankfully, I was able to be somewhat enterprising and find a perfect position to screw myself in the cramped space. I stayed on the stool, but moved it to between the photo-sorting island table in the middle of the room and the side counter. I then reclined up against the front of the counter, my back resting comfortably and used my feet to brace against the island, thankful that Chilton was an expensive enough school to afford a high-quality darkroom like that. I spread my legs a little, and pulled the skirt down my legs just enough to mid-upper thigh so I could see my groin. Then I brought my undershirt up just so it was exposing my navel, and prepared to jump back into the fantasy, literally, as my right hand traced the faint outline of my wetness and I renewed my makeshift fantasy...  
   
 ** _Paris and I are under the sheets and blankets of the large king size bed, very comparable to her bed, and though I think she's going to try to initiate cunnilingus on my first time, she tells me it might be a lot easier on me if we just did hand-to-pussy with each other. We're completely naked, and hoping that no one ignores the sign on the front door and tries to unlock the door and walk in on us.  
   
She seems a little nervous, as do I, and we take a little break from pleasure in order to calm our fears.  
   
"Did you...um, would you want to be on top?" she asks me, biting her lip as her doe eyes look into mine, trying to decode the answer straight from my mind. "Because if you wanted to, I wouldn't mind being bottom, at least that's how I was taught in the books since the--"  
   
I take her hand into mine and try to calm her down, she's almost scared. "Par, those situations are with a man and a woman, they certainly don't apply to us at all." I bring her close, and kiss her as I bring my hand up to her inner thighs. "I respect you and I've taken most of the initiative trying to keep this hidden, so I feel like you should be on top."  
   
"You're sure?" she asks, sort of with a frown and her voice strained. "I don't want you to feel inferior to me, you know we're equals in this--"  
   
I couldn't take it anymore, what with her left thigh right up against my apex, her chest on mine and both of her hands on each side of my rear, so with all the strength I had, I caused her to roll over so that I was on the bottom, and Paris was right on top. I move my hand from her side, and towards her crotch, and though we were both covered with the blankets and sheets, she knew what I was trying to do. All I had to do was vocalize the confirmation.  
   
"Paris," I said firmly, her eyes never leaving mine. "Fuck me."  
   
I think that basically shut her up, hearing her girlfriend use profanity so freely without regards to her usual puritan virtues. I hear her voice gasp at the shock of the F word from the girl below her, but she still moved down and we started to kiss heavily as she tried to reassure me about what she was about to do. In the fantasy though, I thought of myself as already broke for some reason or another, so I assure her I wouldn't feel a thing but her hand inside of me.  
   
"You know I love you, right?" I coo, and she smiles at the warm words.  
   
"Yes, and I love you too Rory." With that, I eased my left hand into her slowly, and she slips her right into my wetness, careful to make sure I was ready to be filled. Within moments, I feel dizzy with desire as without trying, she hit a very sensitive spot within my walls.  
   
"Oh God!" She firms up as I scream, thinking I was in pain. I use my free hand to grip her wrist, and my smile said it all; I wasn't in much pain. A little bit from the stretching out hadn't been done before, sure, but it was easily replaced with a wonderful dose of relief called ecstasy. She resumes her slow strokes, experimenting all over and trying to find just that right spot to give me pleasure anew.  
   
Meanwhile, I don't know how Paris was doing as my hand strokes in and out, but whatever I was doing, though not as shocking to her as my screams, it was working. She sighs and moans, content with my pace so far, though I haven't hit a sensitive nerve yet, I think of her as sort of uptight, so I expect to take a while to figure out just what makes a Paris Gellar orgasm tick. Her hair is against my shoulder and I feel her breath quicken with each push and pull, movement in and out. We seem to find a rhythm, and I calm down as the stress past my lips seems to numb from the pleasure of her fingertips. They feel comfortable and passionate, the ridges of her prints seeming to treat my insides like a finely-tuned engine, trying to find that right place for me to make a certain sound. The heel of her palm is against my clit, and I feel fully and truly whole. The "Oh God!" cry of earlier seems to be reduced to a murmur of contentment with my schoolmate as her idea of pleasure is something I'm quickly starting to agree with.  
   
She eases each finger in slowly, and from two to three, I start to feel very content. My pelvic muscles tighten up against her digits and I feel my hips involuntarily rise up and down as Paris' hands, not to mention her well-manicured fingernails _**(Mmm, another thing I love about falling for a rich girl) **_find all the right spots. On her end meanwhile, Paris seems to be just fine. I'm a little more awkward and tentative with my strokes, but she doesn't seem to mind my more experimental nature of things, because she's trying to get more of my hand inside of her with each push in. In my hand, she feels so warm and open, she's definitely a hidden sexual being.  
   
I decide to push a little deeper within, and we're looking into each other's eyes, gazes never wavering. I can tell Paris is loving the deeper push because all the sudden she bites her lip and whines, which with her mouth open would have certainly been a scream. We're still kissing so much that I can't even count each time her lips have touched mine or my cheeks, and my hand is cradled against the small of her back as I nuzzle against her nose.  
   
_**I don't know what it was about being alone that was causing me to be a little more adventurous, but I was doing more than rubbing myself as the fantasy went on. My legs were spread even wider and I used my left arm for leverage against the back of the counter to stay steady. My panties are about halfway down my thighs and I'm feeling very damp as I work my clit over, thinking of Paris' hands. God, it felt so good, even moreso than when I thought of her in the dorm closet months before and any of the times I've thought of her in my own bed. I felt the tangle of fluid and hair around my fingers, and it made me feel ever more untamed. I was ready to foam over soon, bucking against my hand as the dream of Paris and I went forward. I looked up at the clock to get an idea on time; only fifteen minutes left! I had been so into the fantasy that there was no way I'd be able to finish, clean myself up and eat.  
   
My fingertips were glistening with my cum as I drove them in as deep as I could without tearing through, I was almost crying as I begged myself for a release, basically gasping for air. My exposed skin was covered with a light sheen of sweat as I continued on, and I tried to resist the high temptation to stop and cool off in the office. I knew my hair was basically done for, and it was too late to realize that several of my fellow peers would take one look at me when I got back into the halls and deduce that I got laid during the lunch hour.  
   
 _Screw 'em_ , my usually conservative conscience chimed in. _They don't even pay attention to you and Paris in the first place, they're all about the QB anyways lately, he's the big man on campus_. Remembering that I have no interest in any of the males on any of Chilton's athletic teams, I decide to go into the homestretch and conclude my fantasy, what with Paris' shirt becoming close to soaked in the underarms...  
   
 ** _I can tell Paris is starting to tire and her energy is fading as we almost come to the point of satisfaction. She's wavering and her grip on my body is starting to loosen, and I think I'm getting to that same state of exaustion. I feel my lips becoming numb from all that stimulation and she's told me the same thing with hers, so we're stroking each other's in a flurry of activity, we can feel the bed beneath us creak as our sex is coming to fruition. She's still caring in the rushed lovemaking, kissing my forehead as she beckons me further.  
   
"Come on hon, come on," she pants out. "I'm almost there--". She groans in pleasure, and I see her eyes roll back in her head as she tries to drive herself further into my hand. I think I've finally found her spot, so I leave it where it is and ask if where my hand works for her. Paris sighs "Yes!" aloud, and we're both starting to get to our peaks. My body is writhing up and down, and I can feel my boobs bounce up and down on my chest with each stroke of my pussy into her hand. I'm smiling deliriously, and I can feel the beginnings of the orgasm building.  
   
Paris' strokes are coming at me in rapid succession now, and I feel her fingers pound against my walls like a drumbeat. I didn't think it would ever feel that divine, but I'm starting to see stars from her attention. Noticing my body is starting to shake and it's almost time, she starts tugging at my clit in order to hasten me. Almost, almost...  
   
"Paaaarrrrr, ugggghhh," I scream as I try to will the O further. I want her to see that she's the one true person that I love. We push into each other, trying to find our way into a combined euphoria. Our teeth are gritted, foreheads scrunched, and our bodies are as tight as rubber bands as we ride out those last few movements in each other's arms. This night has been even better than words could ever describe.  
   
Finally I feel release and I shriek at a high decibel as I cry out Paris' and God's names together as I feel my muscles contract tight against Paris' hand. My mouth is wide and I swear I can't breathe as the orgasm she gives me makes me see literal stars in my eyes. It's sensual, beautiful, raw, and everything that I ever dreamed of for my first time with her. Somehow I manage to find just that right spot within her, and a couple minutes later Paris is reversing the process, even if she was a little late, but I blame my inexperience for that. In my eyes, she becomes more than my academic rival and girlfriend; we share everything together, and I hope this night shows her that I'm nothing but thankful that she breached that barrier between romance a few weeks ago on that stage.  
   
It takes us both quite a while to settle our bodies down, damp with sweat, tears and our fluids, but I wouldn't have it any other way. After she comes down from the high, with me being the taller one in the relationship, Paris spoons into me and gives me an intimate hug, smiling as she plays with my hair, and I in turn flitter around with her locks. She looks at me with her wide enigmatic eyes colored the same shade as a walnut, and finds nothing but reverence.  
   
"So earlier," she says, "when you asked for candles and all that other stuff? Much safer and sexier in just the dim light, isn't it Ror?"  
   
"Very," I affirm. "We both have long enough hair anyways, candles would've been a fire hazard to this entire evening." I nuzzle her nose, and listen to the sound of her breathing. "I really did want to feed you peaches and chocolate ice cream though, think it's too late?"  
   
"It'll make a delicious breakfast at the very least; right now I'm too full to eat, physically and spiritually." She kisses me, and I start to feel the situation start to lose a little steam, albeit with some nice closure.  
   
"You're not turning down a session of lovemaking in the shower when we get up then?"  
   
I watch her smile curl even further as we cuddle into each other and get ready to fall asleep. "I told you I loved you today already, right Gilmore?"  
   
"You did, about five times," I say as I feel her chest press against me and sleep coming fast. "Of course, it's not too late for you to tell me again to make it number six."  
   
"Then I love you Rory," she confirms in her best seductive monotone. "How was that?"  
   
"Just what I was hoping for again, for I love you too Paris." We fall asleep in each other's arms, knowing the magic of the snow outside falling on the streets and lawns of Stars Hollow has once again worked its unique magic on two lovers, undiscriminating about whom loves whom.  
_**   
The dream ends just as I started the last strokes of my hand against my clit and I bucked against my fingers, feeling satisfaction seeping from my pores. I was so a total mess and going to need a trip to the bathroom on the way in, but as I came all over my hand and a towel I had placed over the seat of the stool so I could catch any arousal dripping from me, I felt so content and full, dreaming of Paris that way. I was about half-naked, but I had fulfilled a sudden fantasy that I loved carrying out. It took a couple minutes for the orgasm to go through me so that I could regain my footing as I got out of the painful position I was in, though the sexual feelings numbed any extra back pain I was sure to be carrying around for the rest of the day.  
   
I looked up at the clock and found it reading 12:43pm, which meant I had seven minutes to get ready to get to the classroom before the class I took started. Since it was in another building, I started rushing things a little, toweling myself off with a paper towel and intending to flush it down the toilet as I struggled to rebutton up my blouse and straighten up my shirt. I was in a panic, and it took at least a minute to find the discarded tie within the pitch black area along the bottom of the darkroom's floor.  
   
As I bent down to pick it up, I remembered that I hadn't pulled my panties up quite yet. I picked up the tie and was prepared to pull them back up, when as I rose, I felt this blissful rush of cool air rising up beneath my skirt and breezing across my numb mound. I shuddered at the shock, and suddenly my devilish conscience, the one who in my mind wore a slutty low-cut top with a high-rise red leather skirt, seemed to have tied up Good Rory temporarily, because I got an idea that made me smirk.  
   
 _If you don't have the top_ , I reasoned with myself, _why not forgo the bottoms? Isn't like anyone's going to notice the school's good girl without a certain something beneath, and it'll certainly make the paper work and ride home **very** interesting.  
_    
I recalled Paris' reaction to my not having a bra on earlier that morning, and I swore I remembered her pouting because I still managed to find a pair of panties despite the laundry situation. It wasn't like they were ruined at all; some drops of arousal in the crotch but certainly something I could keep. But if I didn't, my skirt was still long enough to hide the fact I was taking a couple lessons from Louise. I still remembered her description of trying to unnerve a teacher last year by grabbing a convenient front seat and spreading her legs open so the teacher was lured into giving her A's, and thinking at the time what were to happen if I tried that same thing with Paris around, only instead of grades I wanted gratification. I did happen to do that as we took the Acela train down together from New Haven to Washington in June, but since I was wearing jeans on the train, everything was basically negated so there was no chance to gauge her reaction.  
   
I smirked as I spread open my legs and let the blue cotton drop to my ankles, then picked it off my legs and threw the incriminating skivvies into the deep, deep section of my backpack. I put back on my school sweater and cleaned up the darkroom a little to hide what had happened in the last half hour, and gotten out of the Franklin office and into the hall just in time to blend in with the crowd coming from the dining hall.  
   
Then I stopped at my locker, and found Paris at hers, digging for her texts for the next three periods. She looked so cute, if only she had known how I just thought of her minutes earlier. I grabbed my books, and said hi to her. She looked towards me, and suddenly got this disapproving frown on her face.  
   
"What?" I questioned, shrugging. Did she know I was--  
   
"You might want to make a trip back to the bathroom before class. Charleston's going to stop you and make you sing the spirit song backwards in Klingon if you don't straighten yourself out there Gilmore."  
   
Looking down at myself, it seems in my rush, I forgot to tuck Paris' blouse back into my skirt, and one of my socks was askew, not to mention I had to be wearing that nature-made color they call Afterglow Pink all over my face, judging from my messed up hair.  
   
I rush out thanks for her looking out for me, and clean myself up in the bathroom, making it to AP Calculus just before the bell trilled and thankful she didn't notice anything else or comment on my absence during lunch. The rest of the day seemed to strangely speed up after lunch, but probably because my adrenalin was on overdrive. It was such a rush to sit in each of those classes and sit there learning, reading and testing like usual, knowing that you're getting a kinky little thrill from having nothing on beneath the Chilton tartan.  
   
My mood was a mix of giddiness and disappointment at the same time as Paris and I took the test in Life Sciences seventh period. Though I could sense her ankle up against mine and what seemed like accidental contact, I could tell she was hiding something as the hour wore on. My libido was seriously pissed however, since because I was taking a test, I couldn't gauge any reactions by looking towards her because I didn't want to look like I'd be cheating off her paper. I knew the material and the teacher knew I did, but better to keep eyes straight and thoughts on the chemical compounds within molecules and just let myself enjoy what went on underneath the table. So close to footsie that day, but it kept my flared-up hormones under control at least.  
   
A couple hours later after school as we did the work on the paper, I felt nervous that someone on the photography staff would discover that someone had been sleeping in their room and they'd discover that I was the Goldilocks in the scenario. I kept looking nervously towards the room as I organized my thoughts into a profile about the team's trainer, about the only person on the Blue Demons I'd write about since the team itself intimidated me. Paris organized it all and there was a general sense of bedlam in the room I'd usually associate with a busy scene in _All the President's Men_ as Paris and Ms. Peters organized us foot soldiers into a lean, mean, reporting machine trying to focus all our energy on this one special edition. Sports, News, Photography, Layout and Entertainment seemed to be able to work well, and I respected my girl for managing to fit all of this stuff into thirty-two pages to be handed out by third period Thursday morning. Even Madeline and Louise worked diligently, scanning the results of an unscientific poll they had taken throughout the day asking who the five cutest guys on the team were. I didn't vote of course, but they respected that despite. It was a rush to go from Paris' original idea on Friday, the staff getting stories all weekend and Monday, then drafting through last night into today until around 4:20, all of the staff was in the conference room looking at the projected computer layout of _The Franklin, Special Edition - The Blue Demons' Run to State_.  
   
Paris was proud of all of us as she went through each of the pages, pointing out something on each page and giving a personal thank you to each of the contributors and photographers. For once, she had nothing negative to say at all, though she did tell poor Brad to maybe not put that he wanted his mommy and was very scared as he interviewed Cornelius DeMateo, the 345-pound defensive back that easily tore through the front offensive lines of most of our rivals. He managed out a "Sorry," and Paris gave him a smile as everyone laughed with him. He's a good kid, and even Paris, who lives to torment him, is taking it easier on the boy since he came back from a successful run on Broadway as a character in a top musical over the summer. I might be seeing things also, but Madeline is flirting with him at times when Louise's back is turned, sort of like the dance I've been initiating with Par lately.  
   
She praised my article on the habits of the team trainer and told me I had come a long way since my poetic prose on the parking lot resurfacing I started my high school journalism career with. By the time the meeting had ended ten minutes later and everyone was dismissed, I was on cloud nine as Paris and I got into her car and she started the drive back to the Manor to pick up my dry clothes and was thankful no one made a comment on the darkroom. She pulled up to the front drive, Fran handed her my blouse and jacket, and within a few minutes we were on the expressway out of Hartford.  
   
I was hoping that I could get home in time so that I could change into regular clothes that my mom had dropped off, get in the shower and clean up so I could meet Jess and Shane around 5:15 so we could discuss an Austen book I had recommended they read together. I thought with the school day over, I could get home unscathed and not have to face up to any more awkward situations.  
   
Oh, how wrong I was. The usual smooth commute turned into a nightmare as the traffic reporter on WTIC broke into the talk show Par was listening to with a loud boisterous traffic alert.  
   
"91 at the Cross is currently closed due to a jackknifed semi blocking all lanes, CDOT is out cleaning the wreckage and traffic both directions is absolutely jammed. The state patrol is currently redirecting southbound traffic onto the 691 west..."  
   
"No!" I cried out, and Paris rolled her eyes as she prepared for the bottlenecks ahead. Route 691 usually added twenty more minutes onto my ride home because we had to take a whole bunch of surface streets and two lane highways once Paris reached the exit for the road we needed.  
   
Paris huffed annoyed, mad at the unexpected delay. I took this as a bad sign and got out a book from my backpack, trying to stay out of her way as she navigated the heavy Tuesday gridlock. I couldn't concentrate however, because she kept cursing to drivers in other lanes once we merged onto west 691.  
   
"C'mon!" she complained angrily, pushing down on her horn and directing her bile towards some jackass who merged across three lanes of traffic and right in front of us. _Thank goodness for soundproof material_ , I thought to myself as she went on and on with her complaints about idiotic Harford drivers preventing her inner speed demon from playing on the expressways that afternoon.  
   
Her forehead was scrunched up and she was gritting her teeth. I have no idea why a thought like that came to my head, but I thought asking her for rides was starting to become a hassle. She was trying to use conversation to distract me from the jam, but it didn't seem to work as her Jaguar was crawling along the road at a glacial speed of fifteen miles an hour, her face becoming redder with annoyance by the moment.  
   
 _She needs a little boost, or perhaps a little distraction_ , I thought to myself as I turned the temperature down on my side because my mind usually can't handle a small space like a car more then necessary, causing me to think I was hot. I brought my eyes down to the book in my hands, but my gaze was directed down towards my breasts. I loved unnerving her during that car ride a couple weeks before with nothing but the open road ahead of us, surely I could help her decompress what anger she had at the situation. Plus it would only be natural for me to change back into my own blouse and give hers back.  
   
So I went with my plan, taking off her blouse and throwing it in the back. Usually when she saw the Chilton uniform unkempt on anyone else, even after school, she'd go off on the unsuspecting person with a tirade about how could they ruin the integrity of fair Chilton's uniform, your shirt should stay tucked in, blouse or shirt straight and starched and skirt even on your legs, it went on and on.  
   
I must've been a big exception though, because lately she hasn't been making a negative comment towards me. So I lay back on the seat, straightened my undershirt out and untucked it from the skirt, knowing that she might bring her eyes towards my waist to glimpse at the skin exposed. I was also feeling a little hot despite the temperature, so I turned the climate control on my side even lower. Nothing like a little gratuitous in-the-shirt nipple exposure from a cool air conditioner vent to drive a certain blonde up the wall.  
   
We talked as we got into the thick of the quagmire, Paris' mood not improving as time passed. The minutes ratcheted up on the clock, from 4:40 up to 4:50, my hope for getting to Luke's on time at 5:15 fading and my annoyance along with Paris at the traffic rising. I read the book, sort of aware of her eyes on me. I judged her look to be more _I could be home studying by now instead of chauffeuring Rebecca here back to Sunnybrook Farm_ than of carnality; her mood seemed to be unreadable. We tried broaching conversation, but it just wasn't happening. I honestly that it might be a hell of a lot better for both of us if we took separate cars home, that way she'd never have to drive me back to Stars Hollow again.  
   
She was finally able to make conversation by asking if the traffic would clear, so I complained that Luke would be 80 by the time I got home, and that it wasn't my day.  
   
"So this day was bad for you Gilmore, big deal. Suck it up and think ahead to tomorrow, the forecast is for sunny and 63°, as Annie says it's only a day away." I didn't see any humor in it though. I still had seven hours to go on Tuesday, and she was getting in a bad mood that I thought I caused. I asked her why she'd give me a ride when it was a clear hardship on the time she spent on her studies. I talked about how much better it would be if I was on the bus and she was on her way home.  
   
What happened next just about made it clear that Paris was far from annoyed at me.  
   
As she started to tell me that I was no hassle to take home, I saw her right hand move towards my legs. I then gulped as she set it down on my left thigh, just above my knee. If I had been tuning out the fact I wasn't wearing underwear for the last couple hours, I had just found a clear signal since the moment her palm made contact, my clit responded immediately.  
   
 _Oh God, oh God, oh God, her hand is on my thigh!_ My touch senses relayed to those certain parts, and since the seatbelt was cinched tight around me, I couldn't move, or evade. It seemed completely innocent, a reassuring technique as she reminded me about the fact her mother paid for her fuel.  
   
I bit my lip, thinking that it wasn't going to go beyond that; she kept looking at the road talking, not noticing that my other leg was shaky and I felt so underdressed! Then her hand started shaking my leg.  
   
 _Oh Paris_ , my internal dialogue gasped out, her simple touch wearing my mind thin. There was really nothing I could do; I was putty in her hands since as her aversion tactic to take my focus of my complaints was working, maybe a little too well. I could feel my legs part involuntarily and I tried to keep my mind in control, despite the fact I was wetting the rear of my skirt with my arousal.  
   
I tried to speak to argue back against her pols-on-the-bus point, but my scholarly mind seemed to regress back to kindergarten as all my brain power went to processing the fact her perfectly-manicured fingernails were now scraping against the inside of my leg and were rising at the rate of a millimeter a second! _Damn you Paris, damn you and your evasion techniques_. I forget what I said back to her, that's how distracting she was.  
   
I felt everything stir and respond and my line of vision fogging up, breathing become heavy and my heartbeat speeded. The book was losing the battle for attention, and as her fingers trailed above the hemline of the skirt, I became very aware of what was happening. I set the book down and listened to her explaining why exactly I was not a pain in the ass, wondering if it would be bad form to grab her wrist and shove her fingers into my wanton pussy since that's where she was probably headed anyways.  
   
The only thing I could decode from her words in my lust-fogged mine was "I'll be there for you always, no matter what". At least my romantic side got a little numbing and a little swoon, but the primitive animal never aroused within me took that as an open invitation. God, I wanted her so bad, her hands in me, getting me off through the traffic jam as I admitted I was interested in her, my fingers crossed that she'd be open to experimenting with fucking me and giving those tinted windows and soundproofing some great use on one of Hartford's busiest expressways.  
   
Her hands wandered ever further, my eyes shutting as she came that much closer to realizing her friend and rival had nothing stopping her from sliding elegant fingers up into me, and making my wildest wishes come true. I watched the traffic, starting to pout as I saw it start to clear up. Paris' digits drifted up into virgin territory, scratching my skin with the same enthusiasm as my back hours before. I remember the times I had gotten off just imagining her hands fingering a pencil within my bed, thinking at the time it was such an odd thing to dream of. I guess my mind got ahead of my touch though, because her fingers against my thigh, shaking it too and fro? I could die a happy woman right about there.  
   
Though I would die a virgin, not knowing the pleasures of Paris' tongue. Yeah, morbid thought I'm so not thinking again!  
   
She was getting closer and closer, what would she have thought if there was no trace of cotton and instead she ended up feeling the tangle of the dark curls on my mound? Would she smile, laugh, cringe, and think I was crazy for going without? Be appreciative that my natural hair color was indeed brown?  
   
"Uh, thank you Par, I appreciate all the rides you give me--and, uh, those in the future," I spat out, feeling my crotch become slick and wet. A few more inches and she'd know what her hand alone was causing in me. "I promise I won't abuse your offer."  
   
 _I certainly wouldn't mind giving **you** a ride Gellar!_ I suddenly thought, and it took all I had in order to gag what I felt was a very loud moan forming in my larynx. What was up with us that afternoon, me fucking myself in her shirt in the sacred space of the darkroom and deciding that a pair of panties was wearing too much, then Paris with her hands, it was like I was living some kind of romance novel where we teased each other crazy!  
   
I felt like I could come right there in her car and onto my skirt, the heat from her fingers drifting up into my slit. I heard her say there were no thanks necessary for the lifts home. She was so close to my core I could almost taste it and sense the oncoming orgasm, I started straightening myself up for the inevitable reception of her fingers within as I imagined she whispered 'Let me show you how much I appreciate you as more than a passenger Ror' into my ear, then closed the distance between us and kissed me...  
   
Then I saw her hand recede towards my knee. I was shocked and struggling for breath as I lost her contact, almost on the verge of tears. The traffic started speeding up and we had finally found an opening, so Paris had no choice to bring her hand up from my thigh and back onto the steering wheel, drifting down my leg towards my knee until she wasn't making contact anymore. I was at the absolute edge of giving it up, the balls of my feet right on the cliff and ready to fall into her, but had been saved just in time no thanks to the help of the Connecticut Highway Patrol in clearing up the rush hour mess.  
   
I'm serious; I was ready to admit right then and there my interest in her. But I had to keep it silent as the speedometer made it's way back to a speedy 55. My virtue was still intact, though as I looked at Paris keeping her eyes on the road, I honestly wished it wasn't. I never thought my breasts could be so hard and my pussy so wet and wanting for more, but I sat in the bucket seat, wet as could be and wishing I'd have taken the risk.  
   
My brain stirred into action the rest of the way, trying to figure out ways to lure Paris into finishing what she started. Sleeping over at my house? Not a good idea on a school night, and I don't know if I'd want her and I to go back to school the next morning. Maybe I could take her to the bridge and we could just talk? Judging the fact I would have a sudden urge to shove her into the freezing cold water and ravish her beneath the surface, not the best course of action. I knew I didn't want her to leave, but I had to let go sometime that day. After all, I still had to see Dean and Jess and get some last moments with my mom before she went the town of Music Row and the Grand Ole Opry until Sunday evening. Oh, and I still was bound to Dean. Probably wouldn't appreciate seeing me make out with Paris when I still had his bracelet on my arm.  
   
She finally pulled into my driveway around 5:40, and I didn't even realize it. My body was cold and numb from the air conditioning and thoughts enflamed, and I had made an indent in my lower lip from biting down on it so far. Not to mention I was sure the back of my skirt probably had a slight dark spot in back that would show off the effects of Paris' almost-fingering of me.  
   
"Rory," she said, shaking my shoulder. "We're home."  
   
I widened my eyes and saw the familiar blue abode I've come home to for six years. "Sorry," I said, trying to normalize my thoughts, "I was really into this book."  
   
Paris then smirked at me, and my excuse fell apart like a popsicle stick bridge with a sumo wrestler crossing it. "So into it you've been reading the last page for fifteen minutes, I think you've analyzed it to the point of exhaustion."  
   
"I guess, I'm just tired, stupid traffic," I lied, and she didn't seem to press. I seemed to lose my attention.  
   
"You're OK then?" she asked, and I felt words on the tip of my tongue that would invite her to come into my house. I didn't want to get up, but I unbuckled the seat belt anyway, despite the fact I didn't want her to go.  
   
I was falling for her, her voice sounding so sweet to my ears, and her nose, I just wanted to bend over and give her a kiss goodnight right on the tip of it. I wasn't even out of her sight and missing her. But I got out of the car and grabbed my things, ready to be alone in my unhappy relationship with Dean once again.  
   
I told her I'd see her tomorrow, hopeful she caught the hint I wanted to see her at 7:35, the moment I walked into that building. She then joked about what got me into that whole situation, Dwight. She laughed when I said I'd wear a raincoat while I watered, and it caught in my ears. It's rare to hear her laughing at a joke, she's usually a Daria-like cynic who usually keeps her giggle to herself. When she laughs though, it's more of a nervous guffaw, and doesn't sound like her voice at all. She smiles too, and I recycle her sexy laugh into my memory banks, hopeful that I'll get to hear it from her in the future many more times.  
   
The way I feel about her is something like I've never felt before. We say goodbye and I walk onto the porch, turning around just in time to see her squeal her tires and peel out of the driveway back onto Cherry Lane, as I watched her car fade on the gravel road leading to downtown. I squint and still make out her HVD-BND license plate as she stopped at Peach Street a block down. She turned on her right turn signal, and my heart tightened up as she turned towards downtown and out of my life for the next fourteen hours.  
   
"Goodnight Paris, and sweet dreams," I whisper to myself as I walk into the house and get into my usual afterschool routine. Thanking God that Lorelai dropped off an entire clean outfit with bra and panties so that I wouldn't have to stay without, I jumped into a very cold shower and got back into my pedestrian 'I love Dean, he's the only one for me' mind track that was so hollow I could hear a woodblock in the background signaling what I really thought about him. Certainly after going through an afternoon like that where thoughts of Paris made me come one and a half times (half for the almost-orgasm in her car), Dean's record was truly pale now.  
   
Speaking of whom, when I went to Luke's, came in once I got settled in and immediately when on this insane streak of accusations that I struggled to explain away as a total accident. He started out with the fact his friend had seen everything going on between Jess and I when we were trying to turn off the sprinklers at Dwight's. I tried calmly and rationally to explain that no, I didn't decide to suddenly have a wet t-shirt contest with Jess as the judge, and we're going to be friends and nothing but that.  
   
He got overly defensive then, and Dean was seriously starting to scare me. As I kept my cool, he kept making all these accusations that I was a whore and going behind his back and dating Jess. Trying to point out the fact I felt it was bad form to date someone who already had a girlfriend proved fruitless, and Shane and Jess came downstairs to wonder what the ruckus was as he tried to assert his ownership over me. He kept calling me his, and the worst of the tendencies that kept me on my toes when we were in the courtship and renewal phases of our relationship were out there for me to see.  
   
I also made it clear that I was very unhappy with him because his idea of romance was so boring it put me to sleep. Telling me that he was afraid my mother would kill him wasn't a valid excuse, and considering my burgeoning feelings for Paris, he certainly wasn't making a good case for why I shouldn't change teams.  
   
Finally, I had enough. I told him I was sick of all the accusations and his Lifetime movie boyfriend imitation, so I felt that it was time to end the relationship. I told him we were through and if he couldn't handle the fact Jess was my friend that he could have a nice life without me. Losing his girlfriend to whom he thought was in his words 'a homewrecker', he made his way around me to try to get at Jess. Cesar, who had brought my supper out on a plate, leaped over the counter and restrained Dean just in time, and Jess kept his cool, nary making a movement towards my now ex-boyfriend and telling him that if he couldn't behave, Luke and him would be more than happy to beat him up for me. Before Dean left, he tried one more time to explain his side of things, but I was overly pissed off at him about the reaction he had to the sprinkler incident. Until he matured and set his priorities straight, I told him not to see me anymore. I was so mad in fact, I swore at him and told him to fuck off, and then called him a dickhead in the heat of the moment. I would like to say I'd like to take it back, but for right now he needs to stay away from me as I try to build this thing up with Paris, I'm not ready to get into a love triangle with Paris, a girl who's building towards becoming my true love, and Dean, who was my first love, but ready to move on from.  
   
As he prepared to leave, Jess got Dean's attention, and made me laugh as he reminded Dean that Shane and he were in love and that he should've taken my sexual cues and ran with them even though we wouldn't have sex.  
   
"If I had a girl like Rory," he claimed "I would've already made her come so many times you'd be nothing but a silly childhood fling. You missed out man, and now she's leaving you, just as I've always predicted she'd always do. Idiot." Jess shook his head and Dean bit his lip, somehow controlling himself from saying something he might regret. He turned around, walked out of the door, and out of my life as I had knew it before then.

After talking to Shane and Jess in the diner for just over an hour and a half about things not involving fighting robots and cars, but instead what we knew well, books and music, I walked home and got into my relaxation mode, feeling not one bit guilty about my actions that evening, nor did I want to wallow. Dean was fine as a first love, but in the end, he just wasn't a good enough boy to become my one and only. I changed into my pajamas shortly after getting back, and did my homework, waiting for Mom to come home. She did around ten, and once she walked in, I could tell that she knew since she brought in a gallon of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.  
   
"Hey hon," she said as she leaned against the door. "Need to do some wallowing before you shove off to bed and I leave you all alone to fend for yourself the next five days?"  
   
I turned around and smiled at her, appreciating her gesture despite the fact I didn't need it. "I'll take the ice cream, but I won't be wallowing, this time it's for real. I'll be burning the Dean box one of these days and there will be no more tears shed over him."

I then came out to the living room and cuddled on the couch with my mom with a big bowl of hot fudge as she vented about how horrible hotelier's conventions usually are, while I told her about what led to the end of Dean as my boyfriend (again, no details on my love for Paris, got to keep those hush-hush for now). We had fun discussing the good and mostly bad of the relationship, and it felt good to finally talk out my frustrations over the last two years. Mom seemed to be more relieved than shocked, though a side benefit of our relationship was to be totally lost.  
   
"There's only one thing I hate about this Rory," she told me seriously, frowning.  
   
"What's that?"  
   
Lorelai faked a cry. "We're never going to drink water again, are we?" She looked forlornly towards the water cooler, formerly changed by Dean in the kitchen, and I laughed at what she was getting at. Even if I could get Paris, there was no way she'd ever change the Culligan bottle. She couldn't even try, what with her 'jugs' and all getting in the way of the water jug.  
   
I immediately had a brainstorm. "We can always buy a Brita pitcher. Or you can hire Luke for the water-changing duties, either's fine." Taking care of my mother's love life by adding on chores to Luke's list seems like a good idea. But my mom's still not taking the bait.  
   
"Brita pitcher it is, I think I've favored poor Lukey out." We then had a nice 'evil boyfriends being murdered in cold blood by ex-girlfriends out for revenge' theme night thanks to Lifetime's movie channel until I finally got worn out, and we both went to bed around two in the morning.  
   
I only had four hours of sleep that night, but they were all wonderful hours. Without the complications of a boyfriend in the picture now, my dreams were free to go a lot further with scenarios with Paris and I. That evening into morning, I had a very wonderful dream where Paris and I sat down together and read through our old yearbooks, getting to know each other and what we did as we grew up. I have read through the yearbooks of our class from all the way back in their Chilton Country Day days all the way to junior year. It's sad to note that each year starting with kindergarten, Paris' cute six year-old wide-toothed grin seemed to fade to a flat frown as she grew up, it was like watching a flipbook of love being sucked out by her mother's influence.  
   
When I got up the next morning, I was in a fine mood, but wondering how I'd bring up the fact I was now loveless to Paris that day. I wanted to tell her as soon as possible, but I couldn't just say 'Hey Paris, I dumped Dean.' After I watered Dwight's garden (with Jess keeping a close eye on the sprinkler system to prevent a repeat of the day before), I got on the bus and spent all of it thinking about what to do. The driver was still pissed about my conduct Tuesday morning, but Window Guy was thankfully very absent, and I was grateful that I was back in my regular underwear, not about to have a temptation to repeat the lunchtime orgasm of the day before.  
   
There was also the issue of the dance marathon to think about for Saturday into early Sunday morning. Winning the trophy has always been a goal of my mom's, and as the years passed in turn, it became de facto for me to try to win it. Though last year Dean didn't last five hours (there's a reason we never went to a dance after the 2000 Winter Formal, and that's because he's awful at the fast dances), I really wanted to win the trophy and beat Kirk. When she heard that the convention fell on the same weekend as the marathon, she was mad and trying to talk Michel into going instead. After about the fifteen iteration of a profane French sentence from her co-worker however, Lorelai realized that it was going up to me to represent the Gilmores this year all by myself.  
   
I stayed silent throughout the day, miming it up except when Paris asked me something as I imagined what it would be like to spend an entire twenty-four hours with her in my arms, dancing at all speeds. There was the hormonal challenge of keeping my feelings in check going on, and the added factor of dealing with the fact she usually shied away from public activities. She was supposed to come out the night I did as a debutante, but never came because as I found out later, she hid out at the Harford library claiming that her debutante dress had caused a rash to develop on her back and she had a sudden case of laryngitis onsetting. Mrs. Gellar gave up on her daughter coming out, and that left a burning question unanswered; would Paris have brought a flask of bourbon with her to the bash and tried to outdrink Libby in order to avoid the whole experience, yet still participate? She's a very light drinker, yet I know she would've soaked herself in booze I feel in order to keep the memories of the fan dance out of her head.  
   
From her old dance tapes however, I knew she still had some talent within her languishing for six years, and even if she wasn't at peak form she could still probably outdance Kirk. I was about average when it came to dancing, but then again I did play a pretty aggressive field hockey game the month before, surprising myself. Surely Paris could help get me into the swing of things.  
   
Neutrality was the order of the day. I was already worried that if I did ask her, she'd come out against it right away and wonder why I'd invite her to a dance a day after I broke up with Dean. Not only that she'd probably analyze the fact that a girl was asking another girl to dance with her for twenty-four hours.  
   
That made me chicken out for a bit. _You don't need the trophy, this is too much too soon_ , I thought to myself realistically. I was just coming from an off-on two-year relationship and trying to make Paris fall for me would confirm that I was a sucker for commitment.  
   
Then again, as I looked at her in lunch (fixating on her ear, don't ask), when did I ever think about boys before Dean, if at all? I remembered back to when I was ten, and discovered the pleasures of masturbation and sexual attraction in general on a very hot July night in my bed. The air conditioning was broke and all the fans in the world couldn't keep the house cool, so I slept in my bed nude but for my panties. I had gone to the pond earlier that day to cool off with Lane, and saw a girl I remembered from my fifth grade class, Tracy McCarran.  
   
Looking back, I had no ideas of the boundaries between boys and girls, that girls were meant to mate with boys and were expected to never have a sexual thought about another girl. Tracy however...it made me flush and feel funny when I saw her jump into the pond and come near me to say hi. She was an early bloomer, so she took advantage of her growing body by wearing a two-piece that was conservative enough for Stars Hollow, but on her looked so hot. She had green eyes, long red hair and was about 5'4", and I remember before that I usually bottled up any sexual thoughts.  
   
But as Lane swam laps across the pond, I found myself drawing closer to Tracy, trying to figure out exactly what was attracting me to her. I was wearing a very conservative blue one piece, my breasts starting to develop but in no need for a training bra at all just yet. We played together, horseplaying in the water and splashing each other in the way that normal fifth graders usually did.  
   
Then when Lane had to leave to help her mother at the shop, it was just Tracy and I in the water, all alone. We talked and continued to have fun, both of us diving off the bridge. I didn't want to leave, I was having a blast.  
   
We started playing in the shallow end of the water, grabbing each other by the legs and propelling out into the middle of the pond. I seemed to be aware of her hands on my ass, when I felt a tingle down in my crotch. Suddenly I was very aware on her hand on my waist as she reeled my body back, and the pushing right against the bottommost portion of my rear. I moaned aloud, and at that time, I didn't know why.  
   
I felt Tracy had done something wrong, so when I swam back I tried to tell her what happened.  
   
"Don't do that again!" I cried out.  
   
"Don't do what?"  
   
"Make me tingle down there, Safetypup said that was wrong to do and no one should touch you down there!" Hey, I was ten and listening to a guy in a dog costume back then was the equivalent of Socrates in my small little unenlightened world, I'd probably jump off a cliff if he would've asked me.  
   
"I'm sorry," she said, looking down, forlorn. "I didn't know that made you uncomfortable. When Sally, my best friend does that at her pool at her home, it feels really good, and she said I could do it in my bed too before I went to bed. So I tried it in my bed one night, and it felt good. I didn't know it was a bad thing."  
   
I looked at Tracy, curious now as to why it felt good. Thankfully Lorelai had given me the birds/bee talk a year earlier so I didn't embarrass myself and say something like 'but that's where I pee'. She then, right there in the pond, showed me how good it really felt to get off, rubbing herself through her swimsuit bottoms. I watched in shock and noticed I was tingling too as she rubbed her breasts with her free hand and then shuddered as her orgasm took over her body. I didn't join her, but she told me to think about something sexy when I tried it for the first time alone. "Like think about a hot boy on a soap opera or something," she said.  
   
"What if I want to think about you," I asked, "Can I do that?"  
   
She blushed, flattered, and smiled at me. "Sure," she said. "As long as it's sexy, it's fine." We got out of the pond and dried off, and she told me she was moving to Rhode Island in a couple weeks, so I couldn't be her friend. "Maybe I'll see you around one time, I'll come back occasionally."  
   
We exchanged addresses, and went our separate ways. In bed that night, curious, I started rubbing my palm against my pussy, and thought of Tracy's hands doing that, then of her kissing me and taking off my clothes. From there I felt something bubbling up, so much so I thought I was about to die from it. When I came though, it felt really, really good. As a matter of fact, until I came in the closet in Washington, I never had a better orgasm in my life. After that I was curious, so I snuck home every book from the library I could possibly find that dealt with sex and everything around it, I wanted to be enlightened as possible without having to watch Lorelai try to explain where babies came from. I'll just say it involved dirty sock puppet play and _When Harry Met Sally_.  
   
By the time the next year rolled around though, I became more aware of the social mores, and drowned myself in the ideal that I had to have a guy one day. I never saw Tracy again strangely enough, but even if I did she probably grew up into a beauty that was unrecognizable from the young girl I met in that pond.  
   
I realized at that moment, sitting next to Paris, I never thought of boys sexually at all before Dean started getting my attention, not even in my dreams. All my fantasies and dreams before then always revolved around a girl I secretly had a crush on, but would never acknowledge having, or Tracy. Sometimes Lane, but those were few and far between because I knew she would never return the feelings, so why lust for her? Only after Dean kissed me did dreams of boys and men start permeating my mind. Even then though, it took Jess to turn them from innocent to sexual. I still had many more dreams and fantasies of Paris, Louise, and even Summer (don't laugh, I took note of how hot she was kissing Tristan, she'd be an awesome one-night stand), than I ever did of Dean or Jess, because with my upbringing and my dad being absent, I never saw many men except for those in town, along with Luke. I never had a silly childhood crush, a boy who played doctor with me, a guy who caught my eye and I pursued them. I was always the prey in those situations, and because of my solitary nature never really noticed guys except for when they pursued me.  
   
A girl like Paris though? I've always been aware of our heat and chemistry, and trying to wring out something sexual from something she's done. Why hell, I'll admit it, I even noticed from the first day she's been more open with me than any other girl she knows. She touches me much more than Madeline and Louise, isn't afraid to be snarky, and will confide in me when pushed. Also, she has this secret little wry smile she saves for when I'm around. It's like magnetic attraction; I'm north, she's south. When we're in the same room with each other, our chemistry mixes up and charges our ends of the magnets, and brings us together, no matter how much each of us wants to pull away.

Sitting at that table, at that time, I knew it was undeniable. I was head over heels in love with Paris, and I couldn't deny it to myself anymore. I don't know if I was born gay, if that's possible. But at that moment, sitting next to her with her hand accidentally brushing up against mine, I finally vocalized to my brain what had been planted within ever since that hot July day in 1995.  
   
 _My name is Rory Gilmore, and I'm a lesbian. I'm a lesbian in love with another girl, Paris Gellar, and I want her to dance with me this Saturday so I can take the first steps towards obtaining her love.  
_    
I wasn't ready to outright say it of course; better to bring her to the dance, try to notice if she's sending vibes my way and then go from there. So after confirmation of my sexual orientation, I spent the rest of the day trying to think up just the right way to pop the question. It was worse coming up with a broach with that than when I tried to ask Dean to the 2000 Formal in the grocery store (note to self; don't mention chicken). I went through class and kept my eyes on my schoolwork, and figured that if I could ask her in the relative privacy of the Franklin's pressroom as we watched the special edition print out.  
   
There was still something bugging me however. I had forgotten in the rush of pushing Dean out of my life that his cheap little bracelet, which seemed cute and lovely two years ago when he gave it to me but now reminded of me of who I had wasted two years of my life trying to fall in love with, was still on my wrist. Unfortunately after I had lost it that one time and Jess found it and took it with him in a 'I'll have a piece of her' misguided love thing, I had Dean knot it very tightly onto my wrist, and he took a bottle of super glue and injected a little inside to solidify the bond. It was very tight against my arm, and there was nothing more I wanted than it off.  
   
Paris noticed my struggles, and brought her attention from monitoring the paper run to try to figure out why I was playing with my bracelet.  
   
"Nothing," I said lamely.  
   
She turned towards me and stared at me seriously, her maternal instinct from the morning before coming out for another appearance. "You've been playing with your bracelet all day and haven't said all that much to me, so what's going on? Is it involving Dean?"  
   
"Well, yeah--"  
   
She took my hand, and reassured me. "Remember your promise that I could come to you for anything, even if it involved my mother?"  
   
"Yeah?"  
   
"I think there's something going on with Dean you want to talk about, so I want you to tell me everything, what's he done to you? I hate it when you're not vocal and keep to yourself Ror."  
   
"Sorry, you know I don't come to you with boy talk..." I felt unsure of myself, but Paris insisted on hearing all.  
   
"Spill it Gilmore, I still have Miss Patty's number on my phone from a year ago and I'm sure she'd give me details third-hand, but I'd rather hear them from you."  
   
 _The rehearsals, right_. I know Miss Patty was already on full gossip gush before I left so I told her everything, about the sprinklers again and everything that went down at the diner. Once she heard the words 'I'm no longer with Dean', I think I saw her smile, and she decided to help me out a little with my wrist problem.  
   
"I have a knife in my bag," she said. "I use it for fruit, but I'm sure it'll cut through that like butter, want me to use it?"  
   
"Would you?" I said, a little too enthusiastically. Once again I was on edge; my hopefully future lover was going to cut off the closest tie to my former lover! The romantic in me swooned as she took the knife and used it like a saw to slash through the leather, her cool and slim hands soothing my hand as she tried getting it off. Paris was careful not to pierce my skin, and I found myself strangely romanticizing the moment. I loved the contact I had with her, and as she cut through the last strand of cowhide, I looked into her eyes; finding what I thought was a connection that now that I was free, she might confess. I knew she wouldn't, but it was good to know that she completely agreed that Dean was the wrong guy for me.  
   
After she was done she handed the strap and coin back to me, asking what I was going to do with it. My mind wandered towards interesting scenarios, including giving it to her and tying it around her ankle to symbolize our friendship and possibly love, stronger now that Dean was out of the picture.  
   
But it was Dean's gift to me. I couldn't stand to look at it anymore, and Paris would probably be less than enthusiastic to wear something her girlfriend...uhh, I mean best friend wore as a testament of the love for her ex-boyfriend. Sorry, I'm starting to already think we're already together at times with her lately.  
   
I then remembered the presidential key that gave us the ability to enter almost any room at Chilton. It was intended to be used so we could keep our competitive edges so we could do our homework late, but suddenly it took on a new meaning. I took the key out of my backpack, and held it by the ring with a giddy grin.  
   
"How about we do a little experiment?" I asked her. "Let's go into one of the chemical science rooms and observe the effects of hydrochloric acid on crappy leather and whatever kind of metal makes up the coin charm. I'll even let you help."  
   
"Once you do this there is no going back, you know that, right?" Paris cautioned like Grandma, and I had to assure her that indeed I was willing to part with the bracelet.  
   
"I'm well aware. Now come on, it's not every day you can get revenge in such an evil way on an ex-boyfriend." We finished watching the last Franklin copies come off the press, and headed towards the classroom, where we both took all the safety precautions of safety goggles and gloves before we poured the acid from the bottle into a wide-mouthed beaker. Mr. DeBruin wouldn't miss just a little of the stuff I'm sure, and if he did I'd reimburse him, because disposing of the bracelet in this way would be so worth it.  
   
Is it possible to find Paris in big goggles covering her eyes, a white lab coat and gloves stretched out to her elbows kind of sexy by the way? Because I kind of thought she did. Mmmm...oh yeah, where was I--yes, the damned bracelet. We both took sets of tongs, and I got first dip. Immediately on contact, the fluid started to foam up like Alka Seltzer against the leather band, and when I dipped in half of the charm, I could feel the beaker sort of vibrate, having a violent reaction with the metal.  
   
"I've played with acid before, but I never saw something bubble up that quick!" Paris commented as she watched, amazed with the bracelet's disintegration process.  
   
"He probably expected it to stay on my arm forever." I smiled at her as I took the bracelet out and transferred it onto Paris' set of tongs. "I still can't believe I forgot all about last night, I should've ripped it off and thrown it at him."  
   
"But you wouldn't be here in this classroom with me Ror," she reminded, her voice sort of taking a soft tone as she dipped the other end of the bracelet into the acid, where it created even more bubbles than the first. "I'm glad you got rid of it though. Personally, I loved that green clear watch you used to wear on your wrist before Dean gave that to you; it was a unique fashion statement." Paris smiled at me, and I took in her words. "Even though we were at odds those first few months, I have to admit, there was just something that made me want to keep pushing your buttons, before then I was feeling very unchallenged. You were definitely a bit a fresh air in these musty halls, and I don't know where I'd be without you today."  
   
The bracelet in the beaker seemed to form into this unrecognizable mass of black with a slight rounded edge resting on the bottom, and I got an evil grin as it bubbled up and disintegrated further. My mind was still stuck on the fact Paris complemented me, and I felt a strong need to return it, which is exactly what I did.  
   
"Thanks, that means a lot coming from you." I slipped the bracelet mass out of the beaker and onto a sheet of paper while the acid settled down. I stated flushing up a little, feeling her stare, the signals from her interest becoming even stronger. "I have to admit Par, without you Chilton is boring. I can't relate to a single guy here except maybe Brad as just a friend, and in two years you, Louise and Madeline are still the only three I've gotten to know more than your entry in the Chilton directory. I especially liked slowly getting to know you though. It took awhile, but I hope I've finally convinced you I'm not out for academic blood or to take Harvard from you."  
   
"I know, I just need to focus those feelings on someone." She took of her gloves and started to strip from the lab equipment. "I'll still be trying to scare you if you do make valedictorian."  
   
"What if I agree to split it with you?" I asked. That gave her something to think about, and Paris became deep in her thoughts for a minute.  
   
"Split the title?"  
   
"Yeah, we become co-valedictorians and split the duties. You get one speech to inspire everyone you went to school with; and I get to be thankful for the three years I was here. It's happened many more times than you think," I noted.  
   
"Still, wouldn't that put an asterisk next to each of our pictures?"  
   
"Nope, and I'd make sure that the yearbook committee would line up our names evenly on one line instead of two where I was on top, and you're on the bottom."  
   
"But I love being on top!" she pouted. I ignored the King Kong-sized entendre floating in the air with my ill-advised words and placed the bracelet in a sandwich bag as we finished cleaning up our mess.  
   
I finished the conversation as we locked the door and prepared to leave Chilton. "Look, we'll cross the whole valedictorian issue when we come to it, but for now we should relax and just let things take course." I came up with a great idea just then to dispose of the bracelet and shared. "How about we head to downtown, pick up something to eat at a café near the Statehouse and you watch me throw the bracelet into the river off the bridge? We're all caught up for the next few days schoolwork-wise, so we can hang out for a bit, Lorelai's in Nashville so there's nothing to do at home but hang out bored." I awaited her response, hopeful I'd get a couple extra hours with her. That would also give me a little more time to figure out how to coax her into the dance marathon.  
   
"Sure, I guess." Paris seemed a little uneasy about it, but once she got to thinking about it, she was cheerful. So we left the school and arrived downtown around 5:30, walking towards the pedestrian walkway of the Founders Bridge and talking again, about everything under the sun. It was strange, yet not at all surprising that Paris and I could get into such deep conversation as the street lights on the bridge slowly started sprinkling on across the bridge, the sun beginning to set towards the west.  
   
We stopped at the middle of the bridge on the north sidewalk, looking down the river and towards Hartford's beautiful skyline, as I took the bracelet out of my jacket and shook the blackened contents into my hand.  
   
Paris looked towards me, and gave me words of encouragement just in case I decided to change my mind. "One more chance, are you ready to let go of him?"  
   
I took one last look at the bracelet in my hand, and then towards my blonde compatriot, having a neutral look on her face. Despite the indifferent image she had, I know that she was relieved that he's gone from my life. Her hand clasps my wrist in a show of solidarity, and it's then I know I'd rather go through bumps here and there with her than smoothly sail with boring Dean.  
   
"Goodbye to the past," I said aloud as I tossed the bracelet up in the air and over the railing. It came apart in ashy pieces as it fell the thirty feet down and into the water. "Welcome to the future."  
   
That was it, the official end of Dean, and a forced phase in my life of trying to grow to like a boy as the one in my life. The bond to him was broken, and I was free to pursue what I wanted with Paris. She asked how it felt, and all I could say back in response is, "I'm free." She nodded, and we took one last look at the river as the tattered remains of a love I never really had floated beneath the bridge and out of my eyesight.  
   
We walked back towards downtown and took a footpath into the park, just walking together and nature-watching as we talked about nothing in particular. Two girls with nothing to do on a Wednesday night, we both were in high spirits now. After about forty-five minutes our feet were tired, so we sat down on a bench.  
   
Paris was at her softest and her most beautiful. The sun was fading behind the giant insurance towers that defined the downtown skyline, and the pinkish glow from the remaining light made for a perfect picture opportunity. This was a girl who had worked so hard for acceptance on her terms, for respect and admiration, and she got it, but usually had to cede it to her mother. She was never one for celebrating a victory, only very rarely did she do it. One of those times sadly was when I first had to meet Sherrie.  
   
It was time. I wanted her to win, not only the trophy, but give her a chance to win my heart. I looked into her eyes and received immediate attention. I took her hand, placed it atop of mine, and with her watching me and so much nervous energy on my part, I asked her to be my partner in the dance marathon.  
   
I could see a sense of panic overtaking her as she processed my inquiry, so as she did, I built up an acceptable answer that would give her all the reason in the world to abandon what her mind told her and to follow her heart. When she asked me why her, I explained that I was obviously partnerless, and with her past experience when she was a child, I'm sure she'd blow the room, and of course Kirk away.  
   
I would be disappointed if she told me she couldn't, but not mad because she had perfectly valid excuses not to attend. I worked on the ones I could make dents in, like the sleep and food issues. I could already see us together in center court at 5:57am on a Sunday morning as Kirk fainted and gave up, and we were able to claim victory. My head resting on her breast as she congratulated me on a job well done with her as we took our last dance of the event, hearing the romantic strains of Susannah Hoffs singing _Eternal Flame_ over the loudspeaker. My fingers threaded in her blonde tresses, running through them in an assuring manner as the scoreboard clock ticked away the last minutes.  
   
She thought about my invitation with grave seriousness, and honestly let me know she was undecided because of the suddenness of the invitation.  
   
At first I was sad, but it was still a small victory in my mind that she said maybe. She was at least flattered, and that had to be a good sign. I patted her hand and let her know that it was OK. I smiled so she knew I was fine with waiting one more day with an answer.  
   
After she dropped me back off at home, I lay down on the couch in the living room, watched PBS for the next three hours, and indulged on the bacon cheeseburger and fry plate Luke had made Jess deliver to the house for me. Can I ask again why my mom is letting this awesome guy stay on the market when he's such a good provider? If I was straight, twenty years older and single I so would've jumped Luke years ago! Not that I would now, that's too Lolitaish and creepy, but c'mon, it's been ten years! One of them needs to get off their duffs and make the decision.  
   
I fell asleep just after eleven, and had more dreams of Paris. This time though, with the filter Dean's relationship put over them because I brainwashed myself into thinking I had a future with him gone, I thought of Paris and I in Boston, working internships on _The Phoenix_. We were living in our own apartment just off the Harvard campus, and getting along like two people in love. I dreamed of us having silly arguments over things such as the cell phone bill and the Sacagawea dollar coin, but in the end one of us kissed the other, and it turned into shameless necking. Around the middle it did get a little dirty, with her and I in the restroom of one of Boston's most famous restaurants getting very intimate in a stall...and then towards the end we were underneath Luke's chuppa, wearing wedding dresses, exchanging rings and reciting our vows of love. It ended before the minister or rabbi (that part I'm unclear on) told me I could kiss the bride, and it went to black.  
   
When I woke up in the morning, I was even more hoping that she'd say yes to the invitation. I decided that I wasn't going to put any pressure on her, so when I was in school that day, I only talked to Paris about school stuff, and did nothing to touch her so her decision was unclouded.  
   
I did run into one complication during the day though. Francie yanked me in the bathroom before sixth period and demanded that I have Paris cut funds for the Winter Formal, and instead put them into the Valentine's Dance and have it held at the Capitol Hilton instead of in the armory next to campus where the boy's basketball team plays like usual. So I had to get into another bitch session with Francie that despite what she may think, the Winter Formal is as important to most people as the Prom, and not everyone celebrated Valentine's Day. After we settled that, and with the tape recorder on, I was surprised as to her next little guerilla order of business.  
   
"One more thing before you go Gilmore, I'm going to be bringing up an issue where the student body will kill funding for the school's les-bi-gay social club. We could use more of that money to go to an actual cause, say, the Football Booster Club since they're winning now. Those fags don't deserve our support; they just take up space and really don't make a difference at all. Besides, they have no fashion sense."  
   
I couldn't believe what was coming out of her mouth. Eliminate the Rainbow Triangle Society? When I had just come out to myself the night before?! My teeth gritted, though didn't show it as the girl who had a sorority that was nothing but a pain in the ass to the Chilton administration for the last seventy years, came out against an idea that was great when the RTS formed a couple months after I came to Chilton. They had done a helluva a lot more for the school than the fucking Puffs ever did, because the wealthy members in that club wanted to do nothing more but help anyone who came across. Despite some aversion from the Headmaster at first he let the RTS go forward, and the senior class of last year voted them the best and most helpful organization in school behind only the student government, Key Club, NHS and Rebuilding Together. Paris supports them 125%, as a matter of fact she hired Nancy Auburn from the club as her new music writer when Louise's talent was clearly just describing Justin Timberlake's abs. The RTS wasn't militant or angry, they just wanted more rights for themselves and those disenfranchised in the school.  
   
The Puff's biggest statement? Sandra Day O'Connor, twenty years ago. A fine thing getting a woman into the Supreme Court, but no one knows she sat at a dining hall table with them all they way back in the 1940's. The RTS is one of the many organizations in the state organizing an effort campaigning the State Senate and Governor Rowland to allow gays to marry, which is a worthwhile goal I want to see become a reality in my lifetime. They've also helped with organizing so many school events, helping construct sets for plays and musicals, and taken on the responsibility of tour guides when new students come in the school. The Society may only be 27 members strong, but at least they're public and proud of it. Much more than I can ever say for the Puffs and the new organization Francie was sneaking around Charleston's back.  
   
I looked into the redhead's eyes with disgust. "You don't have my support Jarvis, you will not eliminate the Rainbow Triangles."  
   
"Oh, I think I will." She gave off an little evil smirk and twinkled her nose. "You forget you're dealing with the daughter of a powerful assemblyman who raised the most money in the state to Bush in 2000. Still wasn't enough to get him our electoral votes, but enough to make a statement. You're going to help me or I'll undermine Paris and make her a pathetic puppet."  
   
"Look," I told her, backing her towards the mirrors. "I was fine when it came to the hemlines, the Atkins crap, the cuts in materials to the homecoming decorations in the freshman and sophomore halls, I agreed with you that they could be just as creative with less. But these are students you're talking about, wonderful, caring students who love this school and are proud to be out of the closet. If we take away their meeting place, the group statement of our government will be 'go back into hiding and don't show your face, you don't belong here'. If you get enough votes, I'll be voting no. If you don't, I'll still be voting no, and I know Paris will too because that group gave us a big boost in May during election time. I will vote with you for most everything else, but I refuse to discriminate against anybody."  
   
"What are you, a Democrat?"  
   
"Card carrying, last Tuesday I voted for the first time and checked the entire ticket, straight through. Bush is messing up this country, taking away women's rights slowly and trying to put an end to the public school system as we know it. I refuse to cater to your sick little fantasy of sucking Bush's dick and being his mouthpiece at Chilton Jarvis."  
   
Francie was giving me this stern, angry look, but I think that I got her to back off for a bit. "I won't bring it up this time, but when January comes, the dykes better watch out because I'm going to do all the convincing I can to take away their money. Until then, I'll keep bugging you to change your vote." She grabbed her bag, and I was glad that this entire conversation was caught on tape. "One more thing, you let RTS or Gellar know about this, I'll take you down with me Gilmore. Watch out."  
   
Her evil gaze stared into mine, and I had a new reason to hate Francie. I always thought she was a little wild with her Republican agenda, but this was downright scary right-wing, so much that Rush Limbaugh would tell her to calm down. She walked out of the bathroom, and I was left with a new dilemma in my mind. Let Paris know about Francie's meddling and lose my credibility? Yes, I had her on tape saying hateful things about gays and lesbians, but if those were to be released, RTS might become militant and try to hurt Francie. She was misguided, but I didn't mean harm to her.  
   
But if I didn't tell either Paris or RTS? Francie would win, she'd gather the support necessary, and I'd be the fall girl for not doing enough. I wasn't out like them, so I would have to suffer in silence for the next two months. Thankfully, there's still be time to keep her in check. I could gather the facts for a case against her, but I'd definitely have to be much more careful about every move I made to gain Paris' love. The goal was now to keep it within the bounds of Stars Hollow, and away from Hartford and Chilton as much as I could.  
   
Brushing off Francie's newest attack on our government, I went to class and kept my fingers crossed that I'd be taking to the dance floor with Paris this morning at six. The time thankfully seemed to fly, and with no meetings after school and the special Franklin a big success, Paris was in good spirits.  
   
I sat at a bench next to the fountain, playing with the cuff of my sweater and nervous as hell, ready to prepare for a life of 'just friends' if she did say no. Two days as a self-declared lesbian and I was already thinking about the future of our friendship and an unresolved crush if rejected. Paris set her messenger bag at her side, and I gave her a hopeful, yet vague look that disguised my emotions.  
   
"So Par, did you consider? Do you want to go?" My heartbeat thumped in my chest and...  
   
She said she would honored to be. My mind recycled the answer, looking around for any negativity in her voice, but it wasn't to be found. Paris had accepted my invitation, and in less than 38 hours, I'd be holding her in my arms for hopefully 24.  
   
 _She said yes, she said yes, she said yes!!_ My mind was screaming in victory and I hadn't felt so happy since my mom showed me the letter that confirmed I was going to Chilton, and started this whole thing in motion. I tuned out everything else as I enveloped my girl in a huge bear hug and heard the remainder of her answer muffled into the Chilton logo on my sweater. I didn't care though, the only word that was important in that was honored. Paris was my date for the dance marathon, and was as excited as I was.  
   
Well, after she started breathing again, my victory hugged almost made her pass out since the sweater was cutting off her path to air! What can I say, love is a funny thing.  
   
With the doubt of a partner gone, I was free to tell her all about the strategies of staying up all day and night, and how fun it was going to be and what to watch out for when it came to Kirk and his tactics. I think around the route 26 exit her major answer became an 'mm-hmm' mumbled out with a smile because I was wearing her out. But still as she pulled into the driveway, she started to get her enthusiasm up, and I swear her voice became a scary combination between Babbette's and Sookie's when they get into happy-gush mode.  
   
"I'll see you on Saturday at 5:45 sharp Rory, we're gonna take the title this year! I'll be practicing at home from the moment I get in up until nine tomorrow night." She smiled at me and set her hand on mine as we touched for the last time that school week, since Chilton had a no school day the next. "I promise you, I'll sweep you off your feet at least a couple times." There was the sort-of flirt voice again, and I think my heart rose in my chest about three feet from her declaration. After telling her I hoped so, we went our separate ways, and I got into my sweatpants and t-shirt so that I could stretch myself out and prepare to put my body through the big grind coming up soon.  
   
I had made a stop at the library the night before for every dance book I could find, and had opened at least twenty windows on my iBook set to various websites with various steps. It was tough to practice them with only myself in the room, but I made do. After about the seventh time though, I got the quilt from Lorelai's bed and put it on the living room floor so my butt wouldn't bruise up again from my legs tangling together at inopportune times.  
   
I hummed the music to myself, but I found myself embarrassed by my humming voice. So after that I flipped on the cable box and turned on an audio channel with show tunes, big band and orchestral music on it. That kept me in tune much better than my own voice.  
   
I practiced Thursday night for six hours, only stopping when Jess came in to bring me my food. He gave me this sort of weird look as I shimmied across the floor and noticed him just as I tripped over the edge of the quilt and right onto my boobs. That evil, evil boy laughed at my pain, but I forgave him for providing cappuccino, chili fries, a salad and sugar-packed doughnuts. I made sure not to say who my date was, and he didn't surprisingly press further as we ate together, and he described a scene at school earlier in the day where Dean tried to flirt with a ditzy blonde in order to try to get into the dance marathon. She must not have been that stupid though, because she told him she knew about the diner incident and that he had too much baggage for her to consider going out with him.  
   
"Looks like in the words of Billy Idol, he'll be dancing with himself!" Jess joked, and I groaned and threw a pillow at his head.  
   
"Please, I never want to hear about Dean and his habits ever again. I hope he leaves this town, I should've known stalking stockers were bad for my love life!" With all the sexual tension gone due to the Duper kiss and the influence of Dean far away, Jess and I had a great heart-to-heart that night that surely would prove to my mother it was safe to let him in the house from now on.  
   
Still, as he left, I realized something as I started putting away stuff and cleaning up the house; I was all alone in knowing that I was in love with Paris, and that I was gay. No one else did, and it was stifling because I wanted to scream from the rooftops that I wanted her. She at least had Fran to vent to or confide in. Me? I really had no one. If Lane were to know I might trigger the only part of her Christian upbringing she was opposed to, since I never heard her say whether she was for or against gays. Madeline would probably spill the news to everyone within a 30 mile radius of Harford moments after I said it, and Louise? Uhhh, maybe, but she'd probably be more likely to rope me into a threesome than to give me advice to what to do. I never really got to know anybody else in Chilton or at Stars Hollow High.  
   
Who was left? _There's no one I'd relate to_ , I thought as I went to bed, clouded with my thoughts about revealing my sexual orientation to anyone. I wanted at least someone to know and give me a show of support, albeit silently as Paris and I shared that long dance, so I could have pride in myself.  
   
I got up Friday morning, showered, dressed, ate, and then started rehearsing anew. I was getting my confidence up somewhat, though things still clouded me. Would Paris go for the more intimate kind of dancing or keep her distance, and would she shy away from me during the small breaks? There were still some questions about it all hanging in the air.  
   
Thankfully there was one thing not stopping me from being my best; the traditional Friday night dinner with my grandparents. I called Grandpa and explained the situation I was in with having to be up early in the morning (not telling him who was my dance partner), and he readily agreed to have Grandma not expect me this evening. I couldn't go anyway even if I wanted to; the Jeep was stuck at Gypsy's with a blown radiator so I was stuck in town for the weekend. With that burden out of the way, I went back to practicing.  
   
About one I decided to take a little break with my stomach growling for more sustenance, so I stopped by Luke's and had a BLT sandwich with fries. Lunch on a weekday lately without Paris however seems just that much more lonely, I had gotten so used to sitting next to her, munching on my salad and coming out of a shell created by the headphones of my CD Walkman. Even in a different venue, my mind thought that her aura was in the seat next to me, comforting me into the habit of routine. I thought it strange to think of it that way, but I wasn't about to stop my mind from thinking about her. I even considered calling her just so I could hear her voice some time in that day, but talked myself out of it since she probably was in hyperfocus mode, all of her energy targeted towards being the best she could when she takes the floor tomorrow morning.  
   
After finishing eating and giving Luke a sort-of status report about how his favorite customer was doing (My mom's doing fine, though a little lonely in her little shoebox of a hotel near the Ryman), I left, walking about town and taking in the beautiful cool November day. I strolled across the bridge, just thinking about what I would have to do to reintroduce Paris to the community.  
   
I think she only has three allies in the Hollow for now; Mom, me and Taylor, everyone else thought she was so abrasive when she came here for her Oppenheimer story, and she was just a little too diva-ish (I don't use the term in a bad way, but she was pretty demanding) during the rehearsals last year at the dance studio. I think eventually she can get along with the townspeople and consider them more than 'Yankee rednecks', I mean she's coming here to dance, isn't she?  
   
Somehow, thinking about the rehearsals last year led me into the former railroad depot that now doubles as Miss Patty's dance studio and the village's de facto meeting hall. It's also sort of an extension of the town's history museum, which is near the Inn, but since it's so close to downtown they put an exhibit in the front room so people can look at it and remember when and think back wistfully to that time they did this or that.  
   
Of course, today being the dance marathon, pictures and artifacts from the event were on display, like the buzzer that was used to denote that a couple was being taken out for falling down or stopping before it was replaced a few years ago. There were some pictures from the first events in the fifties, faded sepia toned or black and white snapshots of girls and boys, along with their parents having fun at the event. Somehow it kept the big band influence through the late sixties and through the seventies, though let's just say I'm glad there was no film of the event in 1977. Having to see a picture of Taylor in full John Travolta mode with the leisure suit and ruffled shirt is something I'd like to excise from my memory, that man can scare me sometimes so unexpectedly.  
   
There were a couple of photo albums on a table below the exhibit, so with nothing much else to do, I sat down with one of them, marked '1980-2000' and paged through it, seeing the faces of my childhood blur by. The townspeople I know so well look at their most innocent and fancy-free, like there was nothing weighing down on them. I look through, in awe and confusion as I see all the men and women, and in some cases boys and girls dancing in the pictures, the dim glow of the spotlights throughout the gymnasium highlighting their shadows and facial features.  
   
I note men and women strongly because I wasn't finding any pictures of men with men, or women with women unless they were related to each other. If my mom had been here this year she may have danced with me in lieu of Dean, and that wouldn't have been considered odd at all. _Another girl though..._ my thoughts were becoming clouded as I paged through the early eighties again, trying to find a case of a girl dancing with another girl. _Come to think of it, I've never heard of anyone except males coming out in this town_. I didn't know whether to feel like a pioneer for my love for Paris, or to be scared of going into truly virgin territory when it came to love in this town.  
   
I ended up at the page marking the 1988 marathon, and was reading through the results page, when I suddenly found my eye catching something familiar. I stopped and reread the winner of first place for that year.  
   
 _Champions - Patricia LaCosta and Gerald Savoy (alt. Lorelai V. Gilmore)  
   
_"Huh?" I had always been under the assumption that my mother had never tasted victory in the competition at all, but there was her name, in parentheses, in the same class as Miss Patty and Jerry Savoy, who had operated a tap school in the building next to Luke's for years until about '96 before he retired and moved down to New Mexico. I was under the assumption that my mom and Jerry shared a few dances together while Miss Patty took a rest break.  
   
However, when I turned to the photos, I saw a picture of Patty and my mother, dancing together. My head was buried somewhere in the background of the picture, and since I remember nothing about my life except occasional flashes and scenes before my first day of kindergarten, it was natural that I never remembered the event, even fourteen years later. But there was my mom, being swung around by my then-ballet teacher, her skirt flaring out and around.

"But I thought she never won," I told myself, looking at the picture and realizing that even as an alternate, she did. Maybe that's why she wanted to win so bad, to win it with a full effort, and not as just an alternate...  
   
"Your mother was a wonderful dancer, classically trained." A voice suddenly reached my ears, and I didn't know who it was. I got up from the chair and turned around, finding Miss Patty smiling at me.  
   
"Oh, hi." I looked at Miss Patty with reverence. Even though I was never really a good student of hers because I didn't gain a good dance gene, she always has had a soft spot in her heart for me. "I was just looking at the albums from the past marathons."  
   
I gave her the album where I had paged to, and it was opened to the picture of her dancing with my mother. "I uh, never knew that mother was part of a winning team. Also, that we had alternate dance partners in the marathon before."  
   
"Kirk abused the privilege too much back in 1992, so we had to change the rules," she stated. "From then on, it was twenty-four hours with two people. We hated to do it, but there was no other way around it; we had to stop Kirk from winning too much."  
   
"Oh." I was in a daze, knowing this new fact about my mother. "How long did you end up dancing with her altogether that year?"

Miss Patty counted down on her fingers as she tried to remember how much time she did. "About seven hours I'd say, Jerry was a little off through those mid-afternoon and early evening hours. Your mother saved us that year; the way she could swing was amazing." She looked at the picture closely. "She wasn't even in the contest when she came into the gym, just stopping by with you from the Inn to drop off some refreshments. No one invited her to the marathon because they figured she was just a single mother working at the inn, she wouldn't have time for it."  
   
"When did she get invited in then?" I asked my eyes wide as I heard Patty tell me the story of how my mom helped her win the dance marathon.  
   
I learned from her that I had been in Sookie's care that day while my mom worked at the Inn. By then she had been promoted to a desk clerk, a few steps below her current position of manager. That year she was coordinating food and drink for the event, and back then we were depending on the Inn for almost everything; she didn't even walk into Luke's for the first time until three years later. As Patty said, I was her entire world for the longest time and my mother rarely either went out on dates or set foot outside of the county as she worked herself ragged to give me a good living.  
   
That day though, something changed. My mom looked forlornly towards the floor as the happy couples swept their way across the floor, and was getting the bug into her to want to participate. She hadn't danced for years, at least five because of my coming into the picture a few days after she turned sixteen (at least in embryonic form), and had been withdrawn since then, taking a 'sister doing it for herself' attitude.  
   
"I went up to her during a break," Miss Patty continued, "and asked her what the matter was. Your mom was looking at the floor with this devastated look in her eyes, like she wanted to be there too." She noticed me start to feel a little guilty and set a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry dear, she wasn't blaming you at all, you were and still are her life. Your mom wanted some kind of break from her job, and Jerry needed to put his feet on ice a little longer than usual. She told me 'I never got to go to my prom, and they seem to be having a lot of fun'. I asked her why she didn't join, and--"  
   
"She had too much pride to admit that she was lonely and didn't feel like putting her fun over that of mine," I finished, sighing. I hated that for the longest time, even though she never admitted it, Lorelai swore off men because she was afraid of falling for one and putting my needs in a swift decline.  
   
"Yes, you could say that. Anyways, there was a bellboy who was helping her out with snacks and drinks, so I figured that I might give her a little fun. So I offered her my hand and asked if she'd like to be my alternate. Your mother was quite stubborn, and it took about five minutes to convince her that Mia wouldn't be mad if she shrugged off her responsibility for a little while."  
   
"So, you danced with her."  
   
"More like she danced with me dear, your mother could really cut up a rug back then!" Miss Patty laughed heartily, and she pointed out my head in the photo. "You and Sookie came in during the third hour she was my alternate, and were both rooting us on. Jerry was glad to give up the spotlight a bit, and she really turned some men's heads. They were surprised to see a woman like me dance with another without a second thought. When she finally wanted to stop, it was hard, because in all the years I was a participant, she was my best partner."  
   
I bit my lip, nervous to ask a question to the older Latina woman. But needing confirmation, I asked anyways. "So no one objected to you and my mom dancing? I mean usually its stubborn boy/girl, and if it is a woman with a woman, usually they're related so it's OK."  
   
"There was one woman in the audience who barked at us that we were living in sin." Instead of a look of shame however, Miss Patty just grinned widely. "Of course, she was part of a one-woman crusade to ban spirits and dancing from the two altogether, so no one really listened to her."  
   
"But why hasn't Mom mentioned all this to me? I mean I just found out now from one picture in one photo album, and I was always under the impression that she had never come close to the goal."  
   
"Because of her pride, she wants to win it all with 100% completion. She appreciated me crediting her with at least a 1/3 of the victory, but she said it wasn't enough. She would have done it again the next year, but then was when she tried to start working for a house. She never came back until you turned eleven to the marathon, and everything about 1988 was forgotten by most of the townspeople."  
   
I was still numb from the revelation that my mom had danced with another woman. Sure, I know her and Miss Patty would remain nothing but friends, but that she was so fancy free about it and didn't feel any guilt, at least according to Patty, piqued my interest. I'l definitely have to bring up this hidden tidbit of information she's been keeping from me when she comes back from Nashville Sunday night.  
   
Right then though, my focus was on the fact I found myself wanting to confide in Patty about my interest in Paris. She was a very maternal figure in my life, almost as close to me in the early years as Grandma currently is. She was the first one I brought Dean up to so he could get a job in town, and somehow had always been a comforting figure in my life.  
   
Patty also, has been a little wild. She's always shared these awe-inspiring tales of her times in south Florida and Cuba and of the risky dances she had done, along with the interesting people she met along the way. Before then, I was afraid to tell anyone about my self-confirmed status.  
   
However, Miss Patty started drawing it out of me slowly, and in her own way. With her hand on my shoulder, she pulled up the other chair next to me and tried to let me know she was feeling bad for me.  
   
"Rory," she started, "I heard about you and Dean at the diner Tuesday night. I'm sorry he won't be sweeping you off your feet tomorrow during the dance."  
   
I felt numb. She had spread the gossip as soon as she knew of course, but minimized it unlike she usually did. "I'm OK actually," I told her. "I wasn't in love with him anymore, the flame was dead. It's just that...I don't know." I stopped, afraid to come right out with it. I wanted to be careful, and be evasive with my confession.  
   
"Just what child?" Patty then brought up the suspicions that had been building inside of her. "You can tell me."  
   
"Well," I started, my voice shaky and nervous. "I was looking through those books, trying to find out if there has been anyone in the contest who has been..." I stopped and wandered off. The 'G' word was at the tip of my tongue. I wanted to ease myself into confession though, or have a way to get off the topic in case she got uncomfortable. "If they're from out of town. Not a citizen."  
   
"Ooh, plenty of people. Not the obvious tourists mind you, but yes, we've allowed non-Hollow residents in." She smiled at me with her bright pink lipstick and got down to my level. "Why, do you have a partner yet?"  
   
"Actually, yes. I asked them yesterday." I played evasive, trying not to admit who was sharing my dance card.  
   
"This person said yes?"  
   
"Mm-hmm. Actually, the person is from my school, Chilton. Truth be told, I didn't know if the invitation would be accepted, but in the end, it was." _Good job so far_ , I thought to myself. _Remain evasive, use the unisexual terms to your advantage.  
_    
"Have I seen this person before?" Patty asked. "I really liked the chemistry I saw in the studio between you and that boy, what was his name? DuBlaye, DuMaurrier, DuGrey--"  
   
 _Please don't bring him up again!_ My mind jumped in, panicked. "No, no, it's not him, and I never liked him, sorry to say." I then sighed, sucked it all up, and admitted whom I was taking. "Actually..." I stopped for a moment, wanting to back out for a beat. I figured however that I had gotten this far, might as well finish it off."...It's a her. I should've let you know first since you're a judge and all, I didn't know if it was disallowed with the rules, I should've read them--"  
   
"Of course it is," Patty told me, reassuring me. "Why did you think it wasn't?"  
   
"Because I was looking at the book and didn't see any unrelated girl/girl couples instead of you and my mom, and I was afraid that's because the judges made an exception." Why was I acting like such a wreck towards Miss Patty? I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, and thought that aversion would work well. I was becoming somewhat unbalanced, and losing my courage to confide in anyone. _Maybe this is all a mistake, I should take back my invitation, Paris isn't ready for the eyes of the town focused on just the two of us._ I could already see the results of that; a friendship-ending argument, and a life full of never-minds and what-could-have-beens.  
   
Miss Patty though, seemed to catch on to what I was trying to bring across, even if my words didn't say it.  
   
"Rory, dear?" she asked, a voice filled with neutrality instead of judgment. "Why are you panicking over her being here?"  
   
"Because," I said, choking back my emotions. "The thing is, well, uh...you know some of your stories from down in Miami, where you said that you felt as equal to the men as you did women?"  
   
She nodded yes towards me, telling me to go on. "Well, if I were to tell you why I invited this girl, would you be able to keep it a secret? I'm sort of not ready to reveal it to anyone yet."  
   
"I can." she told me, without argument.  
   
"Okay, well you remember that girl who rented this place out last year for the rehearsals? The short blonde girl with the temper?"  
   
The older woman laughed for a bit. "How could I forget, she was one of the more unique customers I've had to deal with."  
   
"Well, she's the one," I started. "I asked her to go..." I looked down towards my fingers, trying to distract myself from everything I was trying to say. I could've left then, but I think that Miss Patty was starting to get a basic idea from the vague clues I was dropping.  
   
"Hon, do you like this girl?"  
   
"Of course I do, I wouldn't have asked her otherwise."  
   
"You think she's pretty, right?"

I was starting to ease up a little then; Miss Patty seemed to not want to press too hard for an answer. "She's more than that to me. Honestly, I think she's beautiful."  
   
"Let's start using her name," she admonished, trying to take me out of my vagueness. "Paris is beautiful to you?"  
   
"Yes, Paris is," I admitted. "I just want to give her a good time you know? Usually none of the men notice her at all, and she used to be a great dancer when she was younger."  
   
"There's more to this than giving her fun, isn't there?" She turned around and smiled at me. "When Dean first came around, you felt tingles, right?"  
   
"Yes."  
   
"How about with Paris? Do you miss her when she's not anywhere near you?"  
   
Miss her? That was an understatement, considering I didn't want her to leave lately and I was using most of my night and weekend minutes just talking to her on the phone. "With Paris," I told Patty slowly, "it's much more than tingles with her. I feel my heart beat speed just looking at any notes she gives me, tracing her handwriting with my finger. Whenever I see her entry on my cellphone, or her name in my AIM buddy list, I get butterflies in my stomach, a longing that I just want to push down. I haven't felt that with Dean for at least five months, ever since I left to join her in Washington for the summer. We touch," I started tearing up, but smiling, "and I feel sparks shoot up my spine, even from something as simple as exchanging a writing instrument and shaking her hand. Even when we're angry at each other, I can't help but think that our arguments are hollow in any way, we put all our effort into him."  
   
I felt Patty's index finger up on my chin, and she brought my face up so I could make eye contact with her. "So why do you feel like you should change your mind about having her dance with you?"  
   
I sighed. "Because, this is a small town, everybody knows my name, my actions, my feelings at any time. The moment you found out I was done with Dean, the news was spread. It scares me to think that I don't like boys any more sometimes. I'm thinking of nothing but Paris and how I've started trusting her with so much, and that this town is so conservative..." My mind was reeling around the fact I had just admitted my sexual orientation to Patty, and I was saying much more than I ever thought I would. Her as a confidante was kind of scary.  
   
"Come here, stand up dear." She took my hand, got me up from my chair, and gave me a motherly hug of comfort as she reassured me. "Rory, do you remember the legend of the founding of this town?"  
   
She released me, and I remembered right off the top of my head the story. "Two lovers, separated by those who didn't believe they were meant to be together."  
   
"That's right."  
   
"In the end however," I recalled. "They ran away from their homes, and with only a band of stars and their love guiding them, they found each other where the trail of stars ended, approximately where the gazebo was today. They laid eyes on each other, and fate guided the rest of their lives."  
   
"See? Science and mores might be against you Rory, but if you know in your heart that you were meant to love that other woman, why stop fate?"  
   
"But what about her mother, society in general and Hartford? There's so much going against her, and they'll be angry at me for pursuing this, and I don't even know how she feels. I'm honestly getting scared, I mean we're considered golden children..."  
   
"You know if it's meant to be already," she reminded me, which I did. Paris and Rory, Rory and Paris, Paris and I, all of those combinations sounded so right in my head. "Some people in this town and in your school are going to be against you two, but sometimes, love isn't as clean-cut as it should be. It's a complicated, puzzling maze of a mess at times. But if you know in your heart that this girl, this Paris, is meant to be your soulmate, don't miss out and go for it. I promise you, by tomorrow night, you will know if you've done right for yourself. Life might be against you, but love wins in the end."  
   
"Love always wins," I completed. It was starting to feel right once again, everything making sense. I like Paris, maybe even love her, and for Miss Patty to compare us to the Legend of Stars Hollow, it put things in a whole new perspective.  
   
I was ready to put my entire life on the line to make it known to Paris that I was meant to have a place in her heart, and that I would reserved a place in mine if she returned those feelings for me. In just the period of three days, things had turned upside-down and inside-out, and destiny's wheels were starting to spin. It had always been there, from the day we first met at Chilton. When she introduced herself, even though she was in the mode of bringing me down, she still touched me in order to make it known she'd be there in my life whether I liked it or not, her arm brushed against mine, and I felt a spark right then and there. Then a couple months later, when I went to that college fair and she made it clear to that her Harvard dreams would still be on, whether I'd be there or not, it was starting to become clear. Paris was sticking by me, whether we liked each other or not.  
   
Now, we were two years removed from there, and I was sitting in the same dance studio where I had my first brush with the trouble with relationships when Dean and I fell asleep on the mats after the Winter Formal, hours removed from the first time I thought of Paris as cute, but in a way not associated usually with another girl.  
   
I'm still scared of what's going to happen once I say the words 'I'm a lesbian' to my mother, my father, my grandparents, the townspeople, my fellow Chilton peers. But there's one thing I learned with Patty telling me it was fine despite not saying outright that I was gay. I didn't need to; she knew it without my mentioning it. No matter what, there would be at least one person on my side, trying to defend me, and she let me know that by saying if I ever had to introduce Paris at a town meeting or an event, she would defend me.  
   
We finished talking about the marathon, her going into more detail about my mom dancing in '88. She crossed her fingers with mine and swore that she would keep my secret, and would not reveal it to anyone. I could see it in her eyes; I was the girl who had grown up living and breathing Stars Hollow, and was now coming into my own as a young woman, deciding my destiny. We hugged, and she brushed off my thanks for being a kind ear by telling me to make sure Paris was ready to go from hell and back in order for us to win that trophy, together. Even though she was a judge, because the marathon is a timed contest I wouldn't be influencing her in any way. This was just a talk, girl to girl, where I was able to come out to someone and not be talked down to. Miss Patty is a kind old soul, and despite her reputation as the town gossip, I had found myself trusting her with my secret. So I left the studio a few minutes later, a weight lifted off of my soul from revelation, and ready to face anyone who might object to a choice of dance partner, or if the stars align like they did for those two who created the Legend of Stars Hollow, my soulmate.  
   
I practiced my moves for the rest of the day, did my homework, and then ended the early night by placing a call up to my father in Boston. I let him know where his ex-girlfriend was and that I was doing fine. He was a mess though. Sherrie had started developing pains after doing too much at the Halloween party, and two days after she fainted in her office, her doctor ordered her on a 24/7 bed rest regimen for the remainder of the pregnancy. That meant my poor dad became a glorified servant and tried to help her out as much as possible, but still got yelled at so much because she was stuck in bed 'no thanks to his magic sperm', as he described her saying on a day she wasn't feeling too hot. _Maybe you'll finally be responsible now_ , I thought to myself, the responsibility of a new life was going to give my dad a new chance at life, and hopefully he wouldn't screw it up. Of course, I thanked God because my mother and I wouldn't have to race up the 93 to participate in a baby shower she had planned with next weekend with her work friends. Yes, I'll love my baby sister, but not enough to participate before her birth in a karaoke competition. No, I'm not kidding, Sherrie had a video singing machine she was intending to foist on all of the shower guests. It was enough to make me cry since I have absolutely no musical talent whatsoever.  
   
When I crawled beneath my covers at seven, usually a time I'd be eating at the grandparent's house, I had high hopes that I'd have one of those nights of sleep where you go to bed, and your mind plays this cool trick on you so that when you wake up in the morning you think that only a few seconds have passed by, which makes the time flash by so much faster. The tea I drank to get myself to sleep worked wonders, and when I woke up this morning, I was up like a light and refreshed in a way I never had been before.  
   
I know whatever I do in order to mute the excitement of Paris in my arms for so long a time will be for naught, no matter what, so I took my shower, threw on some sweatpants and a t-shirt, and ate a hearty breakfast of pancakes and eggs (bless you Luke for opening up at 4:30am just this once!) before I back home to get ready. On my way there Mom called, talking to me in an irritating Southern accent as she joked about hooking up with a country singer named Dill. Somehow she was having fun despite all the PowerPoint presentations, boring product demos and confabs going on through Nashville's convention center, but was still looking forward to coming home to Connecticut. Even though I had all this time alone to myself, I miss her so much too. The only really good thing that's come out of her leaving for the weekend was the open for Paris to dance with me today, but I may have been able to pull that off with her still here.  
   
I got back into my house and got ready for the dance, sliding on the red polka-dotted dress I had picked up from the town's vintage shop and finding that I fit the garment so perfectly. The curves of the fabric flattered my slim form, and I was imagining Paris' fingers sliding down my back as I zipped it up in the back, my hands shaky and clammy from a case of nerves. I applied just enough makeup to last the entire day, since I'll probably touch myself up when the 6pm break comes along. I curl my hair into a classy coif, and slip a pink rose into it in order to give it just that perfect period touch that I'm looking to impress Paris with.  
   
One thing I want her to notice and not vocalize though is my choice of underwear. Normally I'd go conservative, but since this is what might be considered a first date in the regular dating world, I decided to go fancy with my choice. A special thin peach strapless bra, combined with matching cotton panties I can barely feel beneath my dress. God, I hope she likes the lengths I've gone to impress her, because after six, the ball is in her court. I've extended the invitation to her for my love, and Paris should be fighting to make the most of it.  
   
Finally, it's time to leave. I walk out into the cool, clear early morning of the early day, the moon still over the town. I can see the stars over the haze of the streetlights, and I seem to come up with a theory as I walk towards downtown. _There's a trail_ , I wondered to myself. _The stars are in a line between here and the distant skyline of Hartford_.  
   
Fate? Coincidence? I'm not sure, to tell you the truth.  
   
I check my watch, reading 5:40am, and watch as the residents of the town make their way to the gym. Some of the citizens are staying at home of course, because they're sane.  
   
I guess that makes me insane for participating in this 'wacky' tradition. But you know what? In the end, if I can make a good case to Paris that she should be mine, it won't be wacky, but very romantic. It's like a dream come true from a modern day story book. We dance around our feelings for a long time, then one day, we both realize how much we have in common. That despite things that might seem to doom our relationship, we'll persevere and live through the ups and downs. Maybe, just maybe Paris and I can survive all of this adversity long enough to have a long and fulfilling relationship, and God willing, maybe get to the point where both of us complain to each other about our first grey hairs.  
   
Paris is going to look beautiful in my eyes, even if she's wearing a freakin' potato sack, and I know she's going to dance divinely, even if her humility causes her to say she really isn't all that good. Right now, I can even say I'm feeling the tingles on my lower back where her fingers will be resting as we dance the day and night away, 6am can't come soon enough.  
   
I arrive at the school, and notice the line of couples in front of the doors leading into the gymnasium. The hallway is crowded with about eighty other people. There's still some doubts in my mind that this might work, because the competition this year seems to be much thicker than ever, there's probably some Harfordians and maybe even a New Yorker somewhere in that crowd.

I then see this one graceful woman, who looks to be about 24, with her guy, practicing her spins and dance steps. An image takes root within my mind of Paris doing that too, her slender fingers intertwined with mine and her secret smile directed towards me as the skirt of my dress rises up in the air, and I do a 720º spin, two revolutions around on my slightly high heels. Then she abruptly stops me, and with my back turned, she dips me down low, my back braced up against her hand. My hair tickles the floor, and her face is moving closer towards mine, so close I can feel her breath. My dream self prepares to close the distance as I imagine the man and woman I watch to be Paris and myself...

"Couple number 34, please separate and save that kind of dancing for the floor!" Uggh, there goes Taylor with his megaphone, trying to keep all the dancing clean and the contest fair. He's watched a few too many reports on channel 61 about the new craze that's sweeping the nation, only not, called freak dancing. I certainly have never seen it at a Chilton dance; no one will pull it off here because it's anachronistically wrong. I could easily see Paris pulling away from me to admonish a couple if they even tried to bring the Macarena into this 1940s themed dance...

It's now I realize the eyes of the judges (Miss Patty excepting) are going to be on all the male/female couples, and away from Paris and I. Basically, because no one has known Paris enough and I've never proven myself on the floor, we might be the dark horses in the competition, coming from almost nowhere to win.

Kirk is looking towards me with his newest partner, and I can't help but think how shocked he'll be once he sees that with my partner, he'll have some real competition going on. I smile towards him, hiding the fact that I'm currently thinking about a wild move where Paris slides me between her skirt so I get an eyeful of what she has under her dress, then turns around, grabs my hand and meets me on the other side to resume the dance anew. Maybe Kirk's brain will see that, overload from all those lesbianic thoughts that suddenly infiltrate his head, and just faint on the floor with no provocation, causing him to have to leave the competition.

Hmm, I think my strategy is starting to form, and hopefully Paris will be a willing participant in helping us both to victory. Taylor's never going to know what hit him this year once we take that floor in fifteen minutes...  


* * *

**_To be continued..._ **

**__End of story author's note** \- I'm going to ask for song requests you'd like to see Paris and Rory dance to in chapter seven. Remember, it has to be appropriate to the time period and it has to be something that would have meaning to their future relationship. Any calls for booty dancing hip-hop of course, will be rejected ;). Please make your request within a constructive review of the story, or if you have a suggestion list longer than one song, email it to me at mrschimpf@fanfiction.net. You may or may not see your request (it depends on how the chapter flow goes), but I want you to have at least a little say in how this story goes. Thank you :)!   



	7. Connecting the Dots, Step by Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dance Marathon chapter.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Seven | Connecting the Dots, Step by Step  
Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, alternating POVs between Paris and Rory throughout the chapter.  
 **Inspired by:** _They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They?_ , now with 100% less Dean/Jess/Rory love triangles from hell and 97.5% more Paris/Rory heat!  
 **Rating:** R (just profanity in this chapter, it's more PG than R, but the next double chapter set will be back to R in no time).  
 **Disclaimer:** After 143,000 words of text for this fic, you'd think by now I'd own them? If I was paid at a $1 a word Paris and Rory would be mine in no time, but thus, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone, and Warner Bros. Television are the proud owners of them, not I. If anyone wants to help me out though, my Paypal account address is...just kidding ;)! I write for fun and non-profit, so I expect nothing in return but your reviews and criticism. All songs mentioned in the chapter belong to their respective artists, products by their companies, and any mentions of real streets in Connecticut are thanks to Microsoft Streets  & Trips 2004.  
 **Archiving** : GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** Finally, after two months, I've finished this chapter (breathes sigh of relief)! I never thought I'd finish and I found it tough going for awhile, but after much encouragement driving me towards the goal of the later chapters, this is finally completed.  
   
Once again, thanks to my kind girls, Raven and Cinn for their excellent job on betaing me once again. Also, thanks to whatever kind soul of an operator at BellSouth or Verizon told Cinn about a plan where she could get cheap internet access without having to give it up and having to get her fix at the library every now and then. Bless you!  
   
Vix, without you and your many astute observations about subtext, I wouldn't know where I'd be, thanks for the fun IM'ing sessions I look forward to every night when I get home from work. Thanks also to Christina for her support with this fic.  
   
To those of you who sent song suggestions with your reviews, thanks for the response. I was able to write most of this without song becoming a large part of the story, but I'll mention a few in passing. I just wanted to get a good idea, and you all helped me majorly with this since I probably couldn't DJ to save my life.  
   
Finally, warning #8 ff.net readers; This is still femslash, and will remain so until the end. If you don't like the idea of two girls dancing together, then doing more than that, don't read the story.

* * *

 ** Paris' POV, 6:10am  
**   
I arrived in the makeshift parking lot of Stars Hollow High School around 5:45am, guiding my Jag effortlessly around the traffic cones and over the curb as I passed the fence surrounding the field and a couple volunteers guiding me towards my space with orange safety sticks. Since Stars Hollow is basically what the board of education would usually call a 'walking and school bus district', there had never been a need for a big parking lot, there was just enough asphalt for the faculty and the few students with their own cars to pull onto. But with the dance marathon, there were some relatives of town citizens coming in along with spectators, so they opened up the athletic field in back for parking.  
   
Where at Chilton I'm thankful that I have a close spot near the door thanks to my position, my poor car that morning was going to be stuck among the Civics, Escorts, Sonatas and Envoys of the world. I was guided slowly to my space by the safety stick people, driving behind a brown pickup I swore had to be used to haul pig waste at one time. I kept myself calm though, listening to the 40s channel on my XM radio and trying to get into a time warp mood where it was 1943 and I was driving in a smooth and classy Studebaker roadster instead.  
   
Of course, this being Stars Hollow, no one cared if I drove into the place in a 1978 Dodge Aspen, so my parking space, instead of on solid asphalt, ended up on the fringe of the baseball diamond's infield. When I stepped out, the heel of my shoe had to dodge the socket hole where second base would usually rest, and I stepped right onto hard, compacted dirt.  
   
I was thinking seriously about complaining about my space to the attendant, but then I remembered who I was here for; Rory, who would probably admonish me if I went back to my sophomore year behavior and whined about 'small-town yokels', and that her town was very comparable to some places in North Dakota long left behind by the young. It really wasn't that bad of a town; I've just been so used to the cosmopolitan urban atmosphere where I've been raised. Summers in the Hamptons, winter breaks down in Florida, and spring vacations spent up in my daddy's brownstone close to Harvard where I built up my relationships with the school's faculty and admissions staff. This was just another interesting stop on the journey that has been my life.  
   
I had on my jacket over my dress so those who were walking towards the building with me couldn't comment, and they were regarding me with little interest. Most of them were in the same 40's garb, with a few teens and adults here and there being anachronistic and in modern dresses and slacks. There was even one boy who thought that James Dean may have perfected his look on December 31st of 1949 and was trying to pass it off as correct for the time period. I wanted to call a few of those people out, but that might have been a little rude, considering I wasn't even related to anyone in this town.  
   
When I walked into the small high school, I could start to feel my anticipation build up for what was to happen. The hallways were small, lockers perfectly lined up, clusters of 35 broken up by the occasional classroom or closet door, followed by 35 more lockers. The look of the building definitely said 'Hollywood small-town high school' all over, down to the ornate ceilings above with the old style frosted glass light fixtures hanging from the rafters.  
   
I saw a sign directing all of us towards check-in and coat check, and had the information Rory had sent me last night about it in a text message on my cell phone. We were couple #131 according to the contest order, so I lined up with everyone else and waited patiently to check in, the foyer in front of the gymnasium packed with people.  
   
I searched around the room, and squinted my eyes out towards the front courtyard of the school looking for Rory through the doors, but I couldn't seem to place her, since she wasn't the only one wearing a red polka-dotted dress. I'd count at least forty others in that building wearing something close to it, and as I moved up in line, hoped she was there. I couldn't shout her name out because the others in line were having casual conversation, probably drowning my voice out.  
   
After about five minutes, I came to the front of the line, and grabbed my fine-point Parker ballpoint pen out of my purse after I took off my jacket and handed it to a man collecting coats. An older woman with curly blonde hair sat at the table, crossing off names on a list and handing out number tags to the contestants. Spectators were being herded into the other doors directed towards the bleachers, while us contestants were coming in from the right and onto the dance floor.  
   
"Last name and number sugar?" the woman asked me, having sort of a beatnik-ish tone of voice.  
   
"Gellar, #131."  
   
She looked down on the sheet, marked off like a voter's registers with each page cut at the edge so she could easily thumb to the first letter of each name. The lady thumbed to the G sheet, and then ran her finger through the list until she saw G-E-L. "Is that L-E-R or L-A-R at the end?"  
   
"With an A," I told her, getting a little antsy. So little time to prepare, and hopefully I'd be able to locate Rory's angelic face somewhere within the crowd. I stretched out my neck, looking for her as the lady at the table confirmed my information.  
   
Then she noticed my distracted state, and asked what was up. "Are you looking for your dance partner?"  
   
I nodded towards her as she handed me the clipboard so I could sign next to my name. "Yeah, she said she would meet me here--"  
   
The woman became wide-eyed as realization hit her. "Wait, blonde, brown-eyed, little short, funny name...that's you!"  
   
I was puzzled for a moment, why was she describing me this way? "Uh, yeah, that's me I guess," I told her, mumbling.  
   
"Rory's sitting in the bleachers waiting for you inside, she wanted you to know that 'cause she thought you might get lost here, being from Hartford and all." The lady smiled at me, and I couldn't help but thank Rory for thinking things out in advance.  
   
She handed me my tag and a safety pin, numbered with 131 so I could hang it off the front of my dress. "Good luck dear," she told me, and I walked into the small, cozy gymnasium where I'd be sharing the next few hours of my life with the girl I liked. I thought it was sweet that Rory had gone up to the woman and asked if she could go in early just so I could find her, because in that crowd I may have never been able to. I know if I was at a charity ball and had to search for my date I may have never found them at all.  
   
I walked in and was immediately in awe with the setting; this gym had been untouched by time or renovation, something out of _Hoosiers_. There were ropes of balloons hanging above the dance floor, in all colors of the rainbow, along with an older scoreboard hanging on a far side of the wall. There was a temporary digital scoreboard towards the end line on the far side of the gym that read '24:00:00', but it didn't distract from the décor of the setting at all.  
   
 _I'm not going to bitch about a single anachronism here, this town's done their work_ , I thought to myself as I brought my gaze over to the bleachers to locate Rory.  
   
It didn't take all that long, and the moment I saw her from across the room, she saw me and got up from her seat as she talked to a guy at the refreshments table, sipping from a foam cup. I knew from first sight that was Luke, the diner owner she was talking to, and of course, she was drinking coffee.  
   
There was twenty feet between us on that first look, but I'll just say this; even if that had been the first time I had ever met Rory and laid eyes on her, I would've been just as needy for her as I was in that moment, falling in love on first sight.  
   
My mouth started watering as I took in the dress she was wearing. It was hardly what anyone in this modern age would call sexy, but the way she looked in it just made me want to sweep her off her feet right away. The red fabric was bright, and gave off this warm aura that I wanted to bask in. There was but a little skin exposed on her front, but that would help cool down my hormones a little.  
   
It looked as vintage as the dress I was wearing, but what she was wearing, she could've just come back from a dressmaker's shop in Hartford circa 1943 in a time machine. It fit her slim figure perfectly, like a glove, and I was drawn down to her legs immediately. The skirt fell just a little below her knees, but I could tell that it would flare out and spin whenever we tried something daring.  
   
My heart was beating so fast; it was then I came back to reality. I was going to dance with _her_ , for such a long time. This wasn't just any other dance, where if I got bored I could take a break and recharge at the punch bowl as Brady McHotguy boasted about how wonderful he was and wore out the letter 'I' so much it fainted and begged for mercy from being used so much. I'd only have twenty minute breaks here and there to cool my heels, and then right back into the frying pan and the fire.  
   
What if I fell down that first minute and got us disqualified right off the bat? If we bumped another couple as we danced and started a rivalry we really didn't want, or danced so much we eventually fainted and ended up in the hospital? What if I couldn't keep my hands off her, and in a sudden movement I moved in too close...  
   
"Paris?"  
   
I was jolted out of those thoughts as Rory came closer to me, holding another foam cup of something. I looked up at her and shook the negative thoughts of the event out of my head as our eyes met.  
   
God, I was right a year ago when I told her she was comparable to a Disney princess; she looked like birds really dressed her. Her hair had a rose decoration the same color as mine was, a light pink, as if karma was trying to nudge us together. I noticed her fingernails were sort of a cherry red, making my uncolored yet polished nails seem pale in comparison. She was smiling at me, a little bleary just as everyone else was from being up at such an early hour.  
   
"Hi Rory," I told her as she gave me a nice once-over of my dress and I did the same. Her eyes raked over my frame, failing as I hoped to find a thing out of place or bringing down my beauty high, and then she told me that I looked really, really nice. I blushed and I told her that she was certainly no slouch in the beauty department either, there was a lot of nervous conversation going on to start out the morning.  
   
She then handed over the other foam cup she held to me after we got over our nerves. She sipped from her cup, and I had a perverted thought about really wanting to be the lip of that cup. I swear I was giving her that same look Ally did towards Georgia as the other woman sipped the foam head of her cappuccino...  
   
Thankfully before I could get into Charlie-Brown-eyeing-the-little-redheaded-girl mode or lick my lips, Rory decided to let me know what she gave me. "Uh, I didn't know if you'd drink coffee if it didn't have soy milk because Luke had to make enough to serve the entire competition, so he also made up a large pot of wintergreen tea. Is that OK, I can get you something else--"  
   
My mouth thankful for any kind of fluid that didn't have Evian on the label (I think I drank my body weight in the stuff that day and a half before), I sipped the hot concoction, my nose basking in the sweet scent of the drink, and the relaxing vapors of the steam. It felt really good going down, and with the contained caffeine within, I could tell that recharging my synapses throughout the day with Luke's wintergreen tea was something I might have to start repeating every weekday.  
   
After I gulped the tea down, I stopped Rory's ramble, smiling at her. "No, no, this stuff right here?" I pointed at the cup, followed by my stomach. "Hits the spot, that'll wake me up, though I did sleep from about six on until four this morning."  
   
"I'm glad." She seemed relieved, playing a doting girl to my temperamental nature. "We have to go see the nurse for a quick physical, just something very routine to make sure we're both tip-top, she doesn't want to have any surprises befalling her."  
   
"Turn my head and cough, walk a few steps, make sure I'm not carrying a benign form of the plague kind of exam?" I asked, and Rory shook her head.  
   
"Come on, the line's building up," she told me, and took my hand so that we could get in the line. Thankfully the exam was thorough, yet brief and there was no use of a stethoscope, because if she had found my heart racing from the adrenaline rush of the event and being so close to Rory I might have been sitting in the bleachers just watching.  
   
After finishing the exam, we went back over to the refreshments table, where Luke was standing sentry over the food and beverages. I told him that I loved his wintergreen tea (he poured me another cup as we chatted), and we settled those differences that arose in the heat of the Oppenhemier pursuit.  
   
"I didn't really mean to assert that you ran a brothel," I told the guy, who would make a perfect model for a paper towel wrapping. "I just was a little intense that day, and for that I'm sorry Mr. Danes."  
   
"Hey, its fine Paris, I've been called a lot worse by some citizens in this town, but the way you put it to me, and then Jess coming in and trying to push my buttons..."  
   
"Yeah, he's a troublemaker. But from what I heard he's finally cooperating with you, Rory's been keeping me clued in..." Rory came over just then after retrieving her own number and safety pin pair. "...And here she is now."  
   
"Hey, you two patched things up pretty quickly," she said as she handed me the piece of paper and pin.  
   
"All it took was the wintergreen tea." Luke and I said our goodbyes, and my mind was able to focus on the reason she handed me her dance marathon number. "What's up?"  
   
"Pin me please," she said with her innocent smirk. "I tried it myself, but I can't reach that far around my back."  
   
Rory turned around, and somehow I kept my fingers unshaken enough to not jab the point of the pin through her skin as I threaded it through the paper of the number and the material of her dress. "There you go," I told her as I snapped the safety pin to place. Rory then turned around to face me, and asked me if she could pin my number to my dress.  
   
Noticing that I had absolutely no material in back except towards the bottom of my spinal column, her pinning a number would be a little too close to home. I shuddered as my mind created that scenario, and with the only other option being pinning it to my front, I decided it was probably best to forgo the safety pin entirely, along with any help from Rory. Instead, there was thankfully a roll of black electrical tape on the judge's table. So I brought the number below my breasts and went to town, taping the number on somehow without Rory's help. I think I saw her frown a bit at losing possible contact with my bustline, but that was all forgotten as Taylor, overzealous with his use of the megaphone, called all the contestants out to the floor for the five-minute call.  
   
"That's us," she said cheerfully, as she took my right into her left and we got onto the dance floor, ready to scope out the competition. I was in the mode I had been in so many times before with Rory; know thy enemy, and don't play into thy enemy's weakness.  
   
Thy enemy that day for both of us; Kirk Gleason. Usually known as the town's bachelor, nerd, all-around geek, if it's a derogatory term for a nervous man like him, I could say it. But once he got on that dance floor, Rory had told me, that façade disappeared, and he turned into this dancing machine that would make Michael Flatley run away crying towards the woman who had borne him. He had won the competition for eight years straight, and this year was going for number nine. His dance partner was in it for the cup and the glory, and they were usually a professional who was on his team for the same reason some second-stringer from the La Crosse team of the CBA begged for a Lakers contract; to win. Rory told me that every year once the last couple was knocked out of the competition, he'd take the trophy around the gym floor to the strains of the love theme to _Rocky_.  
   
Rory and I headed towards center court, and my eyes immediately met with Kirk's, a stern gaze that was telling him I wasn't here just for a little fun, I was here to win. I could care less about the whatever the prize package was, and Rory could keep the trophy, but I wanted to leave that floor in approximately twenty-four hours and three minutes declared the champion along with her.  
   
Though of course the number one reason, that I wanted close contact with her for so long was shallow. Wasn't about to let Kirk know that though.  
   
"Hey," he started, trying to get right into his mode of intimidation. "Good luck to you two."  
   
Yeah, nice try there Gleason, I don't play nice. "Whatever," I said, brushing him off. "I have a feeling you'll be seeing Rory and I on this floor into the witching hours."  
   
"Until you break a heel," he told us offside, reminding us both of how Lorelai lost her footing the last three years and stumbled to the ground in agony around the nine o'clock point. Rory didn't take the comment well and grimaced at him. I had to keep her calm, so I decided to move away from him.  
   
"Trust me, we're different. Even if we have to ditch our shoes we'll still be here to stop your streak," she told him as we walked away and towards the judge's stand. I couldn't hear his response to her witty retort, but he was just a distraction.

I set a hand on her shoulder, trying to get her in the zone, so to speak. "Don't listen to him Gilmore, he's just bitter because he's never been able to parlay his titles into any kind of meaningful relationship." I smirked at her, and hoped she'd catch onto my very obvious and screaming hint that I hoped this day would turn into a lot more at the end. Rory laughed, and we settled down, preparing for the beginning of this whole ordeal.  
   
A volunteer handed out yellow cards to all of us, and Taylor let us know the rules for those who needed a refresher course, but that I had down from the moment I accepted Rory's invitation. We had to stay moving and touching throughout, which meant there wasn't going to be any tossing your partner in the air allowed, or any other kind of wild move you'd see in _Strictly Ballroom_. The breaks would happen whenever Taylor sounded the scoreboard horn, lasting twenty minutes each, allowing us to recover. I could also take one individual ten minute break if I gave up my yellow card, kind of like a strategic last-laps pit stop in an auto race if we could keep it up into the late hours. That meant Rory and I were going to have to keep close eyes on each other's health and let the other know that it was time to yellow card out for a break.  
   
With a minute to go, Rory and I met, exchanging direct eye contact and setting her hands in mine. She trusted me with her fate, in her town, at that moment. The last thing I wanted to do that day was be a major disappointment and stumble. God, I could already see the image of myself tripping on the volleyball pole socket in the gym floor and stumbling on my ass as the horn of doom sounded, Rory helping me up but not looking at me as I left town in shame.  
   
My blood was flowing through my body so fast I could feel it in my veins, and despite not a smidgen of physical activity yet, my sweat glands were stirred up. I had prepared for that however, knowing I didn't have any material on the side to catch any drops, so I had to use a high-powered anti-perspirant. What wasn't helping however was Rory's proximity to me. It wasn't even six o'clock, and just the simple touch of her hands, they were getting me aroused. I felt stiff, nervous, and strange. _What if this isn't right_ , I thought to myself as Rory's crystal pupils raked over my form, getting a sense of my curves and where to set her arms. Her fingers were bare, rubbing up against the ring on my right non-writing hand I received from my paternal Aunt Ingrid for my bat mitzvah.  
   
She drew my attention, taking my focus off my worries for a moment. If she knew what I wanted to do at that moment, which didn't involve dancing with her, at least in the literal and academic sense, but in a bedroom definition, I swore she would've probably freaked. Thankfully my mind didn't telegraph anything, as she gave me a reassuring smile, bringing her left hand up and running a finger in my hair and along the petals of the flower in it.  
   
"You ready for this Paris?" she said in a hushed voice as Taylor finished reading off a list of sponsors for the event. "Last chance to back out, you don't have to do this." Rory's voice wasn't in a mood of protestation, rather in a challenging tone. She then brought her hand down from my scalp, a finger lingering against the halter strap near my neck in a way that almost made me moan. She then brought the hand down my arm and back into my hand, leaving behind a building swath of goosebumps rising up from each millimeter of skin she touched, making the small hairs I had along the top rise. Her words worked alchemy in my ears and her breath tickled my nose, getting me back into the hyperfocus I had maintained since I asked Francisca to help me with an outfit choice Thursday night. A perfectly blended mix of triple-striped AquaFresh toothpaste combined with two cups of coffee was what I sensed in that one slight sniff of her breath as the minty taste of her went into my nose.  
   
I swallowed down a last gulp of my wintergreen tea that I was swirling around my mouth to coat it so I could stay as hydrated as possible before the noon break, handing the cup off to a volunteer to toss. My lovesick side may not have been ready to go, but my empathy was. I wanted to help Rory win this, for her mother, for the town, and in a small way, for myself. Six years removed from my last recital on the stage of the Southington Civic Auditorium, taken out of my element so fast by my mother and pushed into a lonely existence devoid of all the fun I had in my early childhood. The only thing that came out of that so far was a need for Harvard so I could flee her influence, an aborted crush on a former friend and tormenter, and a rivalry that hopefully after this day, would turn into something more, maybe even love.  
   
Rory wanted this. I wanted this. That was all that mattered in the end, no one else did.  
   
I gripped her wrist tightly, looking right into her eyes, a confident smirk settling on my lips as I saw Taylor finish his announcement and prepare to depress the button on the scoreboard's control panel signaling the beginning of this ordeal.  
   
"Oh yeah," I told her, my voice not wavering. "I'm ready, it's time to swing."  
   
She smiled, relieved that I was ready to go. We took our place in the layout of the couples, our 131 number putting us towards the top of the east key lane of the basketball layout, right on the curve of the three-point line. In a way, this whole ordeal was going to be like a miracle shot from three-quarters of the court away, 185 couples, Kirk and his partner between Rory, I, and victory. Hopefully we could sink this shot at the title.  
   
Holding our hands together, we both counted down with the crowd from ten to one that first horn signaling the beginning. It felt like ten minutes, but once Taylor yelled the words "And...GO!", then tapped his finger on that scoreboard horn button, things were under way. Right away one couple left, there just to continue a streak of 'appearances' at the dance marathon. It may have been just 30 seconds, but nonetheless it counted on the record.  
   
We both got right to work, discovering that we were quite in sync with what we had both rehearsed for the last couple of days in our own individual homes. The first hour seemed to flow by in a fast adrenaline rush, Rory's hand imprints hot against my sides as we danced...well, the morning away. A time where I'd usually be in my pajamas cursing the state of 'educational' television as I found instead _Trading Spaces_ reruns or some crap show on channel 30 about a haunted high school that looked awfully small to be one in actuality, was instead spent with my hands against her elbows, spinning around the hardwood gym floor, both of the skirts of our dresses spinning in the air as we danced to the sounds of remastered Benny Goodman Band music, recalling a simpler time where...sadly, Chilton was all-female and very exclusive, you had to be part of a select group of Hartford elite to even be considered for a slot in the school. If Rory and I lived back then, we would never meet, since her mother probably would have had to give her away after birth and been sent to a convent in shame for having an illegitimate child, and Rory would be stuck in the vicious circle of the foster system.  
   
God bless you Gloria Steinham, for I now have a new and sobering appreciation for the women's liberation movement. Back to hopefully many more minutes of dancing with the girl of my dreams...  
   
 **Rory's POV, 6:05am  
**    
When I got up this morning, I had expected Paris to be dressed to the nines, far from her normal demeanor because of the period dress we pretty much had to adhere to. There was a part of me honestly that was scared however, that she wouldn't take it as seriously as I thought she was, and she'd either come in a dress that looked like it came from the forties, but was bought off the shelf at Vera Wang the day before. I was also under the impression that she might get lost trying to find her way towards me, so I had Babbette ask her to come right into the gym and find me in there instead of waiting out in the front foyer near the ticket window hopeful Par would recognize me in the red sea of white polka dots.  
   
Once I got into the gym, I marveled at how beautiful the place was done up, each year the students manage to outdo the class from the year before who decorate the gym. The student council at Stars Hollow High worked deep into the night, leaving at one before everything was period and perfect. From the small touches, like the free throw lane on the basketball floor taped up and filled in so the key would resemble how it was when the school opened in 1941, to the checkerboard tablecloths at the refreshments table, and the nurse in 40's garb, candy-striped apron and all, not to mention the strings of balloons hanging from the rafters, everything was perfect. The digital time clock at the west end of the gym could easily be forgotten since I had on an antique watch passed down through my grandma's side of the family over the years substituting on my left wrist for the old Dean bracelet, now passing through Old Lyme on its way into the Long Island Sound, I'd just check that and with my superb time-telling skills, easily deduce how much time I had left.  
   
I was getting nervous as I went to the judge's table after retrieving a cup of water from Luke in order to balance out my thirst with caffeine. Since I revealed my feelings to Patty yesterday, I was brainstorming what I wanted to do if Paris and I survived the twenty-four hours and managed to beat Kirk. There was no way in hell I was going to skip hand in hand with her parading the trophy around the sidelines of the gym floor to the strains of _Gonna Fly Now_. If we were to win, the celebration would be on my terms; calm and collected, thankful, and probably worn out. I clutched the jewel case I took out of the pocket of my dress and looked over towards Miss Patty, distracted by a very young blonde boy who was unaware that the older woman was looking at him like a strawberry creamsicle.  
   
"Patty, I need a favor," I told her, and she kind of looked forlorn as I distracted her from the guy and looked towards me, but just for a moment, before she drew her attention towards me and appraised my dress.  
   
"My Rory, you clean up very well. I think you're going to make all the guys jealous today!" She laughed, and thankfully we were both far enough away so that no one could hear what we were saying.  
   
"Yeah, too bad I'm not partnering up with them," I said, before getting honest. "I'm kind of scared though, what if she's not into it?"  
   
"Child, did you not say yesterday that she'd be good, why doubt it now?"  
   
"But Kirk looks like tough competition this year, again." I rolled my eyes as both of us looked towards him, showboating with his redheaded partner as he threw her four feet in the air then caught her with arms right at the top of her back and rear.  
   
"Don't stress yourself, we're not grading on style, but endurance. Between you and I though," she whispered into my ear. "I'd watch out for Taylor, he has a couple dirty tricks up his sleeve to thin out the crowd."  
   
"Such a masochist that guy," I joked, and we both laughed as I handed Patty my CD. "If miraculously Par and I get to 5:57, play track ten for me please, it's a milestone song for both of us. I promise you right now I won't do a victory lap, by then the only thing I'll have in mind is getting to bed."

"Of course, Rory dear." She took the CD and scanned the back cover until she found what track ten was. "I agree, that is a very nice song choice."  
   
"Thanks, wish me luck, this is for my mom, who couldn't be here today to try to topple Kirk, and Paris, who really needs a day of fun." I smiled at her, and she smiled back at me.  
   
"I'll be rooting for you silently," and then she said goodbye and went back towards the judges' stand. I finished my cup of water, and went back to Luke's table to pour myself a hot cup of joe. We had a quick chat, and I warned him about who my partner was. At first he was surprised, but then I assured him that Paris wasn't going to be attitudinal in the way she was that day she came to town in order to milk the Rory Curtain for all it was worth for the Oppenheimer prize.  
   
Because he had to use one of those large Bunn tanks to provide the entire community coffee, he didn't have all the tools to customize it so I couldn't get Paris her usual hazelnut with soy milk. However, I did notice another tank off to the side...  
   
"Luke, what's with the other tank, extra coffee?"  
   
"Actually," he said in his sarcastic but softie-type way, "Not everyone likes coffee as much as you and your mother do, some can't even take the stuff. Thus, I made up some wintergreen tea."  
   
I thought to myself for a moment, wondering if Paris wouldn't mind that as a substitute for coffee since soy milk wasn't available. She had made it clear she loathed non-dairy creamer ("It never dissolves in the cup just right" she told me once), and Luke had those little mini-thimble packs of half-and-half in a bowl that would do a number on her stomach. I had a thought then and there of how her mouth would taste if she would drink wintergreen tea. I became lost in my thoughts for a moment as I basked in a hopeful future thought of her kissing me, the inside of her mouth tasting of a mix of tea and her beloved vanilla Velamints. I actually shut my eyes and went with it until I felt a strong hand shake my shoulder.  
   
Luke had thankfully distracted me from the thought, and I quickly brushed off my inattentiveness due to a lack of sleep. I asked him for a big foam cup of tea, and he complied, handing me the cup, and then I sat down to continue a conversation where he talked about how he missed Lorelai's usual six dollar a day coffee habit. _I'm sure he misses the company too_ , I thought to myself as I sipped the coffee as slow as I could so the effects would be spread through the six hours I'd be separated from it and dancing with Paris instead.  
   
I was looking at my watch impatiently. 5:50am, it read back to me. I started to panic a little, wondering where Paris was. I knew she had to park in back by the baseball diamond and that she'd have a long line to deal with before she checked in with Babbette, but it wasn't supposed to take that long, was it? She said she'd meet me there, 5:45 sharp, with bells on. I even gave her all the information she needed so that she wouldn't run into any problems.  
   
I started internalizing my worst fears into my mind; those which would bring us back to the enemies track. What if she thought I was joking and I didn't actually want to go, or she panicked herself and didn't want to attend? Maybe her mother found out and was sealing Paris in her room Rapunzel-style, her hair not long enough for me to climb...  
   
OK, getting a little weird with the Rapunzel comparison there, but in my mind, anything was a possibility. She could've even accepted then decided to stand me up as revenge for what I did to her by trying to get her and Tristan to go out. Yes, I saw a mental picture of her cackling evilly at her desk, finally getting her just desserts at my expense.  
   
I kept talking to Luke, trying to drown those thoughts out...  
   
And then finally, Paris was twenty feet from me, looking around just as awed at the decorations as I was. She walked in, her head craning up towards the middle of the ceiling towards the frame the balloons were strung up around and the period-specific decorations throughout the gymnasium.  
   
I squinted my eyes a little to get a clearer look at her through the dimmed light of the room, and felt my heart swell with pride, want, and desire. She was definitely in this for the long run.  
   
She started coming closer, and I was able to start making out what she was wearing. It was a beautiful black dress, decorated all over with a pattern of red cherry tomatoes, only hammering home the theme of our first connection to each other; the salads. Never changing, the only thing I can say with certainty was routine in the time we knew each other.  
   
What wasn't routine however, was how much skin she was showing off. As she came closer and closer, I kept my attention off of her, trying to keep my eyes appraised on a Rosie the Riveter poster off to a far corner. My face was looking towards there, but my eyes, fully on Paris.  
   
The dress showed off her best attributes, her long legs, perfect-for-me stomach, and the breasts only she could have and somehow get a full rein on. It was a halter and the only thing my inner vixen was thinking was _Man, it's gonna be hard to keep from undoing that back tie for 24 hours, ain't it Gilmore?_ I was right about her getting revenge on me; It was just a lot more sexual and unknowing than I expected. I swear to God she made me look like I was in the Order of St. Agnes, it's as if she was going to milk all this time so close together for all it was worth. My mouth watered and I was lost to comment.  
   
She had no bra on; her best attribute was out there for me to ogle shamelessly and without any guilt, I almost flushed red, knowing she probably did this on purpose to either rile me up or to give me a bigger case of nerves. She was but ten feet from me, and there I was, my eyes hardly looking at her face at all, but down at her deep cleavage, at least five inches from the top until her dress' neckline flared back up again towards the other halter strap.  
   
Paris then turned around in a twirl, giving me a look at her back, the dress plunging at least to the mid-lower section of it. Since she had a little more weight on her than I did I couldn't make out the curvature of her spine, but that was but a small nag, since the skin was nice and dark. Then my eyes finally drifted up towards her proud and broad shoulderblades, which had probably taken a beating over the years from having so much on them, clothes, backpack straps, emotional baggage. It was sort of a sign to me saying that with all the weight of her halter dress on her neck and nothing on her shoulders, Paris was sending me the message that she was free for the day; 'I'm completely yours'. I started smiling then as my gaze went up to her head and face; There was little makeup covering her usually flawless features because of the length of time she'd be with me, and just a smidge of red lipstick.  
   
Her hair was elegantly done up, free from a ponytail, and every strand curled over, with a rose that matched mine in the left side. God, every date with Dean he threw whatever he had on, and when he helped me come out to society (debutauntally, not in the gay sense of course), even then the rental tuxedo screamed that he'd rather be tuning a car than dancing uncomfortably. But Paris Gellar, she never does things halfway, not even for social events. The only other time I recall her wearing a dress besides when I helped her with the Tristan situation and the Winter Formal was that long black dress she wore for my Hartford 16th birthday party, and even though she was there by force rather by choice, I still thought she looked very nice, unlike the rest of the girls there who were looking good just so they could get a guy they could take to bed that night.  
   
That's what I admire about Paris; she'll always be her own woman, on her own terms, no matter how her mother might try to influence everything about her. I saw the beginnings of what I think is a rebellion that night she crawled in my window and apologized, and though I knew she had to lie to get here (thank goodness for the always handy 'Going-to-Boston' excuse when it comes to Mrs. Gellar), she's trying to be herself finally. Still neurotic, a little grating on my nerves at times and ready at will to provoke me into an argument, but Paris is proving herself to be as far from the girl I first met two years ago as can be.  
   
She then found my attention, and I said her name, almost in shock and making sure this was the same girl I shared a desk with in two classes, indeed it was.  
   
"Uhhh, you look very, very nice, I'm surprised, yeah," I said nervously, letting my mind speak for me. "I mean I didn't expect you in that dress, not at all, I mean you're usually very shy about wearing something like that and I thought..." I mentally slapped myself, trying to regain my words. "Anyways, not the point, you're looking beautiful today."  
   
 _And you wonder why only Dean found you datable_ , my conscious rubbed in as she sort of laughed nervously, and I tried to regain my center. I was scared that she was going to call me Mary, but there was never anything to worry about.  
   
"The birds got up early this morning and helped you out, didn't they?" Apparently she still recalled the conversation we had when she convinced me to become her VP, and I blushed as she complimented me. "Very nice dress and period-appropriate attire, makeup and demeanor Gilmore, I compliment you for going as full-tilt with this as you should have." Surprisingly yes, in Gellar's world that would be considered a compliment, so I smiled back at her.  
   
"Thank you." I then gave her another silent once-over, my mind making heads and tails that this girl, no, woman was going to be my dance partner for the next hopefully twenty-fours. We both seemed to be giving each other attention, staring at each other. Then when I put the rim of my coffee cup to my lips to take a quick sip, her gaze moved from my eyes right down to my mouth. I gave her the foam cup of tea in order to see if that would draw her attention off. She clasped the cup in her hands half-heartedly, concentrating her eyes on my lips, maybe giving herself a few ideas. The slow seduction was continuing to work its magic, and it was almost as if I was back in her room Tuesday morning asking her to warm me up. If she only knew how much I wanted to feel her lips against mine instead of that Styrofoam.  
   
Still, I had to keep her attention on the dance ahead, so I drew her attention from me and onto the tea. I let her know that Luke couldn't get soy milk, so that would have to do for a caffeine fix. I thought she wouldn't be enthusiastic about the substitution, but she sipped the tea anyways and found it very much to her liking. So much that we had to stop at Luke's table again after a quick nurse's exam to make sure we were fit enough for the next 24 hours, so she could pour herself another cup of the stuff, which helped her cause with Luke. Paris complimented his brewing skills and apologized for being too intense that late January day earlier in the year we stopped at the diner and she accused him of being a house of ill repute. Luke took it cool and easy-going, leaving me relieved that I could cross out one con on the small list I still maintain and plan to update tomorrow with anything I can find out about her.  
   
Next part of the plan; more innocent touching. I had Paris pin my number on the back of my dress, and enjoyed the small little sparks her fingertips sent up my spine as she worked the dress material into the safety pin and slid it through. I felt her rub against the hook of my bra for a bit, and had to think about one of Dean's lamer makeout sessions in order to keep my legs steady. Geeze, what that girl does to me sometimes...  
   
Unfortunately I didn't get to share the opportunity with her to pin the number to her own person. Due to her choice of dress, she couldn't pin it to her back, and I had a large feeling that she wouldn't let me dare pin the number on the only other place it could be pinned, below her breasts. So I had to imagine that instead as I watched her anti-climatically tape the number to the front of her dress instead, my body very disappointed and having to make do with another longing look down at her cleavage in her distracted state. This was about the time I started recalling all those lessons in basic science that what comes up, must come down eventually when it comes to gravity. I hope Paris tied the back in a very tight knot, because knowing her gravitational pull, I might be seeing more than her cleavage by say, hour number twenty.  
   
"Alright everyone, five minutes to go, please head to your numbered positions on the dance floor, you'll find a taped 'X' with a Dyno label marking your number below your feet. You must stay on that spot unless Patty or I tell you to move for an elimination game or you make it into the final hours..." There was Taylor, blathering on and on about the rules of the marathon, so I took Paris' hand into mine and we took our place on the floor, a few spots down from Kirk. He was already looking at us with disgust, not about the concept of two girls dancing, but because he seemed to remember Paris back from her dancing days. Kirk had seen her when she was nine and had thought since she was a Harfordian, would never set foot in Stars Hollow to try to take his title. Paris had never met Kirk, but she regarded him as she did me the first time I stepped beneath the gargoyles two years ago, an enemy combatant.  
   
Her eyes turned cold, as did his as they stared each other down like they were about to duel in the town square. Kirk's partner also had a stern look on her face, and I stared her down. Small, meek, thin as a rail, the redhead he was dancing with had all the makings of a professional dancer, without the charisma of one. I wanted one of them to stomp one another's feet so Paris and I could take this.  
   
Kirk attacked Paris' heels, which I easily took as an attack on Lorelai the last few years. My eyes darted towards him as Paris defended me and told him we'd be bringing home the trophy this year. _Poor little Rocky against Apollo Creed_ , I thought to myself with a mirthful smirk, thinking that this year would turn out a lot different. We both regarded the nervous man with caution, and she started giving him a steely gaze, screaming 'bring it on' towards him. They moved a little closer and I thought that was about the time I had to get them separated, feelings of loathing for his streak or not. She moved away herself though, and told him we would win barefoot if we had to. I laughed, but in the back of my mind knew that she was dead serious about the threat. If Paris had to, she'd find any one of Kirk's weaknesses and manipulate them into bringing us closer to victory circle.  
   
As we saw the volunteer hand out the emergency yellow cards, she reminded me that Kirk's wins had never led to any kind of relationship for him, not even a groupie. She said this in a way I took as that after we won, we wouldn't drift off out of each other's lives and be able to enjoy the victory...and maybe even a little more than that. I laughed at her as Taylor went into TMI detail about the uses of the yellow cards that would give you a ten minute break if you held it up, describing an example where someone ate a few too many cold cuts and had a sudden urge to throw up on their partner's shoulder. I took my attention away from that, and looked at the girl I was about to hold in my arms for such a long time.  
   
She stared at Taylor as he went on with his words, taking them in carefully and leaving me to gaze at her beauty. Honestly, not in my most romantic dreams did I think she could look that sexy, or sizzling in that dress. I mean to have less than 40 hours to not only practice, but put together a look, find a nice dress and the few embellishments she had on (no earrings or other jewelry to go with her look besides her birthstone Jewish star, a small ring on her right hand, and the pink rose in her hair), for another girl in her shoes, it may have been overwhelming. For Paris though, it was a challenge she relished to meet full on. When she came into that room, whatever she did to shine in my eyes, I could tell that it was all worth it. The idea for her to dance with me may have been nutty and off-center when I came up with it, but moment by moment I was under the impression that in the end it might all be worth it.  
   
Taylor finished his speech and the countdown towards the last minute started, Paris' gaze shifting over from the community and towards me. Her deep browns looked into mine, and I eased my hands into hers, saying in a way that I trusted her. I found her to be sort of uneasy with the prospect, scared that I would be disappointed if we didn't get further in the contest. I saw the same scared little girl that she was around her mother; afraid of disappointment, cursed if the word 'lose' or any of its variations entered anywhere near her vocabulary. Her father never intended for her to be miserable in her own skin, but her mother wanted her to take Vince Lombardi's many axioms about how defeat was the worst thing in the world and never forget them. I hated Sharon for making her stone hard and impenetrable. Paris was going to have fun today, come hell or high water, and I was going to make her forget that this was a dance contest. Hopefully all this time would lead to revelations and surprises from her.  
   
I rubbed reassuringly against her knuckles, getting to know more those same hands and fingers that I dreamed of every night. The slimness of them in my own palms was in stark contrast to Dean's thick, chunky fingers and hands, worn and scratched from all that auto work he did when he wasn't around me. The recollection of his scent, a mix of Skin Bracer and a harsher industrial equivalent of Lava soap used to make me swoon. Now all it did was bring Paris' scent to the forefront.  
   
It was, light, much lighter. Orchids, vanilla and still a little bit of lingering incense-cedar wafting from her fingers, telling me she did at least a little homework with her pencil before she left. Dean was harsh-scented, yet kind to me, while Paris had a light scent, yet was harsh emotionally most of the time around me.  
   
Only, she was starting to show humanity when I was around her, small touches that gave me hints and peeks at what lay beneath those layers Paris used to protect herself. She had put those shields up around her that one day in the shower and kept them strong the three days we were at odds again. But once she thought about it and came over to my house to lay with me in bed and confess, she dropped them and confided in me that she thought she wasn't beautiful. In her eyes, she was homely, dull, and not much to look at. She'd be a workaholic, content with her name in the newspapers and no one to come home to at night except a beagle and maybe a droopy fern once she got out of college. Before I started to push her, she seemed content to be an old maid.  
   
I'm not going to let that happen though. These romantic feelings I have for her are too much to bear, and she had to know that in my eyes, there wasn't a more beautiful girl I knew in the world. So in a challenging yet kind voice, I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this for me. I'd bow out of the dance and find a new way to get Paris' attention if she didn't want to do this, but I decided to swing her around to my side. I moved my left hand up into her curled hair, running my fingers through it in a reassuring way. It was as smooth in my hands as the tail of a horse, and my fingers raked over the petals of her rose.  
   
I kept prodding her on as I brought it down to her shoulder, running my index finger seductively against one of her dress straps. I could see her eyes wander down as I slipped the tip of the fingernail against the material, scratching beneath. It was meant as a little warm up, and just maybe a little revenge for her behavior on Tuesday afternoon in the car. She coughed out a little breath, and I took it out and ran my hand the rest of the way down her arm. I told her she could back out if she wanted to, and as I clasped my hand into hers and Taylor finished his speech about who was sponsoring the event, I saw her smile at me, putting on her true game face as he had us go to our spots.  
   
Then she told me she was ready to go with this all, even if the length turned out to be twenty-four hours. She had a confidence in her voice I never had heard before, even in our toughest debates with Hillside Academy. She was truly ready for this all, ready to go, and the swagger in her words when she told me that it was time to swing...that confidence created a tingle in my throat and stomach as her fingers twined around mine after we set ourselves up in our own little spot on the floor.  
   
I gulped, and for a moment thought to myself, _What have I gotten myself into?_ There Paris was, the girl of my dreams, looking drop-dead gorgeous in a vintage black dress that made her look so hot, and then mousy me, standing in front of her in something conservative. Her gaze was locked onto mine and raked over my slim footprint. I felt so unsettled, suddenly coming to the realization that I wasn't taking in realism for once, instead I had been thinking of an ideal when I came up with this whole idea.  
   
For God's sakes, I flunked ballet, badly, and never proved myself to dance in much more than tepid middle school dances and that one Formal! Who was my partner? Only a dance champion coming out of a six-year retirement suddenly after I begged and pleaded with her to be my partner!  
   
What was I thinking, in what world did I think that I would be able to go on for so long? That I would be a good dancer and that...  
   
I stopped my self-ramble as Taylor started the countdown, and Paris brought me closer and flush towards her, taking my hands one more time as we looked towards the judge's table. She was confident, assured, and trying to bring me into that same state of mind. _Just forget everyone else Gilmore_ , she seemed to be transmitting to my mind with her eyes. _I'll be here to keep you on your feet all day and night_.  
   
Remind me next time if I have access to a time machine and can go through with seducing Paris again, that a game of Truth and Dare would be less strenuous than having her participate with me in a dance marathon. Thank you.  
   
Anyways, Taylor sounded the horn, and I started finding my footing, right away surprisingly. All those web pages and books seemed to work from the get-go, and Paris went with what I was doing, letting me lead as she got re-used to dancing with someone besides herself. I kept a tight grip on her hands and we concentrated on getting our bodies moving, rather than getting right into competition with Kirk. The strains of the music started, and I got right into it, casting aside my fears and letting Paris guide me through those first few minutes.  
   
Babette and Morey did their usual minute of dancing they do every year and dropped right out, saying they were exhausted and left the floor, causing Taylor to roll his eyes for not taking the dance seriously enough. I smiled at them and told them goodbye, then got back to the matter at hand. Only five minutes in and Kirk was getting a little cocky with his dance moves, so it was better for Paris and I to stay unaffected and just dance normally for the first few hours.  
   
I'm still a little unsure of how close Paris will actually get to me today, and hopefully we can have some kind of meaningful conversation in the heat of competition. We certainly can't go this long without talking, and I need all the talking opportunities I can find since there's this little nagging fact that only five minutes in, I'm already yearning to be closer to her and feel a little...we'll say distracted. She's looking up at me through the haze of the Benny Goodman music, and I feel like any moment I'd want to drag her off the floor and--  
   
Yeah, Rory, you're here to dance, and slowly seduce. Besides, it's too early in the morning to do something like that...  
   
 **Paris' POV, 10:15am  
**    
Taylor and Miss Patty were easy on us in those first four hours, not doing anything to crazy to push couples out. The 2'x2' box we were in worked well, and I focused more on winning than I did of luring Rory further. Any odd touch would freak her out and cause her concentration to be shot, so I kept my hands on an even keel. No wandering, keeping them either at the sides just below her bra line, or if it was a little wilder, on her lower arms and elbows. She seemed to stay conservative with her movements too, not ready to be brave and set a hand on the bare expanse of skin on my back until a little later.  
   
Admittedly, not everything was going rosy or perfect, at least if you were looking in from the outside. There was the occasional dirty looked doled our way from the odd couple or two, and some of the teens made fun of us, thinking that we were so desperate to get in the competition that we'd join together because we're dateless losers who couldn't get a guy to save our lives. Probably the same group of peers who made Rory beg to get out of the more pronounced cliquish and less bookish natures of the students who attended this school, and into Chilton. Kirk was trying to throw us off early by sweeping his dance partner off her feet and trying to get us to separate so Rory and I would be horned out of the competition. We rolled our eyes at him and did our own little spin move, a little more conservative so we could keep the harder stuff confined to whenever the judges directed us to go further or storing our energy past the sixteenth hour.  
   
I wasn't ready to release Rory anyhow; she was going to be stuck with me no matter what. Eventually around nine I found an opening, and was finally able to place my hands against the small of her back. I had never been that close to her before; and I could feel her settle in against my palms. She made a sudden jerking motion as my fingernails scraped against the fabric of her dress, so I tried to release and move my hands back up.  
   
"Uhhh, sorry, that feels like a nice place to settle your hands," she ranted out nervously. "You don't have to move them Paris."  
   
"Are you sure," I wondered, truthfully. "This is pretty close and I don't know how Dean danced last year so I just want to keep your nerves calmed."  
   
Her gaze moved away from the judge's stand and back towards me as she saw another record being spun. There was a sad, forlorn look in them, and it was then I knew I had hit something within, bringing back up her ex. I slowed down a little, the new song being a slower waltz that threw six fast moving couples for a curve and caused them to separate. Not three seconds later was the horn sounded anew. "That's it for 68, 115, 78, 154, 87 and 24, please clear the floor," Miss Patty projected through the sound system as the disappointed groans of those couples and the crowd filled the gym.  
   
Maybe she was regretting breaking up with Dean was what I thought as she looked towards me, our feet moving in time with the music. Yes, I hated him, but that didn't mean the moment she broke up with him she developed the same loathsome feelings for him. For all I knew they were still good friends having fun together.  
   
"I'm sorry," I told her, hoping that if I said something uncouth I could recover from that. "I didn't mean to bring him up--"  
   
"No, it's OK, I knew it was going to come up," she conceded. "By 11:01 you'll already have outlasted him, but I've already had more fun today than I did last year. He was never really into the whole idea because I took him away from some important body welding time on the car he built me, I think he did this more out of obligation than to try to win."  
   
"I won't talk about him again, I promise," I told her, moving my hands up so we could get more into the song and the dance. "He's been gone from your life four days and that's a very short time to let someone completely go. I know when Tristan left both of us it took me at least a month to recover from the fact that he was gone."  
   
"Yes, but there's a difference. You had feelings for him that went truly unrequited, so to come into school one day and see another student taking his old locker, that confirmed to you things would never be the same. You at least knew him as a friend for the longest time, so you knew what made him tick, and even though he was pulled away from you so roughly, you had background with him, knew what he liked and didn't. With Dean though," she stopped for a moment, sighing as we turned around in the thinning field of dancers. "I never got a chance to really know him as just a friend. One day he was there, helping me with my stuff, and two months later I was kissing him in the market, before that sneaking around here and there so that I could see him since Lorelai wasn't receptive to him. He took me by surprise, being the first guy who was attracted to me, and from there..." she trailed off, trying to get lost in the song, not wanting to dwell on those memories of the past.  
   
We continued dancing through the quiet strains of the Viennese waltz, my mind trying to connect with Rory's to decode what she wanted to say. I wasn't ready to say much either, because she touched on what I had with Tristan before the project debacle. It was true that I was very devastated that he had to leave and I was angry with him for fucking up things so royally, but still, thirteen years of friendly history cancels out about ten weeks of him being a total asshole in my mind. I may have thought in the past that what he did in order to use me as a pawn to get to Rory was awful, but I still like the boy. He will come back from North Carolina one day a changed man, or maybe stay down there and take that second chance he's been given and try to become someone who will be his own man, free from the constraints of the DuGrey legacy and Hartford tradition.  
   
I was being truthful to myself however, about the turning point of my feelings that night. From then on, Rory did become my world, despite appearances to the contrary. Tristan was the only hurdle between a lasting friendship between us, and I had by then resigned myself to the fact Rory and I will be locked in a battle for valedictorian that's going to be decided by thousandths of a grade point, a very small margin. My burgeoning feelings for her have also changed another important facet of my life, and that is I hope that Harvard accepts both of us. Even if I never admit to her, it would be devastating next August to not be able to find her on that campus anywhere, having to settle for her grandparent's true wishes to attend Yale. I told her once that Harvard had a big campus, that even in our competition, we'd never see each other those four years in Cambridge.  
   
Even if I couldn't say what I actually thought of her though, not having Rory at Harvard would leave a large void within me that I would struggle to fill if she didn't go. We had both gone through the rehearsal rigors for the interviews with admissions we'd have next month up in Boston, being very nervous about our responses. I actually wanted to slug the pompous idiot 'expert' at the seminar who had suggested with a snort that Hilary Clinton was overused on college applications when she asked. She might as well have been a single woman seeing as her husband hit on anything within a 1,000 foot radius until he finally got caught with Lewinsky.  
   
I brought my focus back towards the girl I liked, seeming sort of sad in my arms. I hated that I put that look on her face bringing up the 'D' word, so I moved my hands back down towards her hands and smiled.  
   
"Hey," I told her. "Dean was your first, your only for a long time, and the first boy who took an interest in you. I'll give him that; he was smart to try to take you off the market first chance he got." She softly laughed, and I continued on. "But you weren't going to be the love story of a lifetime, that was always apparent, so don't feel ashamed for yourself, taking the first opportunity you could to break it off. I never pegged you for the type to break it off with him that way, but if you felt it was better to cut it off with him completely for now, it was probably for the best."  
   
"But what if he was, the love story of my life I mean?" She paused and bit her lip, and I almost stepped on her shoe in the shock of my attempt to end the questioning of Dean failing. I regained footing, and as the slow strains of the song continued, I had to be quick on my feet to think up an answer.  
   
It seemed like she wanted to challenge me, hear my true feelings on what I thought of their relationship. I had seen them only a few times in action, the worst of course being that heart-straining makeout session he finagled her into as I watched from a second floor window the end of sophomore year. Our friendship went down in flames from another Tristan misunderstanding, and in a scenario that could only come from the pen of a Hollywood screenwriter, he pulled up in the front drive in his Hicksville Edition Ford Ranger to win her love. Of course she couldn't say no to a grand gesture like that, and I watched them below as they kissed, reunited again even though the jerk didn't deserve it.  
   
There was a part of me that wanted to yellow card out of the question, get some space so I could regain my composure and talk my way out of it. But Rory seemed to await my response, like she would if Lorelai was in the same position I was. She probably didn't have much of a chance to talk to her mother about the sudden breakup in detail after she got home Tuesday night; since Lorelai was in Nashville she was leaning on me more for advice. Why not her best friend?  
   
I deflected that off onto her. "Wouldn't you be more comfortable asking Lane this?"  
   
Rory knew what she was doing, the answer already rehearsed. "She likes Dean though, that's the problem, she has to see him every day in school so she's not impartial to my position, and Mrs. Kim thinks he's a fine guy for me. Everyone's still in love with him except for me and my mother, Luke too. The town thinks of him as this cute boy I'm letting go. Though--"  
   
I decided to give her the advice she really needed, not anything reprocessed through the town's gossip circle. "OK, you really want to know what I thought about Dean? Because I can't sprinkle my opinion with NutraSweet and mute it."  
   
"Go ahead," she said as the music reached the bridge, and she pushed me close to her, moving her hands down to below my bra line and pushing me closer so I could hear her without some random townie catching the gossip and staring a circle where it would end with 'purple monkey dishwasher' suffixed to the end of what I said.  
   
Took me a bit to find the words though. Her fingernails scraped against my spinal column as she found her bearings, and I had to move my hands to the same spot to bring her closer together. Really, a large distraction to keep your wits about when you hope that seam you're feeling against the heel of your palms isn't Rory's panty line. I kept my retort relatively intact however.  
   
"Honestly, you've always deserved a lot better, I'd see him and thought he never deserved you. At first he went along with you, reading, being responsible and all those other cute things, but after awhile, you never talked about him all that much anymore at lunch. You'd tell me how the progress on the car was going and that you were still together, but once Jess came into town all you could talk about was how he was misreading your signals towards him and getting jealous. Heck, I'm surprised he was as muted as he was when he found out Jess accidentally crashed your car."  
   
I ran my fingers against her back, trying to soothe out any anger she might have towards me. "I was always uncomfortable around him, especially when we did the project at Miss Patty's, I remember how much you really didn't want him there because of the tension you had with Tristan. The last thing I wanted going into the play was Tristan having a black eye, so I actually brought a canister of pepper spray every day Dean watched the rehearsals. I was not only afraid for Tristan, but in a way, for you." I felt weird being that honest with Rory, telling her the last thing I wanted was for her to get hurt. But also, knowing about the kiss at Madeline's party, I knew that Rory might try to be honest with Dean about what happened eventually. Dean's anger issues would still come into play, no matter that him and Rory weren't together during the kiss and there was good reason for both of them to keep it secret.  
   
My blood still chills at the threat at the 2000 Winter Formal he made towards Tristan for eyeing Rory. Rory and I may not have gotten along then, but I'd never wish a guy who threatened physical violence on her or someone she knew, ever. I already had to deal with someone abusive in my life in my early years, my mother. I don't talk about it to anyone unless I can really trust them, because it was so wrenching. There was some physical abuse, the occasional open-handed slap on the face or hand and spanking behind my father's back (Daddy was always an advocate of timeouts and talking anger and feelings out, he always spared the rod), but most of it was emotional. Ever since Francisca and my father found out when I was ten it had gone down, but since the divorce, the rate of put downs from my mother was increasing again, though still not to the point it was in my early teens.  
   
So in a way, I was scared for her, besides the obvious jealousy I had when she was with him. Which is another reason I'm scared to admit to her, if Dean finds out he's not going to be pleased that I honed into his 'territory'. I only hope if he finds out about this dance marathon arrangement he'll take it as platonic and not misread the signals.  
   
I looked towards Rory, afraid that my opinion of Dean had changed hers of mine. But instead, I saw understanding in her eyes. She saw what I did though mine and understood what my position was. I wasn't going to tell her I thought she deserved someone much smarter than him, but I have a suspicion that his intelligence was a card in play as she broke up with him.  
   
"It's OK Par," she said to me soothingly, "You're right, he never really was the one for me. I think really, I just took up with him because he was there, ready to love me, but I never could return the feelings. Even when I told him I loved him the last day of school, that was spur of the moment, there was just so much going on--"  
   
I decided to cut her off because I got what I wanted, that she knew my point of view on Dean. We could always deal with the insider information at a later time, preferably without 600 other people surrounding us on the gym floor and sitting in the bleachers.  
   
"Thank you, that's fine for now." I said it a little abruptly, but she knows when I try to end a talk, so she understood.  
   
Rory nodded, somewhat relieved that she didn't have to go further with explanations. "You're welcome." We then brought our focus back on the reason we were on that floor, and started dancing anew...  
   
 **Rory's POV, 7:38pm  
   
**Is it possible to think that the old Victorian mold of dating is very outdated these days? Because that's how I've always felt around Dean whenever we have gone out. It was always like a template that was created in 1875; all you had to do was replace 'night at the opera' with 'movie', and 'dinner at a restaurant' with 'McDonald's', update the clothing and change the mode of transportation from a horse and buggy to a car, and you had my nights with Dean. Except for the anniversary dinners (which as the months wore on became few and far between, he completely forgot about our 15-monther in September), he never did anything wild or out of place to try to win my love further than he did with what was expected. Add the fact that he created a scene at every dance we went to, and you wonder why I kept in the template all the time.  
   
Let me tell you, it's only six and a half hours in, and I already feel like I've busted through and torn up the boring template that defined my love life for so long. I don't know how I've done it, but my legs are still solid, and I have a big smile on my face as Paris and I continue to surprise everyone in this little event. I can tell she's having fun too, and we're both enjoying coming together for this, she's putting all of her effort into doing her best for not only her, but also me.  
   
God, not to be sappy here, but the reality of her fingers twined against my back, and my hands resting just a half-foot above the plunge in the back of her dress, it's so much better than the fantasy I had of this all the moment I broke up with Dean and this whole idea sparked itself in my brain. She's surprised me so much with what she learned ten years ago, and she's as graceful as a high-society girl can be. However, you can tell that somewhere inside of her lurks someone who loathes her own richie template, yearning to be free of it. There was this one set where we had to samba for a bit for example. The beat was going strong and I was going with what I had memorized from the webpage I read, going exactly with what the steps entailed and keeping with the white and black steps from the diagram. She seemed to know the steps too, and we kept up the dance in the memorized manner I was used to.  
   
Then, all the sudden, the music swelled, and she released her grip on my right hand, then tightened onto my left. She forced me into this amazing spin move that seemed to deplete my oxygen for a bit, and my heart swelled as I felt myself twirl with her fingertips against mine. It wasn't something dizzying that went beyond a 270° revolution, but as her right hand caught my back, it was then I knew she was going to be my partner for a long time, smiling at me as I caught my breath.  
   
It hasn't been all rosy, however. There are some people in the crowd, just as I suspected that are in shock that I, the town's golden girl, decided to invite another girl to dance with her instead of any of the other guys sitting in the bleachers in that gym, or even Chilton. There was this one boy, Carl Neufeldt, who is a total pig and used to make fun of my lack of a love life back in eighth grade, taunting me daily as I sat at my lonely table with Lane in the cafeteria with my Walkman and book. He always found any opportunity to make fun of me and called me a name I hate even more than Tristan's euphemism for me, 'Spinster'. Him and his friends kept pointing at us and making slurs about my sexual status. Paris was only too happy to use the opportunity to rub my neck and reassure me that they're a bunch of jackasses and that compared to Duncan and Bowman, they were only bush league.  
   
I was barely focusing on the crowd however, to tell you the truth. They were like all the other tables in the dining hall at lunch; jumbled background noise I could care less about. Instead, as Taylor took things easy on us in these first few hours, Paris and I did something I never thought we would.  
   
We talked about things beyond academics. Not that we didn't before, but Paris hadn't used the card I gave her to really talk about her life with no restrictions since I gave it her the Sunday morning we shared my bed. She was comfortable enough around me to bring up Dean, and though she thought she was getting a little too close to home by mentioning him in a bad light, I wanted to hear from her, what she thought of him without the pressure of keeping up appearances.  
   
Hearing her say that she was scared of him last year during the play project, and that she was afraid he would harm Tristan and I...I had something drop in my throat as she said that. She sounded so grave, serious, affected by it, that even in that heated part of our relationship between truces, she was concerned about me. So concerned she wasn't gunshy about facing down a boy that had 100 pounds and a foot on her so that he knew damned well I wasn't a piece of property to be traded around between guys. Her admission was chivalristic in a way, and coming from her, showed that even in our worst times, she can't stand to see me out of her life.  
   
I know how defensive Paris gets too well; it took a lot to push through her walls in order to get her more over these last few months. As I dance with her, I can feel them ease slowly away, and this...I can't help but define Par this way, but she's an older woman in a young girl's body. Her mother has defined her life, no matter how much she tries to pull away, and she's seen so much more than I ever have in my eighteen years, for sure. My mother got me away from the social pressures of Hartford and raised me to be a kind and smart girl. Paris however, she's had to live in the shadow of Hartford, and even worse, her mother. I've thought so many negative things about that woman, and I've never shared them because I was afraid she would be come defensive and try to explain away her mother's behavior with an essay-ish speech.  
   
I'll get Paris alone in a room one day, and let her air out anything about her mother to me. For now though, I feel much more comfortable with talking to her about things that are light and don't cause that much controversy. That means staying away from the topic of Tristan and wondering if she still carries a flame for him. It's funny, the moment he left us a year ago, he seemed to fall out of our lives completely, and we've barely talked about him at all. Louise brings him up occasionally, but both of our gazes involuntarily darken upon impact of the first syllable of his name, and she shirks back in her chair, afraid to say any anymore.  
   
I have to have closure about the topic though. It bugs me that she might still be thinking about him, harboring those old feelings and keeping them close to her sleeve. When I thought about her pros and cons two weeks ago, truth be told, he never entered my mind, but he certainly has here, with a vengeance.  
   
Now though, there's this dark cloud of doubt over my seduction of her. I eased off a little, feeling as if I was getting too close to her heart. Paris can break like a toothpick and if I mentioned him, what would be her reaction? We were dancing together, in each other's arms, and that was something I wasn't ready to lose so quickly. Her fingers twined against my back, and I felt like I fit within her short form perfectly.  
   
As the hours wore on and the contestants thinned out (don't ask Paris or I how we managed to stay in), the music went from stubborn all-40s to filter into 50s rock and a little 80s music inspired by 50s rock. Miss Patty had somehow convinced Taylor that playing his records over and over again would wear the crowd out, so he decided to appease her and open up the playlist a little more. That meant we got to dance along to a few modern hits, which kept us on our toes. Just as we were getting used to that _Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy_ song, Paris and I had to switch gears and move onto grooving to some more calm ballads, like you'd hear in those _Love Story_ -type movies from the 60s.  
   
The hours wore on, and though we had a couple of breaks at noon and 6pm, I could tell that she was starting to buckle under the pressure. Paris was feeling sort of woozy at times, and I had to scream for a volunteer to deliver me a cup of water so I could splash it in her face and shock her back into the competition. We were also losing ahold of trying to avoid the tough questions.  
   
See, after she asked me about Dean and whether we were back together and saw how unhinged I got, I was afraid to bring up the topic of the boy we fought over for the year he was in both our sights. Tristan remained a very little broached topic between both of us, and when I've tried, she tries to bring me right back into something else.  
   
An example of that; During a quiet night in Washington in the dorm room we had a conversation out of boredom (it was that or watching the Orioles game on TV, and we both could care less about baseball). We were doing fine, talking about our childhoods without getting too deep within the angst of our individual situations; Paris with her genius starting to shine through and her parents fighting about her potential, and I with starting school and having the stigma going in of being a product of a teenaged mother. We went around those topics and talked about our happiest moments and funniest stories, just having a fun time all along.  
   
Then I remembered the time she told me about the kiss on a dare Tristan gave her sometime in eighth grade when we chatted somewhat sort-of friendly at the Bangles concert. I thought it might be fun to compare our first kisses, so I told her about mine with Dean and how I thought it was wonderful back then. All the time of course, looking at her own pink lips and wondering how a first kiss with a girl might feel like. She laughed at how I stole a box of Argo accidentally fleeing from the scene and the comedy of errors that resulted from trying to hide it.  
   
 _She likes hearing about it_ , I thought to myself. So when I finished telling my story, I eased right in.  
   
"So Par, how did the kiss with Tristan come about?" Neutral, unaffected, at a high point, I thought it would work out well. But remember the conference room fight? It was a little less brutal than that.  
   
She got this white look, and opened her mouth wide, struggling to come up with something to say, or avoid my query. Her lip sort of trembled, and it was then I knew I hit a sore spot.  
   
"Uhhh, I need to run to 7-Eleven, we're awfully low on soda and gum," she mumbled as she abruptly got up from the bed, looking for her jacket.  
   
"But it's ten o'clock at night, you don't know what's out there--" I said, ceding that the talk was done, but still concerned for her welfare.  
   
"I have pepper spray!" she snapped out, and before I could stop her, she was out the door and gone, leaving me there alone. Once again, Tristan put the brakes on getting to each other more, and it took a couple more days of 'I'm sorry's and 'Let's just have some fun's before I got back into Paris' good graces again.  
   
It was now about 7:30 on the dance floor, and I could hear her start to complain, mumbling about what a bad DJ Taylor was and how sore her feet were. My casual shoes seemed to be working fine, but she had miscalculated on her shoe choice, going with slightly high red heels she thought could make it 24 hours, but didn't even get through hour fourteen.  
   
I tried to start soothing her, massaging her back with my hands as we danced, dancing closer to her, talking her through the history of the marathon and other things. I even started an impromptu mind-meeting session, going over from memory the notes in my head for one of our classes, because we both had premonitions that Mr. Mercurio was planning to spring a three-page popper on us first thing Monday morning to keep those of us slogging through _War and Peace_ on our toes. Nothing seemed to work however, and her muscles tightened in my grasp.  
   
"Rory," she groaned, fingers tight on my wrist. "Are you feeling tired yet?" This despite at least three cups of heavily caffeinated wintergreen tea going through her system at the time.  
   
"No, not at all," I said with a smile. "Why, are you ready to give up and let Kirk win?" My streak of mischief was intended to bring Paris around, and once again, wake her up.  
   
"Of course not, I'm just not used to being in a situation like this on a Saturday. Usually, I'm snoozing my way through temple because my rabbi is so dull." She laughed wryly, and I couldn't help but do the same.  
   
"Father Daniels can be that way too, only it's on a Sunday," I commented back. "But at least it's good cardiovascular activity."  
   
As I said that, her hands moved down to where my love handles would be if I wasn't already slim, and suddenly her mood seemed to brighten considerably. She got this dreamy little smile on her face, and Paris went into this sudden mode I never saw her in before.  
   
"There are other wonderful ways to work out the heart," she reminded me, her voice cooing...I never thought she could coo, she was Miss Monotone all the time. "Some of them very sacrilegious in execution."  
   
It was then the music changed over to the beat of a tango, just the kind of opening I had been looking for. However, Kirk and his partner had beat everyone to center court and started their exhibition, and Paris' sudden words stunned me too much to help draw us both into that same showcase position. Which was all good and well, since we moved to a far corner while everyone hooted and hollered at the 'sure thing' couple of the tournament. Better to be the dark horses and just win on good old-fashioned endurance than trying to overimpress.  
   
"I didn't think you had it in you Gellar, go you with the Bible references!" I laughed and brought her closer.  
   
"I have a million of 'em." She seemed to be getting more comfortable, and though she was still a little grumpy, she wasn't ready to take off my head.  
   
Though a few moments later, I'd be regretting bringing that up.  
   
"Figures, being around Tristan and all," I said offhand, thinking that the conversation would remain relaxed. However, once I said his name, she seemed shocked again and things were starting to resemble the same thing that happened when I tried to bring him up in Washington, she was horrified.  
   
"Damn it, Tristan isn't that bad," she said to me firmly. "I don't care if you hate him, he was in my life for twelve years and we depended on each other, he was more than the frat boy he was around you!"  
   
"I didn't say anything mean about him, I'm sorry--" I started panicking as I felt her grip on my waist fade.  
   
"Save it, please, I don't want to talk about him." She gritted her teeth, and it was then I knew I hit a trouble spot, just like her mother.  
   
"But you asked me about Dean earlier and I thought that it would be fine to talk about Tristan, we've barely talked about him since he left!" The music was blaring over the system, covering up our argument, or lack of it after she brought her dancing down to a slow shimmy, only a couple fingers in my hand.  
   
 _She's not going to run away, please God, no!_ I wasn't even thinking of the dance; I hated when Paris averted something I brought up.  
   
"I want my yellow card!" She told me firmly, without hesitation. "Get it out of your pocket Gilmore, I need some air!"  
   
"But you'll need that for later, for an emergency..." I tried reasoning with her, but she was firm.  
   
"I need some space, ten minutes away might calm me down." I looked into her eyes, and she pleaded with me for the card. She seemed to be angry, but yet, sad. Her doey eyes were forlorn, and I could tell through them that she still cared for Tristan, even a year after.  
   
After a little hesitiation, I handed her the card, and we danced towards the judge's stand to hand it to Taylor. I could get my own ten minute sit from it, and maybe she was right, we needed some space.  
   
"Ten minutes Taylor, I have to use the restroom and massage my feet," she yelled at him, and he nodded as he took the piece of paper and called me over to the sidelines. We walked towards the bleachers, and I held her hand tight, wondering if this was the last time Paris and I would be so close together. I sat down, and let her go, but before I did, I looked into her eyes, giving her a face that told her that whenever she was ready to let go, I would be there for her, open to any conversation.  
   
She looked down, and I pleaded with her to use the ten minutes wisely. "Paris," I said, numb. "You'll be back, right?" Something right out of a novel.  
   
Paris stared at me, and I thought I saw the beginning of a tear form. I might have been seeing things though, because I was focusing on her words more. "I can't promise anything Rory. If I'm not," her voice was strained and cracked, "I'm sorry."  
   
And then, she left me, sitting alone on these bleachers. I watched her walk away from me and towards the front doors of the gym, unreadable through the swell of the dancing crowd, still about 100 couples strong. The door opened, and as she walked out, fate was the only thing guiding both of us again.  
   
I brought my gaze to my hands, only minutes before held by the blonde girl. I can remember from memory her slim fingers wrapped around mine, and I feel a sense of disappointment swell over me.  
   
I've failed her, and myself. She still has a large space in her heart for Tristan, and there's nothing I can ever do to overcome that. I've started to feel like I've misread every signal over the last month, and that I'll be stuck never letting these feelings out. I don't hate Tristan, but he's not my kind of lover. Too aggressive and cocky, and with an attitude that makes me sour. Paris can be acidic, but when she's nice...  
   
Damn it, she can be really nice. As I sit here watching the minutes tick away, I can only hope I see her walk back through those doors at the end of the gym at 7:47pm and 23 seconds so she knows I didn't mean a thing bringing Tristan up except wanting some meaningful conversation...  
   
 **Paris' POV, 7:52pm  
**    
My mother has from the age of three always to not show your hand, any sign of weakness when you run into a spot of trouble, no matter how things may turn out in the end. Sometimes the advice has turned out to be sterling, no skin off my hide and I didn't fold under the pressure, a few of my younger meetings with Francine Jarvis in the schoolyard of Chilton Country Day showed that I was the strong one coming out of it all.  
   
Running out of that gymnasium a few minutes ago, however, that was a huge fucking bluff. I didn't have a good hand to make a big deal out of Rory bringing up the boy who's caused so much bad blood between us, Tristan. There was no reason at all to pull out my yellow card and take ten minutes away from her, or worse...forfeiting. Just thinking that in my mind, it's a curse word, it has the same venom to my brain as a few other choice words in the English vocabulary.  
   
Paris Gellar was forfeiting her chance to romance and woo Rory Gilmore. She was forfeiting that gaggle of tingles from Rory's fingertips that was running through her system like Millstone Nuclear in the heart of the dog days of summer because she's a chicken.  
   
She also ran all the way out of the gym and into the nearest empty restroom to start sniffling before anyone could see her at her weakest point in the seduction.  
   
That's right, I cried. It wasn't that much, just a few shed tears, but as I shut that door, I let myself cry because I knew from the moment Rory handed me that yellow card, I was wrong, heartbreakingly wrong about her intentions. If it was clear my sense of humor had been darkened and frayed by years under the influence of Sharon Gellar, there's Exhibit A for you right there; me taking Rory's joke the worst way I could.  
   
I could never admit defeat though; as my mother says, 'Gellars never admit defeat'.  
   
Yeah, this coming from a bottle blonde and former secretary named Sharon Martinez-DeBartolo from a working class clan in Uniondale, New York, and who moved to Hartford in her teens thanks to her mother striking it lucky with one of the males of Hartford society. She became a Gellar only through marriage with my father, and the only thing she does is file her nails all day while sending money to her retired parents in Florida. Alimony's been a pain in my father's ass, and it takes almost Colombian-quality smuggling techniques to even get a gift from him through the Manor, Mother, and into my bedroom. Take the money and run, but wreck the daughter's hard-earned stuff, that's been my mom's attitude since the divorce went through.  
   
Funny I never heard the defeat line from my father. Probably because he fought tooth and nail for any shred of reputation he could wring out of Mother before he had to give up.  
   
But she's right; I wasn't going to admit defeat about getting that far in the dance marathon. When it came to the goal of gaining Rory's love through it though...I felt ready to cry uncle and give up.  
   
I looked at myself in front of the sink in the mirror, wondering how I could've gone from carefree to bitch faster than my Porsche on a straight Iowa farmroad. She was just joking about Tristan and his habit of calling her Mary. Why did I take it so personally? What triggered within me to lash out at her like that and tell Rory to shut up and not bring him up again.  
   
Truth be told, I miss him terribly, every day. He made my life interesting, a presence in it just about every day since I was three and we met in preschool. I grew to love him since he was the main dependable boy in my life. I couldn't help it that by the time I turned 13 and discovered the opposite sex, he became an obsession on par with that of my academics.  
   
Yes, everyday I don't see him at locker 1832, since he left last November, my heart has been hollow in a certain place. But I can tell you with certainty that place is where only friendly feelings lurk, the place where that one special other in your life, that first, lived for a long time. Then one day, it's yanked out without warning because two inept jackasses convince that first special other it would be fun to commit burglary.  
   
But you know what? Rory's taken the place entirely where his love used to be. Absence, instead of making my heart grow fonder of DuGrey, drew me closer to my former enemy, and vice-president, and I feel a connection with her I never have with Tristan. Her kindness, loyalty, trust and her spirit, Rory could have given up on me the second I told her to get away from me after she broke the ice...literally with her flying body into my castle project. But she stayed persistent, and even through force and many, many threats to bring her down, she still finds something to like about me. Something that was enough to get me in this farmtown gym and participate in a glorified hoedown with her.  
   
Yet I still fumble the opportunity. Here, you wonder why my psychiatrist billed double when I was in therapy after the parental shit went down, Melfi and Soprano don't have anything on Dr. Judy Birnbaum and me!  
   
I stood there, looking at what I had become in that mirror. I was supposed to be making her numb with desire, help her forget her worries, and instead I was in front of a mirror, watching myself cry and ruin my makeup somewhat in that hot little number that was turning many heads, including a certain brunette's.  
   
"Why do you always screw things up?" I whispered to my mirror image. I said some things, admonishing myself for my behavior and giving MirrorParis a dressing down on par with some drill sergeants. "Who the hell are you, you have a girl ready to break down in that gym from your cop out, and all you can think to do is throw yourself a pity party? Come on, this isn't what the usual Paris would do, she would be on that floor heating things up, and kissing the everlasting life out of her!"  
   
My conscience decided it was perfect time to chime in. _OK Par, you're just going to walk out on Rory without any explanation about how Tristan still sort of effects you, but only as a friend? Come on, you can't get out of here, you might as well wear a hood on Monday and run chickenshit away from her each time she asks for an explanation. You love her, you think nothing of her! If it wasn't for your more reserved side, you would've screamed 'YES!' after she asked you on Wednesday from the top of Travelers Tower! For the smartest fucking girl in all of Central Connecticut you sure don't have a clue when it comes to earning love...  
_    
"But I do," I cried to myself, "I do like her, maybe even love her. I like Rory Gilmore goddamn it!" I felt at my weakest, crying into that mirror with an audience of just myself, knowing that the security of that restroom might have kept that secret. "But I don't know if can deal with it. This town, my social class, Chilton, Harvard, most of all my family what would they say? What would Rory say if I even insinuated I might have more than friendly feelings for her?"  
   
"Dear, you won't know until you get the courage to rise up and go through with telling her that."  
   
"I know, but..." Wait, that didn't sound like my dialogue, spoken or thought in my brain. That wasn't even my tone of voice. My eyes were transfixed to the mirror image, and it took a two-inch movement of my pupils to the left before I knew that there was another member of the audience. An older Latina woman of about 55 stood behind me in my gaze...  
   
"Ms. LaCosta?" I stayed focused in the mirror, every part of my body paralyzed in fear. The woman who had saved my academic hide last year in renting out the hall to me for the project, and who was currently judging this competition, had come in unnoticed as I ranted on to myself about my state with Rory.  
   
She knew **everything** ; Miss Patty knew my secret, and the shame that was following me around just by keeping it to myself. _Oh God, no!_ I thought in a panic, there was no way I could just shrug it all off as a joke or some kind of idiotic Method acting exercise. I was out in her eyes, confessing my want for Rory to a bathroom mirror, and unwittingly, her.  
   
"Hello Paris," she started, seemingly unaffected. "I just came in here to ask what the matter was; you ran out of the gym awfully quickly."  
   
I wanted to tell her that Rory said something wrong and I reacted the wrong way, but my acidic self put up my usual walls. "What do you care, I don't even live here, you have no reason to be concerned about me. I'm fine."  
   
I saw her come closer towards me in the mirror, her flowery robe and bright dress apparent in the light, along with her face, worn by many a South Florida season. "You left Rory in the gym awfully worried and it seemed so abrupt, so it seemed natural for me to come in and try to soothe you."  
   
"Well you can't," I said bitterly. "I suppose I should leave before you hop on your cell phone and spread the fact I have feelings for your golden daughter that go beyond those of a Midol ad scenario throughout the entire ZIP code. If you want a photo for the trashy story you'll have printed about me in the _Gazette_ I'll go into my glove box and retrieve one." A little bitter, don't you think?  
   
Where if this was Hartford she may have gone through with not only that spoken threat, but created an entire past untrue sexual history, instead Ms. LaCosta came even closer. She was still smiling, and it was unsettling. My mouth dropped as I realized her proximity to me. Instead of slapping me like the insolent young woman I was acting like though, she put her hands on my shoulders.  
   
"Turn around dear," she asked.  
   
"No, I don't have to Ms. LaCosta," I stated firmly. Maybe she'd go away if I didn't face her eye to eye.  
   
However, she stayed stubborn. "You have that right in this nation, along with the right to pursue your form of happiness. When I landed at Ismoralda in '65 on a raft from Cardenas that was the one thing I came to America for; to be happy. If you feel happy with Rory, no one can tell you otherwise, and I'm certainly not going to because it is your life Paris."  
   
I sighed, she wasn't going to be mean to me and fight my fire with fire, I had to concede she'd shoot down my brimstone with rainbows. "But I'm not supposed to be this way, and I'm sure that if I was back in the actual 40's, you sure wouldn't be as open to this as you are now. You've heard too much, and I'm honestly unsure if I can trust you with what was uttered to this mirror."  
   
"You're right," she accepted, "you don't know if I'll go out there, get on the microphone and shout out that scenario of dread planted within your mind right now." She then turned me around, finally. "You also don't know though that I see through your bitter front, and inside, I see someone inside who resembles a raven-haired young mother who came here in October of 1985 with a one year-old in tow, looking to flee from her confining life and creating a new and free life for that toddler and her. That same girl kept her child a secret from everyone in this town except I and the owner of the Inn for at least three months, because she came to me looking for some kind of job, any job that would keep her and a child from having to move to a tenement garden in Hartford in shame."

I then brought my gaze up towards Ms. LaCosta, never realizing until then that despite the seemingly unconnected threads of Lorelai's first year in Stars Hollow and my current state, we had many parallels. "This girl was smart as a whip, could have easily gotten into any college she wanted to, and hid her secret life from her parents as long as she could. When everything went down, she gave it all up, the money, the guarantees, the high life, to become a maid in a small-town inn. She was ashamed of it at first, scared to show everyone that she was doing this as more than a Christmas-saving job, but as a lifeline for her and her child. But then, eventually she knew she had to come out and state that she was a teenager with a daughter. That day was Christmas 1985, and though she went into that town holiday party thinking she'd be run out with a pitchfork for bringing her child around and taking the few gifts that Mia and I gave her, you know who told her she was a bad role model?"  
   
"Who?" I responded, albeit knowing the ending already.  
   
"If they did we either didn't hear them or never were there to condemn her." She smiled into the mirror and ran her fingers through my scalp. "Hon, this town has seen so much over the years, marriages, deaths and scandals, the occasional crime that draws the news crews out to tell us small towns are going down the tubes. But I can tell you right now, that if Rory is more than a friend to you, you shouldn't stop yourself from telling her that just because other external factors stop you."  
   
"How much did you hear by the way?" I finally wondered.  
   
"Just enough," she told me. "But enough to tell me that you want her in your life, even if she might reject you. You came here just for her dear, didn't you?"  
   
I nodded. "I was surprised when she asked me to be here since I haven't really danced in six years, and the fact that well...I'm wearing a dress, same as her." I finally started calming down, became less uptight and was able to laugh at myself.  
   
"Yet look at you." She had me turn back around in the mirror and look at myself. "You look wonderful, you've managed to stay on your feet for at least 13½ hours and until just a few minutes ago, you were giddy with excitement, what happened?"  
   
"Tristan did," I said bitterly. "You know, that boy who came in and out of the play last year? She mentioned him in jest and I went ballistic, throwing my yellow card at Taylor and fleeing."  
   
"The fine specimen of male?" Ms. LaCosta got this look of astonishment on her face; sort of a eureka moment. "If I was forty years younger, he would be on my shopping list!"  
   
There went my red face again; the lady sure knows how to call the guys. "For a long time I felt that way too, that he was the only one meant for me. Then he got into trouble just before the play, ended up in military school in North Carolina, and then..." I wandered off as she finished off my sentence.  
   
"Thoughts of yours wandered towards thinking of 'my golden daughter', as you stated, as more of a friend."  
   
"Took me a while, but by the time we got back to Connecticut in August, I was stuck thinking of her romantically." How I could be so candid and trusting with Ms. LaCosta I don't know, but I could feel this aura around her that she had seen it all, heard it all, maybe done it all. Hey, she lived on South Beach for God's sake, wouldn't put it past the woman. "I'm just very, very scared, treading lightly, afraid that someone's going to find out and that's it, Rory's not going to want to be around me anymore." My lashes lowered as I looked down at the sink. "Honestly, every time I've tried to push her away, eventually I beg her back into my life. Every instance for some inexplicable reason, she puts up with me and draws herself back into the mess that I am, she must have a sadomasochistic streak in her to have handled me for this long."  
   
"You have a true friend then," she said to me, noticing my halter tie loosening and retightening the knot. "She's stuck with you even when other girls may have shunned you. Something's nagging her to stay with you; maybe you have a connection to each other that's even tighter than that of twin siblings. Whatever it is though, even if she doesn't think of you in the way you think about her, I can see Rory continue to support you and be a good friend. She's bad at making enemies, and has some awkward problems making good friends. It's clear that you, my dear, are a very abnormal exception to that rule. For whatever you do, no matter how much you grate at her last nerve, you pull towards her, and she in turn does the same towards you."  
   
"So I'm not abnormal?" I asked.  
   
"No, but you need to unwind that spring a little, get a little more daring on the floor, let her know that you mean business. I have to admit that I've tired of her drama with Dean and Jess, they were part of a template that seems copied from bad drama. You on the other hand..." She finished my knot, and with my frown slowly inching towards an upwards curve, "...will be a challenge to watch, stealing those glances, trying to wring something out of the innocent. I'm not about to tell anyone because I want this little secret of yours to age to a fine vintage, and I just have this small little feeling in the back of my mind that maybe she's bored with the opposite sex. And if things come to fruition, you'll be surprised at how well this town might take things. Because if they don't, I'm not going to stay silent and leave you to fight alone."  
   
"Honest?" I was still a little unsure, until she turned me around and offered me her hand to shake.  
   
"An oral contract, that I, Miss Patty, will be there for you if you're ever in doubt, or you just need a second ear offered for an opinion."  
   
I felt like by doing this, I might be entering into some wacky tradition that I might be called on to return a favor for someday. Then though, it was just something woman-to-woman, a covenant that I could continue with my secret for as long as I needed to without any pressure. For all anyone knew, I did really have sore feet and needed to use the bathroom.  
   
Alright, so after all that wintergreen tea the second part was needed, but my feet were fine, though I was cursing my choice of heels. Halfway through, they did hurt like heck, you can see now why I'm a loafers girl outside of school.  
   
So I asked her for one favor before I decided that yes, I was ready to explain my sudden mood swing to Rory and get back to creaming Kirk's ass.  
   
"Ms. LaCosta?"  
   
"It's Miss Patty, we've had a close conversation and I've never been comfortable with the formal titles."  
   
"Fine, Miss Patty," I corrected myself. "You won't tell Rory we talked, right? If she were to find out that I was talking about her this way...I don't think I could face her." I offered out my hand, and she proffered it.  
   
"You have a deal hon. I wouldn't even think of sharing this because it's something that's very iffy to spread." We smiled at our understanding with each other, and though I swore I saw in her eyes she knew something that I didn't, I wasn't going to call her on it.  
   
I thanked her, and after checking my watch and realizing that it read 7:46:23, I had to get back into the gym, and fast with only one minute exactly left.  
   
"I have to go," I told her. "My girl...she's waiting for me out on the floor." I smiled funny, and nervously looked at Miss Patty. She just had her own funny smile on her face. "What?" I asked, wondering the reason as I walked backwards.  
   
"You might want to pay attention Par. You're about to crash into--"  
   
Just then, I felt my ass and head bump up against the doorpost, giving me a jolt and a nice bruise on top of my skull. I cried in pain for a bit, and she completed her sentence.  
   
"--The door." She gritted her teeth as the minute started ticking down. "Better just start running," she then observed.  
   
Of course, that led my gaze to my shoes, and the dress I was wearing, braless. "In **this** getup?"  
   
Patty laughed at me and then jolted me back to the situation I was facing. "Unless you want to stay here, forfeit and see Kirk take home the trophy." My eyes immediately widened, that was definitely something I didn't want Rory subject to, again!  
   
"I'm gone, bye!" I opened up the door, and thankful all that unneeded weight was off my shoulders again, booked it all the way in those painful shoes 450 feet from the east wing girl's room and back into the gymnasium, where that damned stubborn Taylor was standing at the table with his stopwatch at hand, salivating at getting to use his 'Airhorn of Elmination' on me.  
   
Well not so fast there, buster. Rory was sitting on the table, anxious for my return and looking forlornly out at the crowd. I was thirteen seconds away from ruining her night. If that didn't swell my heart to double its usual spiritual size, the sexy little pout on her face pretty much sealed the deal that I had to make it back over.  
   
I dodged couples in mid-swing or move, 'Pardon me' and 'excuse me sir, madam'ing my way through the dance floor. Still so close, yet so far away, I could hear a clock ticking in my head. _9, 8, 7, 6_...  
   
I had to resort to drastic measures to get back into the competition. I yelled out her name over the blare of the music, and in the snap of a finger, she was up like a light, turning her frown upside down and all that other romantic jazz. Making a long ten-second story short, we met back at our spot with one second to spare, and I placed my hand right on her back, dipped her low to the ground, then grabbed her hand and spun her right back against me, causing a very dramatic re-entry into this whole thing. She looked into my eyes, with a smile, and sighed happily.  
   
"I'm back, I'm sorry, and I'm ready to talk," I told her, as we heard Taylor voice out his frustration over the PA system.  
   
"Damn it, you got in under the wire Miss Gellar!" he yelled at me as Rory and I found our footing. "I was getting so excited and you had to go ruin my fun, why did I--"  
   
Andrew, the owner of the local bookstore tapped him on his shoulder. "Taylor, you're supposed to be impartial and encouraging! Don't say anything else or else I'm taking over the mic and horns."  
   
Rory and I laughed as we saw him put Taylor in his place, and after that, the world around us turned foggy as she spoke for the first time since I left her.  
   
"Hey, you'd get here eventually," she told me. "But I understand where you were coming from there Par, I'm sorry if I brought up too much, too fast." She rubbed her free hand on my shoulder, and I quickly felt any tension left within fading.  
   
"It's OK, we were keeping this in way too long. Tristan doesn't deserve to be ignored even though he screwed up, and though he was your personal pain in the ass and my swoon buddy, he made everything interesting." I sighed as she started listening. "Look, I didn't mean to go off on you, but since we're getting so close to each other, I suppose there are some things I should let you know about, clear the air about a few things."

"Well...alright," she uttered, somewhat nervously. There was something about her tone of voice that was cluing me in that Rory was expecting the worst out of what I had to say. That meant I had to use caring words and emphasis on what I was about to confess. We danced in each other's arms as she started to lean against me and lend her ear to me.  
   
"First of all, if you think I'm still mooning over Tristan as that prince who will someday come on noble steed and bring me back to his newly acquired kingdom of Raleigh-Durham in a year or so, I'm not, Ror. I stopped thinking of him as more than a friend at least more than a year ago and God forbid if he ever came back I don't have plans to rekindle anything that isn't there. There's no point continuing to delude myself further since the date you sent us out on sophomore year made it painfully clear that we were incompatible romantically."  
   
Rory smiled as she heard me say that, and dare I say looked more relieved than surprised. But that was nothing compared to the heated curve I was about to throw towards her. _You don't have to_ , my conscience told me, but I knew that if I wanted to spark this relationship, I had to be completely honest with her. My hand against her back for support, I confessed to Rory that certain detail which happened two weeks before the date.  
   
"By the way, do you remember that party you went to at Madeline's house the night after you broke up with Dean the first time? Where you did more recreational reading than dancing and your friend Lane met Henry?"

"Yeah," she told me, "that was a fun party..." Rory seemed to bite her lip, cluing me into her second sense about what I was about to say.  
   
"No Gilmore, it wasn't fun, for you or I. I would've rather been elsewhere honing my vocabulary instead of monitoring Orangina, and the only reason you were there was to think about something else besides Dean, all that loud music would hopefully scramble your senses. Tristan wasn't having a hot time either, what with Summer playing with his heart like a toy. Both of you were having problems of the heart, and you somehow came together in the piano room, where after a rash of thefts of precious antiques from previous parties and some broken glass bells from Mrs. Lynn's tourism bell collection, Madeline and her mother decided to install a wireless security camera, which was hidden in a replica tin sitting on the bookshelf."  
   
She didn't stop dancing, didn't stop me from going on. Rory just nodded and licked around her lips to recoat them in a nervous manner. "Okay..."  
   
"As I was saying, you two were hurting, at a party neither of you wanted to be at in retrospect. You wanted to be at home with a pint of Häagen-Dazs watching _Thelma and Louise_ while you recounted to Lorelai how much you wanted to cut off circulation to Dean's pelvis, while Tristan...well we both know where Tristan wanted to be. So you find yourselves in the same room together, both of you hurt, and numb. On the surface having what looked to be a healthy serving of sexual tension on par with several series on a certain young woman-targeting television network which shall remain nameless, you still loathed him, he still had an insatiable crush on you. However, you dropped your barriers enough to have an awkward conversation about science class or another class, I don't remember. All I know is that Madeline came up to me one day asking if I might want to see something on a videotape that had a perfect view of that piano and the surrounding room. She didn't say what was on it, just that it would give me ammunition."  
   
I could see her lip get sort of shaky, and her body tighten in my grasp. So far I had done well setting things up, now I just had to go through with the rest of the story and hope Rory still respected me. "Go on," she beckoned with a very shaky and strained voice.

I told her all about what was on the tape, and about how I reacted to what was on it. At first she had this look of fear to her and it seemed like in my arms, she was turning white. Rory was scared, and I tried to make her understand that there was nothing on that tape that was a surprise to me. I knew Tristan liked her, she didn't, and in the end once I got to the climax of the film, the kiss, that I didn't feel a thing. I was emotionally numbed and shocked from what I saw, but there was no anger that I ever felt. I kept trying to make it clear to her that the only two people who were at fault that night, were not in that room. Dean and Summer were both idiots for letting good love pass them by, and she seemed to understand I didn't hold any bitterness for her or Tristan at all.  
   
As I finished describing what I had seen on the tape, I felt Rory relax in my grasp, and saw her color return to her face. I was thankful that she was taking such a revelation so well, and I had poured my heart out to her in such a way that made me feel like I could trust her with a confidant with my own secrets. I tried my best to make sure that this revelation was the final straw that told her she could trust me with anything she held close to her heart, including secrets, and I would not tell them to anyone.  
   
Finishing what I had to say, Rory asked the important question I had been expecting about the cassette. "Uh, where is this tape you watched now?"

"Oh, it's currently probably eating the ozone layer above New York City since I burned it in my home incinerator in front of Madeline and Louise while I scolded them that if details about your kiss with Tristan ever got out, they'd be getting some natural blue eyeshadow courtesy of my fist." I laughed and she finally let out an easy breath. "There isn't a copy floating out there at all, only the five of us know what happened in that piano room--"  
   
"Along with my mother," she added. "I kind of panicked about whether he'd spill about the kiss during the play scenario so I asked her if I should let Dean know. She told me to keep my mouth shut."  
   
"As well Lorelai should, I didn't need my Romeo carted out to Hartford General with double broken kneecaps. But honestly, I kinda had fun seeing you squirm as he hinted about the kiss. He didn't tell me about it, but I knew what he was talking about the entire time. I did make him Romeo in a last gasp at saving him from falling deeper with Duncan and Bowman, but it didn't work, so I'm sorry for that too."  
   
"What about the date though? You said you handled our kiss just fine, but the setup went too far." She was nervous on that topic, and had totally called me on that. So I answered her in the most honest way possible.  
   
"That did bruise my pride, but back then I thought you'd be gone by the end of the year and I'd never have to see you again. I'm really sorry for telling you that I hated you for setting me up on the date, because although I seemed happy coming back into the classroom the morning after..." I hesitated for a beat, reading her eyes as we swayed across the floor. Her blues were warm, caring, understanding completely. "He wanted you Rory, not me. It was a noble attempt to try to make my dream of dating him come true, but there were no sparks during dinner, and the movie was spent going over some class notes in my head rather than gauging the exact moment he'd stretch his arm across my back and place his hand on my shoulder. The kiss at the end of the night was just as dull, I didn't feel a thing, a swoon, or a drying of my mouth, nor any urge to invite him in under the pretense of coffee and offer myself to him. Everything I did to you after that, until we went onto our second friends track? I was trying to find a spark with Tristan again, a reason to try to find something to hate about you."  
   
Then, I closed my eyes and came the closest today to admitting what I really felt for her, running my hands against the bottom knuckles on each of her hands. I could hear her breath shallow up, the air around us start to stiffen. The sounds of a song from the _Dirty Dancing_ soundtrack played over the loudspeakers, and what minutes ago may have been another end to a friendship, turned out to end well in my favor, it finally felt nice to get everything out about what I had thought of Tristan over the last year.  
   
By this point, my voice had started breaking, and I felt myself swoon as I pushed the idea of Rory and I together further in our intimate dancing circle. "Rory, if you hadn't been here for me, to stop me from going bat crazy over an A- grade or these wacky _Franklin_ ideas I come up with that are bad in actuality, or going along with me to become my vice president and just listened to my mother all the time instead of my heart and gut feelings, I wouldn't be happy at all. I look at who I was in September two years ago, and I can't believe how much of a bitch I was to you, no one ever offered to help me with something they screwed up, be it a project or an assignment, because they were too scared to even broach the question. You asked anyways, and I refused. Even after all that and trying to shut you out cold, you stay with me. You could've become a Puff all alone, but you demanded that I get in with you or else you wouldn't join at all. Finally, you love to tease me about being so high-strung and obsessed with tests, being good natured about it and telling me to ease up. In the end though, no matter what I've done--" This point in the conversation would be about where I lost all composure, and softly cried, blinking back tears that were going to come anyway. "You still like me. I'm still your friend and you're my best friend. And for that, I'm forever grateful to have you in my life, Rory Gilmore." With that, I collapsed onto her shoulder, and just cried like I never did before, joyful tears that expressed how thankful I was for that small-town brunette right then and there.  
   
Thank God no one really saw it and we were buried deep in the crowd, a slow dance was the perfect time to just let it all out. Her hand was rubbing my upper back, and I heard her soothing voice, telling me everything was going to be OK and that it was fine to cry. I let myself go, letting two years of torn emotions, broken and reformed loyalties and misunderstandings formerly buried, bubble to the surface. I had been honest with her about Tristan, and in turn she understood. There was no second-guessing, no questioning, just a smile and a reassuring shoulder to cry on. We both kept our feet moving, and when I looked towards the judge's stand, I saw Ms. LaCosta in her chair. She was smiling at me, and her confidence in Rory forgiving me and listening to my side of the story was right on target.  
   
There's still about ten hours of this literal song and dance to go, and I'm in it for the long haul now. If I had to do it again, use my yellow card to gain a little space and perspective, I wouldn't change a thing. Because even in my worst moments, Rory's loyalty to me is unwavering, and through this night that fact is becoming crystal clear.  
   
All I need now is more clarity on whether she likes me further than she lets on...  
   
 **7:59pm, Rory's POV  
**    
I remember when I had those feelings for Jess before I kissed him at Sookie's wedding, how conflicted and disloyal I felt to not only my mother for ditching her graduation to see him, but how crappy it must've been to Dean that I was going behind his back to pursue something with him. I look back on that now and think of myself as crazy for doing that, skipping school and jeopardizing everything just so I could risk my life to see that boy. It was crazy back then, and it still is now.  
   
But an infatuation was guiding me, that maybe, just maybe I wanted Jess instead of Dean. His brown eyes, rebellious demeanor and his dislike of authority was the reverse of the way I led my life, and I found myself in bed sometimes thinking about him and how he would do things. That's why I went down there, love doing something funny to my system and making me think that for one day, I just needed to be in his gaze and see if he felt the same for me. Jess caused things to happen within me Dean never stirred, and I became a cat, curious as to what was on the end of that string dangled before me.  
   
Once I kissed him though, I felt...what should have been happiness and fulfillment from obtaining my goal of kissing Jess, but instead turned out to be far from that. A sense of nothing took over my body in front of that pond on the Inn grounds, and from there, I realized a conclusion my brain had arrived at nine months before, but I refused to believe.  
   
Jess and I; like Mac and DOS, we'd never work together. I had the bright outlook on things, the many open windows leading to different programs and images along with the bright colored cabinet holding my thoughts and dreams. Jess ended up being the C-prompt; an empty shell who was stubborn, always needed to be told what to do, and with thought processes that could use a few more megs of memory, he'd always stay in that leather jacket, a 'beige box' if you will. He never expanded his horizons, always expecting to be bailed out of trouble. He was always unchanging, sour, and unreliable; pretty soon he'd break and lose it all. The kiss got my attention alright; and it screamed out in a blue screen 'Danger! Danger! Turn back now, you might be in for a world of hurt if you go beyond this.'  
   
So as I comfort Paris, what term could I use to describe her in an electronic device sort of way? And how the heck did I get on this mind track in the first place? Oh well, I got it now; she's like a cell phone; at first she seemed to have only one purpose in talking, that is in living out her dream of attending Harvard. As the years go on though, she loses the extraneous weight and pressure that came with the first mobile phones, and every six months she gets a new feature. Let's just say that when I came to school two years ago, she was the basic model that did little more than was supposed to. Now with me in her corner, she's developing new features, like actual emotions, thoughts and feelings, able to have empathy for others and communicate her feelings in more ways than she ever though possible. Use the cell phone analogy with text messaging, a camera in the handset, instant messaging and that chirpy walkie-talky thing you find on some of them, and it fits perfectly.

Enough of that though. My point is, Paris is really surprising me tonight. She runs away by using her yellow card and for ten minutes I'm stuck in the bleachers, praying she'll come back. In the meantime Jess and Shane had come over to check up on me before they left on a date to see some band in a grungy New Haven dance hall. They both looked very nice, and as more days go by, I can't help but think I made the right decision in letting Jess go. He's pleased with Shane and starting to occasionally smile, while the wild blonde seems to have reined herself in around Jess, who carries on the proud Danes monosyllablotic tradition. I talk to them for a bit, trying not to mention where my date was. I got into some quick music conversation with them before they had to go, and I appreciate that I can be myself around Jess without having any romantic feelings interfere anymore.  
   
I watched the clock on the scoreboard nervously, counting the minutes before Paris and I were called out. She was talking a long time in there, and I saw Taylor almost salivate at getting to throw us, couple #131 out of the event. There was only so much I could do, so I could only hope she was straightening herself out.  
   
By the time 7:46:53 hit, I gave up hope. There were less than thirty seconds to go, and even she had no way of making it from the bathrooms at the far end of the gym wing and back into my arms in that small amount of time. _Not with her shoes and body type_ , I thought to myself as the lighted number switched from 6 to 7. 13:47:23 was good enough for 56th place; at least we'd get in the top 60...  
   
Never count Paris Gellar out until zero hour though. Ten seconds later, I heard a rough shove of the gym door, and saw a flash of black, blonde and red tomato rush through it and into the room again. My eyes widened at the sudden tornado and her rough, yet formal shoving through the crowd to get to me.  
   
Down to seven seconds, and I finally heard her confirm who she was.

"RORY?!"  
   
Her voice was rough and strained, I couldn't stand there and hope she came to me; we had to come each other. So desperate to keep myself in the game, I ran through the crowd, counting down the seconds in my head. _16, 17, 18, 19_...

We were headed for a collision course at the 131 'X' on the floor as the end digits on the board lit up and changed to 20. Three seconds, fifteen feet between us, a lump in my throat forming. The skirt of my dress was rising in the air, and I'm sure quite a few contestants got a quick glance of the back of my legs as I stretched out my arm, I could hear the click of the electric circuitry of the wall board in my mind as that end digit went to 1...  
   
My right hand was taken by her long and svelte left, time seemed to stand still as we locked eyes again.  
   
 _Click, 21 becomes 22_.  
   
I felt her slide towards the tape mark, and my back fall towards the gym floor as she shoved me down a little. Paris had something planned as I felt her body move close to mine. She stretched me out, causing me to spin about 450° and then bringing me back towards her, only to overshoot on purpose, where I found out her right arm was ready to brace my back. She caught me, and I found myself with quite the eyeful of her cleavage...  
   
 _Click, 22 becomes 23...  
_    
Her smile matched mine; we were again Paris and Rory, dance partners. She brought me back up and into a regular kind of dance as we didn't hear the expected 'Airhorn of Elimination', but a disappointed Taylor instead cursing out Paris for making it on time.  
   
We both laughed at this, and as she explained that yes, she was sorry and she didn't mean to turn Tristan into an issue again, I didn't expect much more than that, just an apology and a resumption of the dance.  
   
Once again however, she surprised me, and just like that, she admitted what my heart had been hoping for since those first days this summer we spent straddling the Mason/Dixon line in that Howard University dorm room. Tristan was just a friend, always going to be just a friend to her, and she had no intentions of resparking the crush again. My heart was relieved and relaxed...  
   
Until she admitted that the kiss I shared with him? She knew about it from the day after the dance, thanks to Madeline's spying...I mean security system, which had a hidden camera placed on a high shelf in the room somewhere, directed dead center at the piano bench. From there, I expected her to lecture me about my stupidity and why I'd be so weak and do something like that, along with the inevitable 'you knew I wanted him too, I don't care if your hearts were broken, I have first dibs' speech.  
   
Paris relieved me though; she knew I didn't go in there hoping to seduce Tristan, that I was just trying to forget about what happened with Dean the night before and that my mind wasn't all there, I was looking for comfort. She knew I didn't enjoy the kiss and the feelings that came with it, so I tried to reassure her by telling my side of the story before she stopped me and told me she knew exactly what I'd say, and she was right.  
   
I felt relieved to say the least, along with a growing respect for her. She didn't use the tape for blackmail material, and refused to use it to bring me down, rather she'd compete against me for her grade rather than win by a knockout blow. Coming from a girl I associated from day one with bringing me down, Paris' sportsmanship when it came to our grades was another thing I had learned about her that day.  
   
We kept talking about Tristan for a bit, asking why she still had a problem with the date with Tristan I set her up on, yet burned the tape. Of course, the crush won out, for awhile at least. As DuGrey started on his downward spiral, her heart, filled with his love previously, was being wrung out.  
   
But when she admitted that during that date, she didn't feel a damned thing for him at all, even in a deep kiss, I didn't know what to say. I wanted to celebrate that fact, but doing that would be rude and idiotic. My mind wrapped itself around an image of Paris and Tristan at her door kissing, watching her from a third person point of view and seeing Paris remaining unresponsive to Tristan's apparently 'magic mouth'.  
   
She had never felt sparks for Tristan when they kissed. To Paris, the swirling in her stomach, shaky mouth, loss of all rational thought and feeling, heightened senses in her fingertips, that sudden response to stand on one foot and lean in closer...that was still an alien feeling to her. She was admitting as much to me, and for her to say she felt nothing for the boy she chased for years and years, I realized something.  
   
I had experienced all of that when it came to Dean. She was wise beyond her years when it came to book learnin' and the mannerisms she acquired by being a part of Hartford society. When it came to love however, she was still a relative novice. What advice I had told her when it came to that date with Jamie was light and might as well have been a mulligan. She had never experienced real love, hell, Paris had never even been kissed.  
   
I mean sure she had been kissed, technically. But not a **real** kiss. The kind of kiss that makes you crumble to the ground, lose your breath, yearn for more. As she talked about the way the date with Tristan really went, I had this long look at her full lips as we danced, my lashes lowered so she wouldn't clue into my gaze. My yearning to show her how to kiss started to build up, and though I wouldn't do it in such a public place, things became even more clear besides the crush I was holding for her mind, body, and heart.  
   
I wanted to show her how to really love, not just infatuation. If two years with Dean has taught me something, it's what mistakes not to make in the course of a relationship and how to keep the flame burning. There were times I stayed with him only because of a sudden sweet gesture he made, but I don't want to have to depend on those when I pursue this. When she's around, like right now, just her presence changes my thought processes from far from normal. I compete to not only complete a goal I set for myself, to facilitate Lorelai's wishes, but to gain Paris' respect.  
   
There was a part of me that knew Paris wasn't brain-dead when it came to showing love; but it wasn't her forte, and while she'd excel in a few places, most of her idea of romance was a large question mark. A part of me feels that my role is changing from seducer to teacher, and Paris' is going from seductee to the student.  
   
God, Rory Gilmore, the Sapphic Love Instructor? Imagine if I put that on my business card later in life!  
   
As I thought of this, the conversation seemed to be fading, and Paris seemed ready to break down in my arms. As she said she was thankful I was in her life, tears started falling and her grip started to fade, so I propped her back up and had her rest her head against my shoulder. Paris started crying, and moments later, I found my hand on her back, massaging it as I tried to help her let out all her tears. Thankfully she had rubbed off her eye makeup during the six o'clock break so she wouldn't have dark streaks down her cheeks, so anyone who looked in would think we were just dancing close.  
   
There were a few couples around us looking at me funny for letting her lean against my shoulder, but an eyeroll and a shift towards a far corner of the gym remedied that so I could ease Paris back into a calm mood in relative quiet.  
   
I soothed her with words, my voice taking on a maternal treble. "It's OK Par, it's fine," I told her, trying to resume the conversation stopped from her breaking down. "It's good to get this out, I'm not mad at you at all and don't think of you as weak. You're a very tough girl and I'm just as thankful for you in my life."  
   
"Really?" she said through a sob. "This isn't a fib, you're not using this as an opportunity to try to find my Achilles, my weaknesses?"  
   
"I wouldn't lie," I told her honestly. "You don't know how nervous I was after you left on the date, hoping you'd get those cues right and ease off the index cards, and I was hoping that Tristan would see you as more than a classmate for the first time. I enjoyed helping you get ready, and the reason I helped you was because I felt extreme guilt over the kiss. I mean I had good luck with Henry and Lane, so I thought I could work the same magic with you and Tristan." Her chin felt so soft against my shoulder, and the dark corner of the gym, still visible to Taylor, made our surroundings somewhat romantic. The gym lights around the periphery of the gym floor were turned off with only the middle bank of lights on, spotlighting tracks on each side of the gym. We were behind one of the riggings, so very little of the light came towards us.  
   
I swayed her back and forth, giving her a little more of a break to calm her down. With _Unchained Melody_ playing, the scene felt romantic. I kept telling her softly things were OK and I was relieved she knew about the piano room kiss, not thinking of the boy who used to be in between us at all as I had her wrap her arms around my back as I did the same. My fingers were in line with the plunge of her dress, and she found the courage again to place her hands in line with my waist. It took a few more moments for her to take her head off my shoulder, but once she did...  
   
My breath caught, and I was overtaken with her beauty. Her expressive browns glistened from the cry and little light flowing into her pupils, and they were wide, looking into mine and forming this moment I'm not about to forget anytime soon. Her lips glistened in the little light, and her skin was subdued. I just loved how her mixed heritage of German and Spaniard genes, along with her Jewish heritage came together to form such a beautiful girl. She has the Germanic features in her nose and mouth, the full lips, nose and subdued ears, but her mother's Spanish ancestry was good for at least one thing; her skin is so smooth and perfect, so dark. I admit, I love it when Paris tans, because her body is made for it and she doesn't burn easily. Madeline and Louise have admitted as such; they tan at a booth and still have much envy for Par's simple beauty regimen and how she can go from pink to olive in but a few half-hour sessions.  
   
I can't help but look at her; my mouth dries as the slow guitar and violin from the current tune pick up at the bridge. She's looking at me with this look of longing I've never placed before, and she mouths out a thank you for my caring words and action. It feels like 'the moment', the time to slowly go in and bring her closer.  
   
I do, pushing her closer towards me as she does the same, we're becoming drawn to each other again, the magnetism that's given me the cues before off the chart as her breasts press against my chest, and I can feel her abdomen deflating and inflating against mine. We're so close, in dimmed light, her face perfect.  
   
"You look beautiful tonight, Paris," I whisper to her, my lips plump and needing. I struggle to regain my breath; it's almost as if I needed her kiss to go on further.  
   
She nodded back at me, her own mouth opening. I haven't felt this way before, this is so right. I don't want to rush into this, I just want the moment to carry itself, because I want this to be perfect. Fireworks, oohs, ahhs, a swooning soundtrack in the background.  
   
"Sometimes you're very peculiar Gilmore," she tells me in her seductive monotonic murmur, as her nails play with the material on the back of my dress. "I have to admit however, when I'm with you, I do feel the way you say I am." Her face moves closer and closer, the moment is so perfect despite there being ten hours left and my surprise if we win possibly being ruined if I go through with it.  
   
I wanted it, I wanted it so bad I could almost feel orchids digging into my back, her perfume getting to me and making me remember back to Mr. Medina's marriage proposal. Only instead of daisies, I visualize Paris and I in the middle of the Inn lobby, bunches and bunches of purple, pink and yellow orchids all over the place. I prepare to bring her into the kiss slowly, my tongue against the ridge of my lower lip, she didn't seem scared to move closer and closer.  
   
I could hear her breath, heartbeat, the flow of her blood through my system as we continued to sway. We were but mere centimeters from each other, the moment was perfect, nothing had to be acknowledged and we were about to breach that bold white 'friends and lovers' line that shouldn't be crossed unless we both thought it was the time, the place, and the moment to do so...  
   
Then just as I was about to close that last distance, I found my new arch-enemy at 7:57:15pm in Taylor Doose, and his need to torture us until the cows come home. All the sudden, the loud scoreboard horn went off, and where moments before I would have been claiming Paris as more than a dance partner, the moment that fucking horn went off, she jumped about four feet backwards in the other direction.  
   
"Oh, now what?!" I complained as she yelled "For the love of God!" towards Taylor as I got a quick grasp on her left hand to not only keep her from falling down, but keep us in the contest. The moment was lost, and though I wanted to shed tears, I couldn't because I had just helped Paris settle down, I didn't need to go through her having to take care of me.  
   
Besides, it was time for the one thing every year I dreaded...  
   
"Ladies and gentlemen, get into a single file line along the basketball sideline behind the red tape, it's time for the Runaround!" Crap on a cracker, how in good conscience could he do this right after _Unchained Melody_ and my almost-kissing Paris?!  
   
"Runaround, what's that, what's a runaround? Rory, I need to know, please tell me, does it involve sudden death?!" The poor guy had made Paris panic like a chicken in the yard right after it has its head cut off, and as we raced to join the building crowd at the red line, I quickly ran it down for her.  
   
"He promised us all he wouldn't do this again this year, but basically he has us run around the gym for five minutes in a game where all the couples dance around to one of those bad school square dancing record songs. If we don't make it past the red line when the horn sounds we're out of the contest, I'm so sorry, and I would've warned you if I knew he would've sprung it on us!" I held her hand tightly for dear life as we got behind Kirk and his partner, and Paris wasn't above holding back her feelings.  
   
"What a prick!" she shot out. "I thought I liked him, but you're right Rory, he's an old anal freak."  
   
Kirk looked towards us and tried to defend his former employer 7-10 times over, I forget the exact number. "Hey, that anal freak hired me when he didn't have to and he organizes this marathon every year young lady, so show some respect--"  
   
The anger over not kissing Paris at a brim point, I cut Kirk off before he goaded Paris into a shoving match. "Whatever, put a sock in it Gleason, you're gonna be here late anyways so what do you have to complain about, we're trying to beat **you**!"  
   
Thankfully this shut Kirk up, and we heard the needle drop as Taylor prepared to start the runaround. A horrible and awful song came out of the speakers, the kind you find buried way down below in the record racks at the Bethesda store because no one knows who composed or played the song because they were embarrassed to play it for infamy in the first place.  
   
"Everyone, ready on your marks...get set...and go!"  
   
So that's where Paris and I are now, in the middle of the crowd trying to stay on our feet as we both try to will time faster so this whole stupid ordeal ends. At least I'm doing it with her and still in the game, and in retrospect, kissing her in a public venue, be it in a dark corner of the gym, was better stopped in the long run than if we had gone through with it. If I do it in privacy later though, we'd be able to talk it out rather than have some awkward things go down in the aftermath. Paris is struggling to stay on her feet, and she's hopped on one foot for a bit, then the other so she could take off her shoes and chuck them towards the bleachers since they were hurting her feet, she wasn't prepared for this at all. Thankfully there's no rule against barefoot dancing, so the only thing I'll have to worry about for the rest of the night is not stepping on them. I only hope she respects me in the morning if we get through this all.  
   
Speaking of which, if we do get past 4am, there's now way she's going to drive home to Hartford in her car, I will not let her go drowsy and with sore feet. This of course, sets up interesting possibilities for Sunday morning into the afternoon, keeping her in Stars Hollow. Looks like I have some more motivation to keep her in the game...

#  **Paris' POV, 1:40am**

I've always hated the slumber parties that Mads and Louise throw occasionally, and after a begging session and an impassioned plea to Sharon to force me to go, I ended up attending. Yes, I like my friends and I'd wear the bridesmaid dresses for both of them, even if it will end up being multiple times (And in wedding announcements, Louise Shelby Grant, followed by multiple other surnames we can't possibly fit in this article, 65, of Hartford married her 17th beau this Saturday afternoon...), but I hate slumber parties because they've never done any slumbering at all. They'd keep me up and by the time Monday rolls around, I have a heavy sleep hangover that can only be cured with a triple-shot espresso with a few drops of Jolt cola to spike the caffeine grammage to a triple-digit level.  
   
I don't take well to routine being interrupted. I usually go to bed every night except Saturday at 11:20pm or earlier, right after the channel 3 weather segment on their 11pm newscast (Wiseass sportscasters and water-skiing squirrels insult my intelligence). On Saturday I get a little wild and stay up until 12:45am, just before the last two skits of _Saturday Night Live_ start and kill the rest of the show. By midnight on Saturday my eyelids are heavy, begging to be rested, and it takes pure adrenaline to keep my eyes on my computer screen as I put the last completing touches on my schoolwork, and in the background the wonderful comedienne Tina Fey sparkles in her _Weekend Update_ segment.  
   
As I was saying though, something out of the ordinary, and my sleeping schedule takes a few days to readjust. After a Madeline/Louise slumber party, I fall right into my bed when I get home and sleep until my mother yanks me out of bed and forces me to accompany her to whatever social ego-stroke she's found to hobnob with the Hartford elite, where she hopes my interest in a boy gets piqued and I set up a date with one of them.  
   
Never has happened of course, you should know that from Vance Beardsley II's four-year sojourn to get into my pants. Of course, the odds that it will happen are pretty slim right now, considering I outright admitted my infatuation with Rory suddenly to Ms. LaCosta a few hours ago.  
   
I'm still feeling wide-awake tonight though, completely aware of my surroundings. It's as if karma is again at work trying to make me see how important Rory is in my life, keeping my eyes wide open. It could have something to do with having to dance barefoot though, since I chucked my shoes off into the bleachers during that Roundabout thing Taylor roped us into. Rory and I came within moments of being eliminated at the end of it and only by widely striding across the line with my feet before that infernal horn went off again and 52 couples behind the line got taken out of the competition, did we stay in. Please tell me what I saw in respecting Taylor Doose the few other times I visited the town. I thought he was a good authority figure, but nineteen hours into a contest he's warding over, he's become a pain in my side.  
   
Rory however...is single-handedly keeping me sane. I would've left long ago if someone like Brad was my dancing partner because we're always at each other's throats, and not in that David/Maddie _Moonlighting_ unresolved sexual tension way either; I just don't like him. There was a part of me who thought I'd be inexperienced and wouldn't make it through the evening, but there I was, still on my toes, relatively awake.  
   
I was also still spinning from almost giving into temptation and kissing Rory before the horn went off for Roundabout. We were both in this dim corner of the gym, and after I finished crying myself out from admitting she was so important to me, I found myself looking at her and finding the right moment to silently let her know my feelings. I thought she looked at me the same way, as I felt my body attract against hers. Her slim form against mine, hands lower against each other than any point in the endeavor; everything about the scene was perfect and I could feel her ease into me, until Taylor's horn shook me back into reality with a huge shock in my system. I jumped back abruptly from her, and though I really, really wanted the kiss, maybe it's better to wait.  
   
For one thing, it was in a gym packed with people, and for another, I don't know how she feels. If I kissed her then, she might be embarrassed and run away. Or worse, I'd end up her newest Georgia Porgie, making her bawl as past memories came to mind and she fled from my grasp. Every first kiss it seems with her, she runs away, confusing the heck out of the recipient, and it takes a bit to make sure that the kiss was for better or worse.  
   
I have a feeling I'll kiss horribly, so I better not. I want her to stay with me, and if she doesn't want to kiss me, I'll have to accept that. So I just try to get out any information through the dance I can push out of her, and in turn, she probes me for more answers to my mystery, my life, what makes me tick. The artificial barriers we've kept up around each other, the distrust in the past that can be compared to the epic battle of AT&T vs. MCI to keep things secret so one doesn't get an unknowing leg up on the other, those are gone as the night goes on, and we find more space with every half hour to spread our dancing out on the floor. At 7pm, we were still stuck in our intimate box above the three point curve. At 1am, we have almost the entire east free throw circle to ourselves. In the last hour the town's ambulance crew has been bouncing back and forth between the town clinic off Constellation Circle on the north side of town and the high school as several couples couldn't take the stress anymore and fainted to the ground below. A few did it gracefully, but more often than not a hard thump would be heard as a head, nose, or rump hit the hardwood and Ms. LaCosta asked out the paramedics once again to bring them to the clinic and treat them for exhaustion and/or dehydration.  
   
The thing with Rory and I however, we conserved our energy and didn't try to do too much, only going for the risky moves when Kirk was trying to hard to impress the crowd. In the meantime, we kept on dancing with the pace of the music conservatively as we kept talking and talking to make the hours go faster. It felt so wonderful, and the Tristan topic opened up a whole avenue of possibilities.  
   
"Who really was your first kiss?" I asked her, and though she tried to play coy and avoid the question, eventually she relented and told me that back in third grade, a boy in her class named Ty Verona had a huge crush on her, and it was Valentine's Day. Her box, being the class smartie, had enough valentines, but not enough to be considered a big haul.  
   
"Ty was different though," she remembered. "He made this homemade card with elbow macaroni, lace borders, practiced cursive, and multiple layers of construction paper, for a boy his age it was well put together and he did it all by myself. So I thanked him after school, and because I was in a giving mood, I decided why not, I'll kiss him."  
   
"Was it a nice introduction into the world of boys?"  
   
"He wanted to only give me the valentine, not anything more. I kissed his cheek, and he ran away screaming 'Gilmore just kissed me, ewwwwww, yucky!' I tried to apologize, but I guess since I got what he wanted wrong, he decided he didn't like me anymore. It wasn't really a kiss to remember, but a nice and funny memory." Her eyes darted towards me, and I became the deer in the headlights. "I have a feeling your first kiss wasn't Tristan though, you never said he was Gellar."  
   
"Yes I did, I--" A few moments later, I remembered that I had never said that. "I guess I didn't." I rolled my eyes and prepared for my humiliation. "I'm warning you now, you laugh and after this is over I'll be wearing a Stop and Shop bag on my head to school Monday morning."  
   
"I will not," she insisted. "Can't be any worse than my story."  
   
"It's awkward though."  
   
She smiled at me. "I felt awkward telling my story, so go ahead and spill, you have a fellow weirdo dancing here."  
   
"Fine," I said, sighing and relaying the details of my first kiss. "A boy I used to know, Clarence Norwood was playing doctor with me when we were five at my home. We were good friends back then and were, let's just say curious about how things ticked. He had the stethoscope, I was the patient, and well...you know how patients are dressed with doctors."  
   
"So a nightgown?" She answered. I nodded back.  
   
"Care Bears, I had a phase where I liked those infernal toys back then." I rolled my eyes and continued. "We were in my playroom, and he was asking if I was hurting somewhere, so I said I had a painful tooth. My first teeth were starting to come in and push out the baby teeth, so I was raking it in with the tooth fairy. Instead of playing dentist though, he asked me if it really hurt. I said yes it did, and then he told me, 'My mom kisses boo-boos and it makes me feel better'."  
   
"A few days earlier I had seen a movie on television with French kissing, so I was interested in how it felt, which is why I said my tooth hurt. Moments later, he was bending down, and I told him to rub my sore tooth with his tongue. So he did that, we started kissing..."  
   
"Even back in your younger days you were smart, suckering a boy into Frenching you." She laughed, and I finished the story.  
   
"We did that for a couple of minutes, and it felt really good. At least until Mrs. Norwood came in and saw her son on top of me, his hand on my leg trying to brace himself and my cries of 'More please Clarence, cure my pain!'. You can only imagine how it looked to Mrs. Norwood, and after tearing Clarence off of me, she lectured him and told him not to copy his 'lecherous daddy'. I cried that I started it and we were just playing doctor, but she had none of it. After that, I never saw the boy again and got grounded by Mother for three weeks. Figures that I'd get the only boy I really ever kissed in trouble and lose him."  
   
"Paris, you little harlot!" she said to me, a bright beaming smile and hearty laugh coming from in-between those lips. "I can see it now, a little you in pigtails...'Clarence, my toof hurts, kiss the pain away and make it feel better!'." She went into hysterics, and I had to admit, though I was flushing a beet red shade after sharing that tale, it felt good to do that. "Oh my God, that story just made my year...and I just thought of a new nickname for you."  
   
"Four year-old whore?" I thought aloud.  
   
"No, Par-Bear, because you like the Care Bears, and Bear rhymes with Par, and it rolls off the tongue so nice." About this point I wanted to be in a hole somewhere because my respected and beautiful name was turned into a rhyme on par with that of a nursery rhyme. I mean Par-Bear? My first thought was of utter disgust with the name, it sounded like something Puff Daddy came up with for his newest discovery to add to his stable of rappers, it sounded so dumb coming from other voices in my mind.  
   
Leave it to my imagination to turn a joke from Rory into a quick flash of something that made me remember why I was in this damned gym in the first place. Us, together in her bed, talking like a couple of girls in love in very subdued voices, her hand playing with my hair as she told me "You're my Par-Bear." Then me closing the distance, saying something really romantic and wouldn't be caught saying at my locker to her between classes, with the thought degenerating into something dirty in a rapid space of time.  
   
 _Oh dear_ , I thought to myself, _she found a pet name for me_. Rory was the only one I'd let call me Par in the first place, and I was probably an exception to cutting her name from 'Lorelai the Third' to 'Rory', all the way down to 'Ror'. I couldn't come up with anything to rhyme with that just then, but where a few weeks ago I might have thought of something else to quash the thought, I thought her naming was very cute. God, I'm turning into a lovesick sap, I think I need to read a little Machiavelli later to balance things back out!  
   
"I guess I'm flattered," I told her, looking both ways to make sure no one heard her use of the name. She had this smirk on her face that was turning me into jelly, but I had to stay a little firm. "But just keep that name confined to the both of us in a room alone, will you? I'd like to keep the _Le Pitbull_ thing going in the newspaper office."  
   
"Consider it done." She rested her hand against my back, and leaned into my shoulder a bit, yawning lightly. "What time is it again?"  
   
"About 10 minutes after one."  
   
"I thought it was later, like around 3:30, I knew I should've taken advantage of that last break and refueled." Her eyes seemed a little heavy, and from what I remembered from the midnight break, she didn't really do that much except stretch out her feet and ate a sandwich from Mrs. Kim's food booth, along with me. Not a good decision in hindsight and we should've eaten the hot beef sandwiches offered by Gypsy instead. Mrs. Kim's food was the very definition of roughage, 'egg' salad sandwiches not actually made with actual eggs, but the egg yellow substitute that comes in milk cartons and doesn't actually taste all that eggy. Rory and I ate it though, desperate for any sustenance we wouldn't find in a glaze-coated doughnut.  
   
Then I remembered what she didn't have on that break...  
   
"Wait, you forgot to have coffee?"  
   
"After midnight it's counterproductive to drink, and in my experience caffeine does strange things to my tummy at night." She blushed adorably, and felt kind of bad for her.  
   
"You're going to be up with me late though, and if you did get sick you still have your yellow card."  
   
"True, I guess I didn't really think much about things except feet sore, belly needing food." Rory then yawned a little deeper, and her eyes weren't wide and bright like they usually were, instead worn out, with the dim gymnasium lighting and her biological clock getting to her. She's probably stayed up late with Lorelai many times, but at least then she was on a couch not expecting any physical activity. Here though, tiredness would be deadly.  
   
With our position on the free throw line, and 13 couples still in, the focus from the crowd was less on us, and more on the experienced dancers in the room. After a 22/20 couple found their shoelaces untied and took a tumble together, that left Rory and I, a young 18 and older 17 respectively, the youngest two still on the floor. Taylor wasn't keeping an eye on both of us, preferring his pony in Kirk and his partner to cross the line, along with two other duos he hoped would at least place and show.  
   
Rory was looking pretty tired, and I was getting unsure she'd be able to make it without some help. The yellow card was still in her pocket, but I told her earlier to keep it until at least 4:30 so we could get a good awake shot at winning it all since I thought Kirk would pull his out at 3:30, and his partner shortly thereafter.  
   
My concern for this hour though was getting her through the hump in hour nineteen, where most metabolisms usually give out and succumb to slumber. I made it just fine through consuming nothing but high-carb foods from the deli platter and dessert tray in the break at 6pm, but Rory without Luke's hamburgers and chili fries is like taking away whatever illegal bodybuilding substance Jason Giambi uses to pound baseballs into the right-field seats at the Stadium; it put her at a competitive weakness. All that cheese and Angus beef usually keeps her charged up into late, but without her usual dinner, Rory was sluggish and tired.  
   
I looked at her, she seemed resigned to the fact she'd slump down soon and come to eye level with my cleavage a couple feet down my body. She hummed the song playing to herself to try to keep her brain stirring, but that wasn't doing much at all either. Hey eyes struggled to stay open, synapses misfiring and wanting to give into sleep.  
   
She did look lovely though. I looked down at her as she settled against my sternum, struggling to keep herself bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I remembered back those few weeks before when I drove to her house to apologize, and ended up sleeping with her in bed; I watched her for ten minutes as she closed her eyes and fell into REM. She looked so precious, innocent, a girl uncaring about what her life has been. She smiles in her sleep and occasionally tosses and turns towards the cold side of the pillow, her brown hair spread all over. Of course, her being Rory she never snores, but instead softly exhales and inhales as her brain winds it's activity down for a few hours. It was then I realized how much I wanted that scene to be repeated in the future, for a few minutes later I settled against her and fell asleep without worries or fears inside of me.  
   
"Rory?" I asked softly, and she immediately tried opening her eyes wide.  
   
"Honestly, I wasn't falling asleep, I promise." She was in a panic and tried to hide it, but I wouldn't accept her excuse. So I brought her closer to my right shoulder, threading my fingers through her locks and soothing her like she had me in Russian Novels.  
   
"Shhhh, it's OK, I'll keep you propped up, go ahead and catch a couple of winks," I gently said, trying to ease her against me. Her voice was a little tired, but still full of thoughts.  
   
"But I can't fall asleep, I'll lose..."  
   
"If Taylor comes by I'll rub my hand against your side to wake you up, and if you really start to nod off I'll do something a little more extreme." Oh yes Par, signal that you really want her to fall asleep so that the only way to make her more awake than coffee through an IV is to squeeze your hand around the area of her rear.  
   
Not that all this time spent getting to know her back has tempted me to get ahold of her ass. I promise you I've never thought about that in one of my dreams of her, honest.  
   
Alright...maybe a little, in the heat of the moment I think of her backside and how it would feel cradled in my hands, but now I said too much so back on topic, she brought her retreating gaze up. Though she has four inches on me, her head is at my level, meaning that she must be hurting a little in her back from bending down.  
   
"Really?" She smiled up at me, the word coming out a little lustful, at least to my ears. I brushed that off as just her voice being tired and her being unable to control the treble and pitch of it.  
   
"Yeah, promise, I'll keep your feet moving."  
   
Then she said something to me that, if I hadn't been having a hard crush on her for the last year, still would have turned my stone heart soft.  
   
Her lashes lowered, and she settled a little lower against the top of my bosom. Gripping hard against my upper back, she let me sway her into the music.  
   
"Thanks," she moaned out. "I like it when you're being gentle; it shows that you have a true heart under all this stuff Par."  
   
Shortly after that, she closed her eyes, left any way I might have to answer her in the air, and I started soothing her into a temporary slumber. I was numbed by her words before she closed her eyes that she thought of me as maternal. I never could picture myself that way though, what with the crappy job my mother's done on me. This is one of the reasons I numbed myself around boys; I can't handle the pressures of sex to begin with, and knowing its true purpose, to procreate, scares me to death. When I was twelve, I tried to babysit for a neighbor, but after two gigs I gave it up after being overwhelmed. The child I took care of was under a more casual style of parenting, and bringing in the daughter of someone who rode her child hard, wasn't a good idea. I tried being stern and tough, and ended up feeling like I was mean instead, making the poor boy cry when I asked him to eat his veggies, otherwise I'd take away his Game Boy and not let him watch _Pokemon_ for a punishment. I gave in and let him eat only a little, but all that confirmed to me is Sharon got damned lucky I didn't become an out-of-control teenage girl; another kid may have rebelled very early from her influence.  
   
That she is my mother makes me scared to have a child. What if I **become** my mother, treat my kid as if their only purpose is to claim prestige for our bloodline or live out things in my childhood I couldn't do? For the longest time I cared about no one but myself, my grades, maintaining the Gellar legacy, and hoping nothing would get in my way.  
   
It's funny how in the space of 26 months you go from that to longing for the love of a girl you were convinced was to be seen as an enemy. Rory was the reverse of what I am; a girl who cares, doesn't hog the glory, loves her parents and her town, and doesn't throw a tantrum when things don't go her way, picking herself right up and hoping for the best next time.  
   
Yes, I'm not including the day she went off on me during the Shakespeare test in that description. If you slept in a chair with a tabletop as your pillow, overslept, found a deer deciding to go all Pamplona on your bumper at a four-way stop, then found you didn't make it in time for the test, you wouldn't exactly be flowers and sunshine either, would ya? After multiple iterations of that story, and finally seeing for myself antler marks in the door of her mom's Jeep, I believe her, why would she make up a lie so elaborate in the first place? Besides in retrospect, looking disheveled, tired and sort of annoyed, along with her yelling at me after I quipped she was a loser...sometimes I egg her on just so I can get another lovely dose of that sexy attitude the fair Miss Gilmore doles out occasionally.  
   
She's laying against my chest right now, and to all the world she's just breathing into it, taking in each and every note of the romantic song as the late night minutes go by. The temperature outside is unknown, but I assume that it's getting below 45° since the loud boom of the heating system just kicked in over us on the ceiling above, blowing warm air below. Her arms are hooked against mine to keep herself braced, hands just below the bottom of the exposed back of my dress. I'm looking down at Rory, nuzzling against the soft rayon material and think to myself how lucky I am that I've gotten so far in so little time. She looks so beautiful, at ease with herself, trusting my fate in my accommodating hands. I run a hand through her hair around where her hairband comes together, the brown strands like silk. It's losing a bit of the curliness it had through the day and most of the night and returning to its naturally smooth texture, however the rose she came with, stem buried deep so it doesn't fall out, is sticking in there stubbornly.  
   
I feel the rise and fall of air in her diaphragm against my other hand, currently on her back. The music is soft, the atmosphere easy going, and everyone would kill Taylor if he tried the Roundabout so late in the evening. Taylor is giving me a suspicious look, but I've hidden Rory's face and kept her feet shuffling enough to throw him off. Meanwhile Kirk and his partner continue to try to impress despite the fact it is a timed competition, and everyone in the crowd (all 55 of them, come on, it's 1:20 in the morning, who could sit through 24 hours of a dance marathon? Paint-drying has more drama than this!) still looks at them as if they're going to win the whole thing.  
   
If there's overtime for this and we aren't out by six, Rory and I are still going to be in this. Hopefully she's getting a few minutes of good rest, enough to last her until 4:30am and our break. For this moment though, I'm humming along to a song from the late 90's being played since Ms. LaCosta has decided to take over the music stand and spin the tunes. The chorus of the songs seems appropriate, I remember it as being by Nina Gordon and being a slight hit a few years ago on the radio. It's such a soft song, and the lyrics describe how I feel dead center in my heart...  
   
 ** _Gleaming in the dark sea,  
I'm as light as air,  
floating there breathlessly,  
   
When the dream dissolves I,  
open up my eyes,  
I realize,  
   
That everything is shoreless sea,  
A weightlessness is passing over me...  
_**   
It doesn't feel like I'm in a public school's gymnasium anymore, sharing the same floor as the basketball teams and required gym class kickball games. There's just myself, dancing to the beat as Rory nuzzles deeper into my neck. All I can see around us is darkness, almost a scene out of those movies where the only light in the room is a small spotlight highlighting the both of us on the floor. She's so beautiful, and I can't help but mouth the chorus of _Tonight, and the Rest of My Life_ to myself.  
   
 ** _I feel so light,  
this is all I want to feel tonight,  
   
I feel so light,  
tonight and the rest of my life...  
_**   
There's only four hours and forty minutes to the end, but I could stay like this forever, being Rory's personal pillow. If only she knew what everything she's done in the last few weeks has been do to me, what thoughts I've had of her and I.  
   
I can feel it in my bones; we're no longer friends anymore, in that normal sense that's defined by Webster's Dictionary as 'one attached to another by respect or affection'. No, this is going beyond that, into something unknown, a space between that and confidant. Fights no longer break us up for long periods of time, and a sense of absence overtakes us both when we stray away from each other. Rory's uneasiness around me before, which kept her from taking what we have away from the brick and limestone walls of Chilton Academy, is long disappeared, never to come back.  
   
Tonight I've learned something about myself; if there was a choice between Harvard and Rory, I'd choose her, every time. There are no doubts about that, and as the song says, soothing Rory is something I want to do not only tonight, but for as long as I live.  
   
Hopefully Rory knows that...  
   
 **Rory's POV, 5:54am  
   
**It's funny how you can remember those important moments in your life where things you knew were dependable, suddenly they've either changed for the better, or for the worst. In my life so far, it's small things, like the moment I read in the newspaper that ABC decided to pull _My So-Called Life_ because of low ratings, leaving those entire plot holes open forever. The summer day in 1998 I taught the team I had been rooting for since my mother bought a small kid's jersey for me, the Hartford Whalers, were moving to North Carolina. A girl in my sixth grade class had been diagnosed with leukemia a year before, causing the entire town to dedicate an entire festival to her so they could send her up to Farber in Boston and hope she'd be able to get into remission enough to resume her life.  
   
Some of them are just wacky, like when Taylor thought putting in a traffic light was a good idea. The crosswalk sign for dummies, along with the defective timer and no real need for a stoplamp days later, so that when he pulled it out things were back to normal. Those few days it was in though, Stars Hollow was agog with this weird talk about how a traffic light would turn our nice little town into the next Bloomington, Minnesota, complete with replica of the Mall of America and international airport. Funny how technology, even from the early part of the 20th century can change a town all the way in 2001.  
   
I think the memory of this town, at least for the year 2002, will be the dance marathon where the unthinkable happened.  
   
Pigs and penguins are currently flying outside on the town square, the devil himself is trying to warm up the underworld since the temperature suddenly plunged, and there's this weird sense of change in the air of my little corner of the world. I can hear Howard Cosell's call in my head, changed around a little to fit this event where we just went through the shock of our lives.  
   
"Down goes Gleason! Down goes Mondrawski! They're both down on the ground separated and in a state of utter shock, the gym is under a state of pandemonium right now. I can't believe, what I just saw!"  
   
It's unbelievable; seven minutes ago, Paris and I were on the floor, trying to outstep the hell out of Kirk and his dance partner, Carrie Mondrawski. Things had become even more heated between the four of us after the 4:30am break Paris and I yellow-carded into. Within about a half hour the third to last couple was off the floor under the strict orders of the nurse, leaving Paris and I, along with Kirk and Carrie as the last two couples standing on the floor. Within moments, things became more heated.  
   
Miss Patty took herself out of the DJ booth, leaving Taylor free to play his 'last hour' mix disc, a platter filled with some of the toughest dance moves and songs he could come up with and honed over the years from many of Kirk's wins. Each year was tougher on the tootsies, each dance a complex number of steps and beats that had to be timed just right so that you didn't get the thumb. After the comfy resting up against Paris I took for about a half hour a few hours before, we got right back to business, trying to keep our endurance and adrenaline high, and errors low. She found her way back into her shoes during my yellow card break, and from there focused on keeping things right.  
   
Her experience started to shine through in this last hour as I saw her turn from her normal mild-mannered and academic self, into the dancing equivalent of a rowing instructor. "1, 2, 3, 4, and left 2, 3, 4, come on Gilmore, follow my lead, don't stray from the script!" was her rallying cry, as Taylor found songs that were faster, full of sudden shifts in tempo and could throw off even the most professional dancer, which Carrie just happened to be. She and Kirk stayed in the game as we watched them navigate the slippery slope, trying to keep the focus on things.  
   
The first 22:50? Child's play compared to what we had to deal with after 4:50am. Swings, complicated steps, loops, all were in play as Paris tried to keep my head in the game. I found my skirt spinning around like it hadn't before then, while her modus operandi seemed to try to keep her chest reined in. I made sure to help her retie the knot in back so it wouldn't suddenly fall out mid-move, something that made me tingle from the movement, yet I had to keep my game face on so I tried to make sure that it didn't show.  
   
Secret's protection was quickly fading as 23:15 on the clock hit and we both started sweating like we never did before. Paris' face was coated in perspiration, which dripped relentlessly from her forehead, and made keeping a good grip against her side a challenge because her underarms were doing the same thing. I wish I could say I was glow-free, but in the stress of swings and moves that made my heart pump blood like it never could I ended up with my own sheen of sweat. Our hair was all soaked up and heavy against our heads, so as a consequence I had her pull out my hair tie, leaving what was curly hair when I came in the gym so many hours before slowly going straight right before Paris' eyes.

Kirk and his partner kept trying to outdo us and go off-script, as he tossed Carrie in the air and caught her on the fly with an arm just in time, the crowd still there applauding wildly with each new attempt to usurp our 'slow and steady wins the race' style of dancing. By about 5:20, the fur started to fly, along with the trash talking.  
   
"Looks like you and your partner are too chicken," Carrie yelled towards Paris. "C'mon blondie, what's stopping you from making your gal fly?"  
   
Paris somehow reined herself in from that crude blondie insult, gritting her teeth and going on. "I don't want her to fly, we're in this to win, not impress a select few town individuals. Didn't you get the memo; I was a state dance champion back in my day."  
   
"Says the woman dancing with the offspring of two left-foot Gilmore!" Kirk shot back. "Guess we can't blame the heels this time, just Rory's complete lack of any dancing experience. Face it Paris, she's coasting along on your long gone glory days!"  
   
My eyes widened; I was no glory hog, all I was hoping for was a little bonding time with Par! That she was good back when she was ten helped my choice in making her the Astaire to my Rogers, but it certainly wasn't the only factor in play, very low on my list. Before she could say anything, I jumped in.  
   
"At least I'm not paying my partner cash to dance; without the green you'd be solo Kirk!" I stopped the thought, letting it hang in the air. It would've been bad form to take the talking into territory where I called Carrie a glorified escort, plus she didn't seem the type to be like that.  
   
"Hey, if you were offered $1,000 for showing up, you'd do it!" Carrie let me know of that.  
   
"My father makes $1,000 just walking into a room," Paris piped in, "and his skills won't go away if he say...breaks an ankle." Ouch, score a point for Par on that one; way to wound the girl's pride! She smirked at Carrie, who looked as if she wanted to invent a move with Kirk that would be right at home in the WWE by tossing his body at us while holding on to him.  
   
"Leave the nice lady alone," Kirk whined, "she's done nothing to you two!"  
   
"Except to keep us from winning," I told him. "You win this every year, can't you let someone else take the title for once? You're like the Lakers of competitive small-town dancing, some of us don't like you sucking the drama out every single year!"  
   
The argument went on for a few minutes over the blare of the music, until Miss Patty finally felt that Kirk was egging us on enough and told him and Carrie to move back to their side of the line while we stayed on ours. The music continued to speed up in tempo, and Paris at times felt like this was a very tough challenge for her.  
   
"Rory, next time you ask me what's harder, a brain-scrambling admissions test or a 24-hour dance marathon, remind me that at least the admissions test only challenges the mental rather than physical fitness." Her face was beet red and she looked to be in the first stages of exhaustion. She seemed to be burning off any calories from the tea and food and any minute, I felt she would collapse. However, the nurse was keeping an eye on everyone and hadn't found a reason to declare her medically unfit to continue.  
   
The crowd became a blur; there weren't many left and most of them were random people in the town I didn't know that well at all; some outsider kids looking for a different after-midnight place to hang out at besides the Route 70 IHOP, older citizens who want to recall the good old days, a couple of writers and photographers from out of town newspapers looking for an odd story to fill a couple pages in their accent sections. It was a real cross-section of oddities sitting in the crowd, with very few recognizable people I knew mixed in. No Lane though (she went to bed after selling her last non-egg sandwich at 11:30), and thankfully no sign of Dean, or his buddies. This time he was the one trying to avoid me after Jess' threats and the finality of my speech breaking off the relationship. I'm thankful for that because with Paris scared for me around him, I didn't want to have to face him so soon, and especially when I'm trying to sort out my loving feelings for the girl in my arms.  
   
I started thinking about Paris' physical condition, and in the rush of wanting her to be my dance partner, happened to forget one important detail; what would she do after the dance?  
   
Being 5:30am, I couldn't fathom sending her back home in her car. She looked ready to fall asleep any minute from her screwed-up biological clock, shoulders slumped, her small body weighing a lot in my arms and that burden directed down towards me. Though she kept a tough façade, it was obvious sleep was fighting her for attention.  
   
"Par, are you staying here in town after the competition?" I asked, my voice tired.  
   
Her answer, ten minutes removed from the bicker-down with Kirk and Carrie, was slurred and made her sound more Rocky after ten rounds than intelligent private schoolgirl.  
   
"No, I figure we'll celebrate, and then I'll hop in my car and go home."  
   
"You sure you're fit to drive?"  
   
"Of course, I'll live. The roads are empty enough anyways."  
   
That wasn't a good enough excuse for me to back off. She was clearly tired, and I couldn't live if I ended up taking a panicked call from Louise asking why the hell she was watching footage of a maroon Jaguar crushed as if it was an accordion into the back of an SUV on channel 8's Sunday morning news, the blue 'HVD BND' letters of her license plate in the shot's foreground. That, and her Boston trip excuse might not hold water if her mother happened to come home from San Diego earlier than expected and found her daughter in a vintage ball gown.  
   
Most importantly, the sense of dread that came with Paris coming into Stars Hollow has long disappeared, the crush I have for her moving into the stage where you can't stand the weekends and weeknights you spend away from the object of your affection. This dance has been a close bonding experience, and I would be thankful if she'd be able to spend a few more hours with me...  
   
Even if we were sharing a bed, asleep. The off-the-cuff sleepover we had in February, she found herself on the couch and woke up a grumpy Gus, not being used to sleeping on such a thin surface with only a throw pillow to rest her head on. A few weeks ago though, my small bed was just enough and led to a surprisingly peaceful sharing of the bed between Paris and I.  
   
"I don't want you on the road back to Hartford, you can stay with me," I suggest aloud. "You've been up for at least 25 hours straight, most truck drivers would have their heads on a platter for keeping themselves up that long since they have to sleep every twelve hours. Par, you'd be insane to think you're OK enough to drive."  
   
This led of course, to another problem altogether, which was surprising coming from the girl always prepared for any scenario of dread.  
   
"I'd like to, but there's a problem. There was a small part of me that didn't think we'd get this far, and I didn't expect this invitation, so I didn't bring anything to sleep in."

If the pleasure center of my brain wasn't overcharged with all those hours dancing with Paris before, it was on red alert after she told me that. I expected her to at least have something in the back of her car to wear, thinking of almost any scenario that might happen. Hell, if there was a chemical explosion a few miles out of town, she might offer me a gas mask.

No, I didn't forget what she was wearing. Or to be fair, the lack thereof that wasn't on her person. No bra beneath, the only other thing besides the essentials of dress and undies she was wearing was her jacket before she came in.  
   
 _Oh God!_ my conscience butted in. _She'll have to sleep in the nude, and after all this touching and my hormones on overdrive._ I took myself out of my thoughts for a bit, and the look on that mug of hers brought me right back in. _Damn it, there she goes with her little serene smile that haunts those dreams I don't share with anyone, keep yourself together Gilmore!  
   
_I think she was realizing the ramifications of my offer as she got that look where you knew she was about to come up with a plan. My mind felt dizzy, wishing to connect with her ESP-style to figure out what she was coming up with.  
   
"Rory, I couldn't do that to you, I'd be imposing," she told me in a caring way. "You need a day off after dedicating yourself to this dance for the last few days--"  
   
 _Get her back!_ My mind was screaming, mixing in with a heated image of Paris and I on my bed as I helped her untie the back of her dress, then her doing the same with the zipper in my back. Mind you, trying to think of unzipping Dean's fly in a dream once freaked the everlasting daylights out of me, but the very idea of Paris and I, in a bed together after an event like this, I felt ready to ask Taylor to play a tango and for myself to submit to her, willing to do **anything**.  
   
Once again, my mother is the moral center in my life, and the very thought of doing things too fast, in my own house where I couldn't even fathom even kissing a boy unless it was on the porch, made me reel back 180° from the thoughts enflamed.  
   
"Actually it'll be fine, I'm sure my mom won't mind if I borrowed you some pajamas, honest. I just care that you get home safe and sound, and driving home at this point wouldn't be an Einstein-class decision by any means. We're both tired and ready to plop, so we'll agree to disagree and you'll just stay over."  
   
"But my--"  
   
"Your car will be fine Par." I knew what she'd be asking and went through the statistics all over again. "It's Sunday and they do plan this in advance so that parking is for two days, not just until six this morning. If they did that, there would be so many crashes pulling back onto Roscoe Street from the field caused by sleep deprivation."  
   
"So whenever I get up to go home and walk back here," she asked, trying to wrap herself around this concept. "My Jag is still going to be near second base, untouched, clean as a whistle and ready to be driven home?"  
   
 _Paris, oh Paris_ , I thought to myself. _I just want to slap you silly sometimes. This isn't Hartford, where everyone ignores the wailing of your car alarm because in the end, it probably went off just 'cause some guy brushed the bumper on the way into work. There's only two ways in to the heart of town; north and south, and you can depend on a few souls to see that a short blonde girl isn't speeding back north towards the capital city, no one here could steal your car if they tried.  
_    
Still, I didn't want to start a silly argument over the fate of her automobile. A compromise was needed instead.  
   
"Tell you what; I'll ask Miss Patty if she'll bring by the car to my house, she lives only a couple blocks away and doesn't mind walking."  
   
"I don't know." Paris seemed a little iffy about the prospect of her wheels in the hands of someone she didn't know.  
   
"Par, she's fine, trust me. She was my field trip bus driver from first to fourth grades, and we went in some pretty bad weather to the pumpkin farm, New York, Providence, wherever we had to go. She's still sharp on the road and I assure you that your car won't have one single scratch on it after pulls onto the front drive."  
   
She still seemed a little unsure about this whole thing I came up with on the spur of the moment to keep her home. We were still dancing vigorously, the music sort of loud, her mind probably wrapped around the ramifications of accepting an invitation to my house, wearing clothes that weren't hers and probably sharing a bed with me.  
   
It was time to get a little devilish, not to mention adventurous. My right hand was perched just above that unsaid line near the plunge of her dress, a few inches where I felt that telltale bump that no one had ever breached I'm sure.

"I'm sure I can trust Ms. LaCosta," she went on, "but my mother is going to expect me home, I have to figure out how to tell her that Boston was fine and I found a good sorority--"  
   
I slid a couple fingers down the small of her back, letting the nails graze against the smooth skin contained. I gauged with the heel of my hand where the rayon material ended and rounded those fingers around her back. Already, her thought processes were falling apart from that simple action.  
   
"...Because, well, you know Rory, it's important to..." She beated for a moment, trying to find her words again. "You know how important the Puffs were, so finding the right house in Cambridge is important."  
   
As she rattled on with her talk about housing, I looked up at her and innocently smirked, just as I found the exact tip of the end of her dress plunge. My fingertip probed around it, teasing between sliding beneath the dress or not.  
   
"Oh yes, I know how important housing is, those dorms are really, really small." Another topic to my advantage. "If we shared a dorm room there, we'd almost have beds separated by only mere feet, maybe even on top of each other, a bunk arrangement. Thus, it's your best interest, as a fifth generation Harvard attendee, to procure the best housing situation you can find. The right sorority will guide you through the rest of your life, get you into that cushy metro editor's slot at the _Times_ , won't it?"  
   
I could see her throat swallow in my gaze, I was thankful to Taylor for letting up on the music a little bit. "Uh, yes," she spat out as my fingernail slid against the lining of the plunge. "You hit the nail right on the head, sorority connections...very important."  
   
"See, you already know enough about it to spin a false yarn that you were in Boston by memory," I said, my voice getting more slow and seductive. "Would you rather spend this day getting home after that long drive, your feet sore, eyes red and worn, warring over what to tell your mother?"  
   
I slid in the other three forefingers into the plunge, and felt the soft skin hidden beneath that dress in my grasp. Paris coughed out, probably in shock as I kept the sway and the charade going, that my hand was falling into the back of her halter from the effects of sleep.  
   
"Or Par, would you rather walk the few blocks back to my home, where I'll provide you with pajamas, a nice warm place to sleep without the threat of your mother going on some insane tirade about how much that guy she met at Mohegan Sun pleases her, and best of all, some nice company to go with it?" I licked around my lips with my tongue, turning on the charm to eleven.  
   
My fingers drifted a little lower, her heartbeat speeding up in my grasp. She never knew how to really love before, and it's my goal to show her how it's done. A couple inches here and there as I went forward with my explanation about why she should stay, along with a promise that she could even look over my class notes while she was over, which I protected like the Coca-Cola recipe, for a couple classes she wanted to get a leg up on. She never usually asked for them, and we had an unspoken accord that my notes were for my eyes only, and in turn, I wouldn't look at hers.  
   
"Come on Paris, please?" Flattery hadn't made her move, maybe begging would.  
   
Just to make sure though, I found the hand in the back of her dress just brushing up against the waistband of her panties. I didn't intend to go further, just enough to tease her, clue her in.  
   
"Oh, fine," she gasped out, oxygen seeming to having problems flowing into her mouth. "I'll stay here, if only so you don't have to worry about me driving." Mission accomplished, I slipped my hand out, but still feeling a little on top of the world, kept it right there above the fabric of her dress.  
   
"Thank you," I said simply. "Now don't we have a dance marathon to win here? Kirk's looking a little off-center, isn't he?"  
   
We both looked towards him, still going with his wild dance moves with Carrie, in stark contrast to my closer style with Paris. If only he realized how silly he looked with that professional dancer. I shook my head, while Paris laughed softly.  
   
"I think we can take 'em. They can't go on forever, can they?" We resumed the contest, and for twenty minutes, it seemed like those two just might go forever. The music sped up once again and there was the distinct possibility that all four of us could go into overtime. Paris was still tired, but able to dance unwinded. Everything seemed to be smoothing out towards one of those dance-offs where the first to miss a part of a choreographed step would be a loser. We went on, pushing and pulling into each other, continuing to clock-watch nervously. It was a contrast in styles, and I couldn't tell you honestly who might win the whole shebang around 5:30am. Kirk and Carrie both looked exhausted, but not ready to give up the fight. I felt my heart tighten up with each new move, the web site-taught dancing long gone and both of us improvising on a moment's notice. The crowd started coming back into the gym after napping for a bit, if you could call it a crowd. It was less of a throng, more of a light scattering across the seats. Oh, what I do for the pride of the town, a large trophy that'll barely fit on our mantle, a cash prize of $100 for each partner, and a gift certificate sampler courtesy of the town's chamber of commerce. Thank God Paris didn't ask about the prize package, she'd be insulted by how little they give us for lasting so long.  
   
Which at exactly 5:47am, we learned were now the proud owners of. We honestly thought Kirk would beat us, Paris and I wore at our breaking points, hair soaked, legs like jelly, minds worn from figuring out the appropriate dance for each song. It was one of those 'let's swing for the boys' songs, and Paris and I were at a weak point since she never got into that aspect of swing dance. Carrie and Kirk had practiced this dance each day for the last week, to this same song. We figured it was a walk in the park for them, and as we twirled around the floor to stay alive, we were prepared for overtime with Kirk and his pro dance partner.  
   
Right at the end of the song, however, was where Kirk's dream of another title was quashed. He had to twirl his partner away from him in a 360°, then twirl her back towards him until his free hand rested against her back. This was something I had dreamed about doing with Paris, and did in a slightly easier 180° variation about five times through the course of the contest. Seemed really easy, didn't it?  
   
He got the first part right, but the rest shall live in the infamy of our town's archives. Kirk, instead of staying in the place where he had been dancing for most of the night, decided to pull off the move in the most slippery and dead part of the hardwood floor.  
   
'The Spot', as the Minutemen basketball and volleyball teams called it, was legendary in bringing down the best players of both sports down on their feet, at least twice in the 80's one player on the Minutewomen basketball team ended up sprawled and with a strained ankle. No one in this town can forget the regional championship of '77, where Jake Vaughn, who was on his way to a guaranteed spot with UConn, ended up slipping on that same spot, which was missed by the waxer the day before because The Spot is depressed at least ½" from the surface of the floor. He fell to the ground in a crumple, shattering his Achilles and ankle at the same time with a hollow thud, along with the town's state championship title hopes. Since then the custodians took card to manually wax The Spot, and every gym teacher lectures us to be careful around it in action.  
   
The Spot ended up claiming a couple a victims this morning.  
   
Kirk prepared to twirl Carrie back, and then without warning, like Tuesday noon when Paris got up from her seat too fast and slipped in that slick spot on the classroom floor, his shoes were in The Spot. Pulling Carrie back shocked his body, and within moments, he found himself trying to keep his balance. His shoes started to separate, and both Paris and I happened to witness the whole incident. His shoes slipped around a little bit, and he found his feet farther and farther as he tried to keep his steadiness.  
   
Dealing with that, and a returning partner, proved to be his undoing. Carrie came back towards him at a good clip, her momentum unable to come to a dead spot. I can pinpoint the exact moment where the crowd went from cheering, to absolute dead silence as the svelte redhead's body hurtled towards Kirk. He slipped again, outstretched his arms, nothing worked. Paris and I kept dancing, unable to decide fate because the decision to go on was now fully in Kirk's hands. If he steadied himself, and finished the move, it would be a morale killer, the crowd would want Kirk and Carrie to win. If not, that was the end. The situation could go either way, and I hoped he could get his footing.  
   
The left foot was up in the air, and his right was slipping now. Carrie was only inches away from him, starting to scream his name. Everyone's eyes were on him to keep that right foot planted on the ground, somehow...  
   
I could hear the slip the moment that other foot left the ground. From there, gravity completed its ugly game, playing out the scene where Kirk fell to the ground, hard on his butt, as Carrie found her grip on the hand of her partner fade. Her body in motion, with no force there to stop it, the twirl continued unabated, from a 360°, into a 450°, until the momentum ran out, and with a hard tug, she found her contact with Kirk, gone. She fell to the hardwood outside The Spot ready to crumple to the hardwood, giving up and bracing her shoulder with her hand. Kirk and she were looking eye to eye, and if you saw the scene closely, you could see the reaction to the end wasn't positive.  
   
They were separated, on the ground, and not dancing. The three rules of dance marathon had been broken, like a sports dynasty. Paris and I continued dancing, making sure if some outside force had interfered, that if we weren't dancing, would be disqualified. She was in just as much shock as I am, so the only thing we could do was take our minds off.  
   
Ten seconds later however, Taylor got a ruling from a volunteer ref watching Kirk and Carrie in their square. The young man gave the thumbs down, and with Taylor shaking his head in sadness, prepared to announce the unthinkable result of the 43rd Annual Stars Hollow Dance Marathon.  
   
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said gravely, as if he was reading the bulletin denoting the death of a president. "Couple number 67, Kirk Gleason and Carrie Mondrawski aren't making contact with each other, dancing on their feet, and have fallen to the ground. This means that they are out of the competition for failing to stay on their feet."  
   
The words I never expected to hear at all in my lifetime were next to be spoken. "That means only couple 131, Rory Gilmore and Paris Gellar, are the only two who remain. They have continuously danced, except for mandated breaks, for the entire time. With a time of 23 hours, 48 minutes and 7 seconds, they are the winners of this year's Dance Marathon, congratulations girls."  
   
I could've fainted right there on the floor. Somehow, I, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, the girl that sports and proper physical fitness forgot, had won the town's most coveted competition, fair and square. That trophy, sitting on the judge's table currently, would soon become my property, for me to treasure.  
   
Then I looked towards Paris, still dancing in a trance. _No, it's not mine_ , I told myself. _It's ours. Paris and I won this. Without her I was rowing a canoe with only one paddle. She deserves this as much as I do_.

For the first time in a few days, dancing went right back into the dusty memory banks, and the mega-watt smile and attitude I have when I earn something was out there for the world to see. I didn't let go of Paris, just stopped, expecting her to also stop.  
   
Maybe she went deaf all the sudden, because she was still swaying to the music being faded out. I think she has that syndrome she had when the moderator announced we won the debate against Hillside, since she was still in hyperfocus mode.  
   
"Paris?" I asked her.  
   
"You're not supposed to stop Gilmore, we have to win this." Yeah, hyperfocus mode. Oh dear.  
   
"We won, you can stop now, this is the end. Kirk fell down, he's knocked out."  
   
Still nothing from her, she was still trying to get back into the song.  
   
I hated to do it, but there was only one way to let her know it was all over...  
   
I pinched her side. No, wait, I didn't, it was more along the small of her back, though come to think about it where I pinched her was much lower than that...  
   
OK, fine, I pinched her right on the ass! Not so far in it would be noticeable, but enough to say "Hello, out of la-la land here!" Yes, I took her case of space-head as another good opportunity to clue her into my desire for her, and yes if I had to do this all over again I'd probably take the same course of action.  
   
"PARIS!!"  
   
She had this funny, yet sort of pissed look, ready to chew me out.  
   
"What the hell is wrong, why did you--"  
   
So I put on my best happy face, and gave her a refresher course on what happened moments before.  
   
"Uh, we won, it's not a dream. Those two really are down on the ground, and the contest is over."  
   
She did a take, then another, making it a triple moments later. She went for four, looking at me, then the fallen competitors. It was as if that moment was a dream in her head; that fall didn't happen in her view at all, everything was still normal. After the fifth take, the realization dawned on her.  
   
"So we're the winners?" she asked, puzzled. "That's it, no more dancing, Kirk's streak is dead, and we've broken it? You're sure about this?"  
   
"Yup," I said proudly. "And it's all thanks to you Paris. Without you here, I may have been sitting in those bleachers over there for hours and hours."  
   
She was in a state of shock and excitement, all at the same time. Her smile widened as she realized it was over, relieved and pleased with her performance. She still couldn't believe it; winning a heated competition with someone she regarded from our first meeting as the enemy.  
   
"We won," she said, repeating it again. "We won, we're the champions." Her grip on my hands tightened, wrapping herself around the fact. "Oh my God, I've never had to work so hard before for a victory, and here we are, it's at the crest of dawn, well not even since astronomical sunrise isn't for another 43 minutes at 6:32, so it's still technically nighttime here, so why would I say it's almost dawn when it isn't, I mean come on, it's not dawn unless it's sunrise." She looked at me, then blushed. "I think I'm acting a little rambly, aren't I?"  
   
"But your point was?"

She quirked one of her eyebrows up, making it look like I was asking her the stupidest question in the world. "The point is, we won Rory."  
   
"Exactly."  
   
"You know how I feel right now?"  
   
"How?"  
   
She pulled me towards the bleachers, and fainted right onto the wood seat, bringing me down with her. "I never want to do this again as long as I live. There has to be a better form of female bonding than killing my feet from the inside out by doing nothing but dancing for at least 23 hours."  
   
"But you're happy we won, right?" I tried to clarify.  
   
Paris nodded affirmatively, and smiled. "Of course, in the end it was worth it. This means we can retire from the dance marathon undefeated."  
   
"Good, because I think already after all of this," I took off my shoes and let my toes stretch out for the first time in what seemed to be at least a week. "I won't be defending the title next year. I got what I wanted out of today, you had a fun time, and we'll be getting a nice shiny trophy to symbolize that fact."  
   
"How about a bar of Johnson's foot soap instead? That seems a much more appropriate symbol." she moaned, anguished in pain. Her feet had taken much of the abuse between the both of us, I wouldn't be surprised if she would swear at her saddle shoes before she left for school on Monday.  
   
"It's part of the gift basket," I told her. Just then, our competitors interrupted our conversation. Kirk was still wincing from losing the contest, while Carrie seemed to try to avoid any eye contact with anyone in the gym. Not that anyone outside of here knew what she did down in New York.  
   
"Paris, Rory." He acknowledged both of us, not sounding very sour. We looked up at Kirk, and prepared for a tantrum. None ever came.  
   
"I'd like to thank you two for being very worthy competitors, you both beat me fair and square. Though I won't be having a new trophy from 2002 to join the other eight residing in my case, also known as a corner of my bedroom, this was the finest effort by far someone put up against me. Everyone else tried the professional route through the years, but despite that, my partner and I for the year still won before 5am. I didn't know Paris beyond her role as your tormentor and that interviewer when I added the Curtain to the video store, along with that glance at you in competition in your younger years, and have to admit to you ma'am that your element of surprise kept things interesting this year. When I fell minutes ago, I was disappointed we wouldn't be dancing overtime, all four of us, but somehow, you two managed to win a hard-fought battle. I congratulate you," he pointed at both of us, "Rory Gilmore, Paris Gellar." He then bowed, which gave Paris this 'what the hell did I get myself into here' look on her face, as I laughed and thanked him back.  
   
"Carrie, anything to say to the champions?" He ceded the floor to her, thinking she'd thank us too. Apparently, she came from the dance school where a defeat ended your career.  
   
"Yeah; bite me. You said this was a guaranteed victory Gleason, instead my ass is creamed by two high-schoolers with novice experience, what the hell..." Kirk turned away, wanting to flee his partner. "Where do you think you're going mister, you have a lot of explaining to do, what's my daddy going to think when he hears that I lost in some barn dance in the middle of nowhere--"

Kirk covered his ears, ignoring Carrie as we both recuperated and talked about how we felt after such a wonderful and cathartic victory. The Gilmore dance monkey was off my back, Paris was even closer to me than before and most of all, I had made much progress trying to build a relationship with her.  
   
There was only one thing to do before we went back to my house and recuperated from this day filled with twists and turns...  
   
The last dance. I just hope everything goes off without a hitch...  
   
 **Paris' POV, 5:58am  
   
**I'm still in shock over this. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that on my first try, with a little rust on my shoulders from being inactive in dance for a little less than seven years, that in an endurance competition with a girl I used to regard with scorn, but now who I only want to love, we survived and won the whole shebang. Usually the afterglow from a victory wears off from me after a few hours, since I usually knew coming in I'd win no matter what.  
   
This win's gonna stay with me for quite a bit longer though. I had to work my ass off to get this far, and there were a few times through the day I was absolutely convinced that was it, and I'd give up. That drama around 7:30 with the mention of Tristan almost killed Rory's hopes for victory, and had I turned away at that time, I might have been in my bed, trying to create a distracting dream from the harsh reality of leaving her behind at the moment she really needed me.  
   
Thank God for Ms. Lacosta though. Without her encouragement and empowering responses to my fears, there's no doubt that I would have pushed my feelings permanently away from my heart and went back to hardly regarding Rory, partly in shame because I didn't try to go for the goal, and the other part as a sheltering mechanism. I didn't want her to know how much Tristan got to me.  
   
Twenty minutes later, after being told to get out there and let her know he was nothing but a memory, Rory and I got so close to closing that gulf between us and having our first kiss. She looked like she'd give in to me, and I was prepared to submit to her. Things got in the way, but after that, things were a lot less draining on me. We talked about everything under the moon, gave each other those boosts we so desperately needed in those late hours, and she got her revenge on me, her fingers finding their way beneath the plunge of my dress, just as I did with the hemline of her skirt in the car Tuesday afternoon.  
   
Let me tell you, her touch alone on my bare skin almost made me overheat, then faint. Rory may seem to be this mousy innocent girl who you think is the perfect angel that never gets adventurous. You would be dead wrong about that stereotype, Louise's whack-a-mole flirting style is tame compared to Rory's subtle touching, mooning looks with those enchanting eyes, and the nervous mannerisms she uses to distract me from the fact her index finger is running against the exact top of the waistband of my panties. She kept sliding her hands up and down my body all night, there is now not an inch on my back that has not gone untouched by the fair Lorelai Leigh.  
   
We went into this dance as competitors, hoping to have a little fun and getting to know each other more through the intimate closeness we'd share. But tonight...pardon me, this morning (What do you call the time between 5 and 7am anyways, really? You can't call it twilight because that's reserved for dusk. Whatever...), we're leaving Minutemen Gymnasium champions.  
   
I still can't believe it. We're both girls who abhor physical activity, and who don't take well to the spotlight at all. We were both inexperienced, and in all honesty I was better at solo dance than I ever was with a partner. I also had this nagging sense that I was there to fill a role, be where Dean or Lorelai might have been if Ms. Gilmore wasn't currently in Music City, or Dean if he hadn't overreacted about how Jess helped Rory squelch the sprinklers.  
   
Then she reassured me about that by instead of saying I, that _we_ won the competition, together as a team. We both contributed 50% to our efforts, and that exact mix of fiery want to win, respect and admiration for the traditions of the past, and not going Namath going in, being overcocky and saying we were guaranteed to win, that helped us towards victory. I wasn't in this for the prizes, the glory or trying to use this as an excuse for an ego-trip. I'm just trying to be the best friend I can be to Rory, wanting to be there for her, trying to earn her respect and admiration.  
   
In time though, I hope this has taken another big step towards earning her love. She's still playing coy and elusive, hinting at feelings here and there, but not saying outright that she wants me. Come on though, it's obvious; we're getting closer and closer to each other, on a collision course towards something that's scary to me, something I've never known in my life. I'm scared shitless that I could be wrong.  
   
But my gut is telling me to enjoy the ride and that the best is yet to come.  
   
Rory and I get up in the awards staging area at the far end of the gym, with a small crowd gathering around us, including a few competitors who got up from their cots in the hallway to watch the awards ceremony. We sat in a couple of wooden chairs set up at the end of the stage, waiting for our shot in the spotlight as Taylor hands out the more minor ribbons and awards that go with the final minutes. Best sportsmanship does go to Kirk, who though talks some good trash in the heat of competition, admitted at the end that even though he fell, we fought a good fight with him. He wasn't taking the trophy home with him this year, but unlike some certain professional athletes, he admitted he was human in the dance world.  
   
It felt good to sit for an extended period for the first time in hours, and I felt relaxed as Rory and I watched the awards being handed out. Wildest move, funniest elimination, goofiest costume, all of them were out there to be won, a great way to end the night.  
   
I did start to nod off a little bit towards the middle of the ceremony, thinking about the day ahead for me. Which meant a lot of sleep, but not in my own bed. Rory kept insisting I walk over to her house and sleep there, because I thought I'd just leave after we stopped dancing. I could drive home to Hartford, I kept insisting, but she got all maternal on me, and maybe a little...domineering. That's when she started sliding that pesky hand of hers under my dress.  
   
Which then froze my mind into her being dominating in other areas. Bedroom areas to be exact. I lost all my thoughts and despite my pointing out all the arguments I could against staying with her, she eventually made me relent and I'll stay with her after we leave. I mean I shared a bed with her only three weeks ago, what can happen? It's just two girls sharing a bed together, innocent as can be.  
   
Except that one of them has a fierce crush on the other. What happens if my sleep talking just happens to flare up again? I tape recorded myself in slumber a couple weeks ago just for kicks, then had to blush and bring out the cassette eraser because my talking was...off-color to put it kindly. Amazing how profane I can get when sleep overtakes me, not to mention sexually charged.  
   
But that's something for another time. Rory tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention.  
   
"Par? That's us." She smiled at me, and I looked up towards the end of the trophy table, where the 4½' marvel that is the trophy stands proud, the base with a gold plate, awaiting the carving of our respective names into it.  
   
"I still can't believe it," I said to her, as if the whole thing hadn't hit us yet. "We won." We got up together and walked to the other side of the stage, both barefoot because no sane winner would keep their dancing shoes on even through the ceremony.  
   
Then, as we came to the X where we had to stand, she took my hand and wrapped it in mine. We both shared a silent look, her gaze unreadable to me, yet could I see a little bit of longing in her eyes? I don't know, but it is almost 6am, so she could be laughing at my tiredness for all I know.  
   
We sat off to the side as Taylor, from what I heard, gave the same speech as he did every year. You know, the kind of civic can-do speech that can easily be cut-and-pasted together. Just replace 'wonderfully talented dancer from New York, along with the can-do man who will do it all' with 'a disciplined hard working girl from the richest part of Hartford, along with the girl we all know, love, and pray will make us in Stars Hollow proud one day', and you basically have what Taylor said to the crowd. There was a scattering of clapping in the crowd, who were just waiting for us to say our own piece since it had to be a little different. There really wasn't that much to say with both of us, honestly. Because I didn't know most of these people I just thanked the organizers, Taylor and Ms. LaCosta for putting on a good event, and then smiled at Rory as I told her she was wonderful as my partner.  
   
I think my short minute-long words killed the crowd, because they started surprisingly thinning out before Rory got to the stage. There weren't many left at all as Rory almost repeated verbatim my same speech, except a thanks to her mother who was still in Nashville and wasn't there to congratulate her quite yet. By the time she finished, only about 30 people were left in the gym, and in the background I could hear engines being started and tire squeals from the temporary parking lot out back. Taylor then introduced us both as the champions, and handed us the trophy.  
   
Rory took the left side, I took the right. Here I was expecting a simple little cup, but this thing was huge. I guess it has 2 inches for every hour of the dance, because it was as tall as where my stomach was. We didn't dare lift it higher, afraid we'd break it, but I loved all the embellishments on it. There was a gold-flecked figure of a couple dancing on the top in the place resided usually by that little guy holding the ball or implement used for the particular sport the award was being given for. It was nice, but too much for such an event.  
   
"Rory? Please don't take this the wrong way, but you can have this thing," I told her, grunting as we set it back down onto the table. "Even my mansion doesn't have a display case for something this big!"  
   
Rory laughed, and then called over Ms. LaCosta, telling me to take a second and stay standing. They walked over to the other side of the room, and Rory whispered something into the older woman's ear. I also saw a CD jewel case in Ms. LaCosta's hand, but couldn't make out the titling or picture on the cover. They whispered to each other for a few moments, and I was unable to decode their conversation. What were they about to do?  
   
Was she about to tell Rory my secret? Maybe give her a heads-up? I started getting nervous about what they were telling each other, and had a large fear that I was about to be outed.  
   
After talking things out, Rory came back towards me.  
   
"Hey Par?" she asked me, bringing my heartbeat into a hard thump. _Oh God, she did tell Rory I liked her, what am I going to do?  
_    
There was only one thing I could do, and that was face the music. Timidly, I said "Yeah?" to her question, and prepared for a life without her...  
   
"I hate to ask this after such a long day, but it's tradition for the winners to dance to a song of their choosing at the end. Would you care to dance with me?"  
   
I sighed in the biggest relief of my life; Rory didn't know, she was just talking to Patty about the song she wanted to play during the last dance. She smiled, and I gave her my hand.  
   
"As long as it isn't anything out of the grunge rock or rock-rap genres, yes, I'd be honored to." We walked out to center court beneath the painted minute man logo, as I took in the room around me.  
   
The crowd was thinning, only 23 diehards still on the floor, as the banks of gym lights across the ceiling were turned off, leaving only the side lights along the sidelines aimed towards the circle in the middle. We stepped into the spotlight, hand and hand, and my curiosity was piqued as to which song she chose for us to dance to. Before everything was in either the hands of Taylor and Patty, we were at the whims of whatever they wanted to play. I looked up towards Rory, who looked even more beautiful than when I walked in the gym 24 hours before. Her makeup had long faded, her hair was out of its artificial curl and once again fell down her shoulders. She had taken the rose out after the end, as did I, but that did nothing to ruin her beauty.  
   
Her lips, they were pink, ready to be kissed. But that was for another time. I was going to savor this moment for the rest of my life. Patty took the microphone and introduced our last dance.  
   
"Usually, the winners in the past have done a few laps around the gym after the trophy presentation, and then did a last dance in the center of the floor. However, we all know how humble and quiet, even in victory, Rory is. So instead of the usual lapping the field to a song found on an arena rock album, she told me she wanted this song played, had she won. She says it's very special to her, and that it's a song that brings up the most beautiful memories, thoughts, and dreams she's ever had in her life. Congratulations again girls, and cherish this moment in the spotlight before the end of this year's annual dance marathon. Andrew, if you'll press play for me dear..."  
   
I looked at Rory in my gaze, coming closer towards me. The way she looked to me was determined, as she brought a hand up to my face. She brushed a few stray hairs that were blocking my line of vision out of the way, running her fingers down my cheeks as if to communicate we shouldn't pay attention to anything else. There were no words needed, nor any need to communicate what I was thinking right then.  
   
Andrew hit the CD player's play button, and the notes blared out of the speakers immediately told me what I was about to dance to. The song where everything started, where I had those first thoughts to the contrary, telling me that Rory was meant to be less of an enemy, more than a friend. The familiar and soothing recorded voice of Susannah Hoffs started giving me the moment I've always visualized in only dreams, but was now a sudden reality. Rory smiled and moved close to me, enveloping me with her arms, as I did the same. I fell into the moment as the lyrics started...  
   
 ** _Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling, do you feel my heart beating; Do you understand?  
Do you feel the same, or am I only dreaming? Is this burning, an eternal flame?  
_**   
I felt stinging goosebumps along my arms as the verse was sung, all my defenses against her fall as her hands rubbed the middle of my back. She may have had the same dream I did, because the moment in my mind was an exact xerox of this moment. Everything around us was fading away, my awareness for her on a high level. All this wooing, subtle flirting, the fleeting touches shared since the beginning of the school year, they were starting to come together in this moment that was making me melt in her arms.  
   
 ** _I believe it's meant to be darling, I watch you when you're sleeping, you belong with me  
Do you feel the same, or am I only dreaming? But is this burning, an eternal flame?  
_**   
My eyes were heavy with sleep, as were hers, yet my senses were hyper, coursing through my veins at a rapid rate. She was so close to me, mere inches separating us, and I could take in the essence that was Rory Gilmore. She smells of vanilla, her skin soft and smooth like velvet. I closed my eyes, wallowing in these feelings. Her nails scraped against my back softly, and she mouthed the words of the song out, trying to keep herself in rhythm with the music. Opening my eyes back up, I recall that night in the theater in New York, where she caught me bobbing my head along to this same band. I wasn't even aware that I was, until she turned towards me and gave me this knowing smirk. That was the first time I dropped my boundaries around her, and though I firmed up seconds later, I felt a charge of excitement that she noticed that.  
   
 ** _Say my name, sun shines through the rain, of all life so lonely  
Then come and ease the pain, I don't want to lose this feeling...  
_**   
God, it's so funny how life works out in mysterious ways. I swear to you if someone had come up to me a week ago, told me that Dean would be a part of Rory's dating past two days later, and that I would not only be thrown into the role of replacement for him, but win it all, I would have thought that was as crazy a prediction as President Bush resigning after having a torrid gay affair with his staffer; impossible and never to happen. Yet here I am, in Rory's arms, falling for her even deeper and more insatiable for her with each time she says my name. She makes me proud to have it, something Mother has never done in my seventeen years. Without her, I'd be the 'bitter little hag' she described me in during the heat of our argument in that conference room.  
   
Whatever Rory's feelings for me, I feel like I'm the right place in her arms, on this floor, after a day of the most earned victory both of us have ever attained. Anyone can talk really fast and bend arguments back to squash a competitor's point to win a debate, or get that right mix of facts and entertainment packed into 24 pages of broadsheet print to be distributed to 1,250 fellow peers every week. But it takes so much more than that to win at a dance marathon like this. You need that right mix of physical prowness, mental planning, and most importantly, perfect chemistry with your partner. The first two might be perfect, but if you two fight like the Lockhorns, forget about it, you fucked yourself over. You need that right mix of 'I can't stand you sometimes, but yet, I can't stand to be away from you' in order to succeed.  
   
If this entire day has foreshadowing, I can predict with utmost clarity, that Rory and I will be very close for years and years to come. And God willing, we'll be closer than friends. The cues are there, I just have to finish solving that Ovaltine decoder ring rebus that is Rory Gilmore, and whether she has her own eternal flame for my love...  
   
 **Rory's POV, 5:59am  
**    
For the last five days, ever since that idea in my head that asked me to consider using this dance marathon as an opportunity to woo Paris further, I've felt like I've been on a roller coaster. There were times I wanted to change my mind, call her and say not to come on Saturday, and each time those I killed that thought by remembering how far we've come. In 10th grade if I'd asked her, she would have turned her back on me without an answer then walked away. Then there was the Tristan thing midway through, which only served to confuse me further into thinking that she still had a torch for him.  
   
She didn't, and I was wrong. But I'd rather that she got all that anguish out rather than keep it bottled in. I know she has so much on her plate to deal with, and I hope that as I try to get closer to her, she tells me more.  
   
I can tell with her in my arms now though, that the fears I thought she had before of us are fast disappearing. I saw her in the corner of my eye, with a glance of fear across her face as I took Miss Patty aside and made sure she knew my plans for the last dance. There was a fear in them that I want to read into more closely so I can find out what she was thinking. She kind of paused before I asked her to dance, probably thinking something other than what was in my mind.  
   
That's not what's on my mind, however. We're both in center court, at the same time, together, swaying closely to a beautiful song that didn't have a particular memory to go with it until that night in New York when she stayed still as a statue, entranced with the meanings hidden in the notes.  
   
 ** _Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling, do you feel my heart beating; Do you understand?  
Do you feel the same, or am I only dreaming? Is this burning, an eternal flame?  
   
_**I love the swell of the music, the harmony, the feel of Paris against me as her nose nuzzles against my left ear, while I mouth the words silently. I never knew how right, how close this moment could be in my dream. It's so intimate, like I can feel the berber of my bedroom carpet below my feet, the door closed, _Eternal Flame_ playing softly on my CD clock radio. Almost everything about this day I could imagine happening managed to come true, but it's far from over. We still have the ride home thanks to Miss Patty, because I sure wasn't about to carry that trophy seven blocks home while both of tried to keep each other propped up so we didn't fall asleep in the middle of Walnut Street.  
   
 ** _Say my name, sun shines through the rain, of all life so lonely  
Then come and ease the pain, I don't want to lose this feeling...  
   
_**The song continues the two of us languishing in the spell. She's about as close as she can get to me without it being construed as sexual and Paris feels very warm. I run my fingertip along her pulse point; it's beating at a very rapid rate. I hear her softly moan, she's totally fallen for this song. The chorus starts, then she whispers softly in my ear.  
   
"Ror?" The name is said with nothing but passion, and I feel goosebumps as her one-syllable nickname for me tickles me in just the right spot.  
   
"Yes Par?"  
   
"This was by far, the best day of my entire life. Thank you for inviting me to participate, along with the wonderful song choice."  
   
"It's your favorite, isn't it?" I questioned her, rubbing along her spine.  
   
"The best." I nod, and get back into the very slow, yet sensual last dance.  
   
My flame for Paris, it was confirmed tonight, burns stronger than before, you can see the sparks a mile away. Today is the day, it just has to be. I'm going to make this sleepover the best nap Paris Gellar has ever had. No barriers are stopping us now, there's no one to interfere, and plenty of time to act.  
   
The hard part, getting along with each other for an extended period of time, awake, is over. There's no need to make a list, gather facts, comparison shop or figure out anything. I like Paris with all I have. I just hope she feels the same, because this is no dream. She's my flame, and I'm not going to let anyone snuff her out anytime soon...  


* * *

 **_To be continued...  
_ **  



	8. And Then Rory Kissed Me...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after the dance marathon, and things are revealed to Paris throughout the day, leading to the one thing she's anticipated most but never believed would happen, and more.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Eight | And Then Rory Kissed Me...  
Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Inspired by:** All my own ideas here. This is the morning, afternoon and evening after _They Shoot Gilmores Don't They?_ , without the Jess/Rory plot rolling into motion.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, sexual thoughts and actions, along with some innuendo)  
 **Disclaimer:** Yeah, that rumor that I own Rory and Paris instead of Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone, and Warner Bros. Television? Not true, though I wish it was so I could mangle the Rory/Dean situation into a horrible, horrible dream sequence that we've been roped into believing happened all summer, but instead in the first minutes of the premiere, we cut a scene where Rory wakes up with Paris in her arms, both of them in the master bedroom of an airy and romantic Italian highland villa, content, relaxed, happy and with no stress at all. References to products in this chapter belong to their respective copyright owners, and Hyacinth Bucket is a character from _Keeping Up Appearances_ , a BBC production (you'll get why I disclaimed that later).  
 **Summary:** The day after the dance marathon, and things are revealed to Paris throughout the day, leading to the one thing she's anticipated most but never believed would happen, and more.  
 **Archiving** : GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's Notes:** I'm still inspired to write this, and still have fun putting out a new chapter after all of these months of writing. I'm thankful to all those who write in with feedback and encourage me to keep going, and after the cliffhanger of a finale wasn’t sadly resolved with the hoped-for dream sequence I mentioned above, I can be content to be in my own little happy subtext world without Dean roping Rory into something almost no one wanted to happen.  
   
Thanks to Raven and Cinn for again looking this over and keeping me sane, and Vix for some feedback on a couple scenes I was iffy about. For everyone reading and reviewing, I appreciate your words and encouragement.  
   
As for you ff.net'ers, if you couldn't tell from the way this story has been heading, this is warning #9 that you might want to look at something else besides this if you want your Rory feeling her heart pitter-patter and heart swoon looking at a boy instead of Paris, or Paris giving a couple of eye bats with those warm browns towards a nice-looking and rebellious boy instead. Might I suggest either _Whatever Tomorrow Brings_ and _Then Came You_ by Jamie (username Mrs. Witter), or _Thoughts_ by my awesome beta Cinn (username cinnamon-5575, with input from Jewls)? Trust me, these girls know how to write, and I'm honored to have been inspired further by them and the situations they put our brunette and blonde heroines in.  
   
Finally, this is a plea any feedback, positive or negative. I want to know what you think of this and if I'm doing everything right. I love reading what you think, and although I really haven't had a need for review upon review, I just want to know how I'm doing, like those 1-800 numbers on the back of trucks asking if you're driving well or not. I'll appreciate any advice and words you can give me.  


* * *

I was tired out as Rory and I got out of the backseat of my car around 6:15, falling asleep for a bit during the ride Ms. LaCosta provided for us between the high school and the Gilmore residence. As Rory had said, Ms. LaCosta had no problem with taking us back home, and though I was still a little iffy, I handed her over the keys and we were there in no time. I found myself when Ms. LaCosta said we were there with my head against the window along with a little unexpected drool on my lower lip. I got my wits about me, and found Rory in a conversation with the woman about the marathon and how excited Lorelai was going to be coming home to the trophy she coveted for years and years sitting in her house and proudly won by her daughter and a 'good friend'.  
   
I smiled a little at that mention of myself; it was very rare to use my name and those two words in the same sentence.  
   
Ms. LaCosta pulled into the driveway and I had to apprise her of where the trunk pull was so Rory and I could take the trophy out of it. I had to shift around my emergency kits, school supplies and spare tire around to barely fit it in, but I ended up with just enough space.  
   
"You two have a nice nap," the older woman told us as she handed back my keys. "You definitely deserve it after that effort."  
   
"Thank you Miss Patty," Rory told her, and I said the same thing after telling her I was grateful for the ride. She left and walked towards her home a few blocks away.  
   
I was barefoot again and threw my dancing shoes in the trunk, because I thankfully had the foresight to keep clean socks and a pair of old Sauconys in my trunk in that rare instance I ended up taking a hike for gas in an elegant evening gown.

I slipped those on before, and perched my emergency grooming kit beneath one of my arms before Rory and I grabbed the trophy, shut the trunk, and hauled it into the house, which even with no one home, had doors that remained unlocked.  
   
We were both tired, schlepping up the front steps, swinging open the front door and hauling our poor bruised bodies into the Gilmore residence. There weren't many lights on and the first thing I felt when I stepped foot in the living room was wanting to find out how comfy that couch was. This even though that brown unmatchable piece of furniture gave me the worst sleep of my life the night I slept over on a whim ten months ago.  
   
Sensing that I needed to take the weight off my feet, Rory told me to let go of the trophy and that she would find a place to put it so she could surprise Lorelai with it once she came back home from Nashville around 7:30 this evening. I smiled and was thankful as she tried to make me feel at home.  
   
"You can uh, sit on the couch over there for now, I'm going to put this upstairs in Mom's bedroom, then get you something to sleep in. Is there anything you'd prefer to wear Par?"  
   
 _I guess nothing but a scrap of red satin would be an unacceptable answer_ , I thought to myself. I do dress for bed if there's company, or if there's a shared arrangement, such as Rory and I in Washington. Usually however, I don't wear clothes to bed. I wear nightgowns before then, but only because my mother would think it unladylike to come out of the bedroom to lounge downstairs in a t-shirt and sweats. Once I say 'good evening' to her, walk into my room and lock the door for the night however, I shed the gown and sleep almost in the nude but for my panties because I like to sleep in a cold room, and my sheets and blankets are luxurious enough against my skin without another layer between them on my body.  
   
Not to mention it makes things so much easier if I have an impure and erotic dream of Rory and end up waking in a pool of my own perspiration, not to mention dampened underwear. I'd just slip them off, retrieve another pair from my dresser (or not) and fall back asleep, content and smirking like I just had a long taste of the finest chocolate Switzerland ever produced.  
   
I couldn't do that with Rory in the same room, however. Modesty prevailed, so I asked her for an t-shirt and some shorts to sleep in.  
   
"I think my mom has something like that. I do need you to make a promise to me that you won't be pulling another Skippy with these clothes."  
   
 _What's a Skippy, and what on earth is she talking about?  
_    
A quick mental recall from Rory remedied the confusion, though it was kind of a reality check of what we used to be. "Date with Tristan, skirt you borrowed from my mother, you later told me that it was your dog's bed after we got into another rough spot?"  
   
Ahhh, of course. I nodded my head for a bit and cleared things up. "That was just a joke, honest, there was no Skippy. I couldn't have a dog if I wanted to, I have vicious allergies around them. I still actually have the skirt in my closet, but I never got around to returning it and after awhile it became a part of some of my social ensembles." I scratched at the armrest of the couch nervously, my nail digging around the embroidered pattern. "I can give it back if you like, sorry if Lorelai was mad about that."  
   
"It's OK," she told me, seeming relieved. "She found another cute little black skirt a few days after on a trip to Short Hills, and truth be told it wasn't her most important article of clothing. Just as long as you took care of it well, I'm happy and my mom will too."  
   
"Does that mean no promises need to be made?"  
   
She smiled at me again as I did an unlady like thing and propped my socked feet on the surface of the coffee table. "I trust you with them just fine, as long as they're returned later." She headed upstairs, and left me alone for the first time in at least a few hours. I yawned to myself, took the remote from the coffee table and did a quick circuit of the cable system. 6:15 on a Sunday morning is hardly optimum viewing time, so I found myself looking at informercial upon informercial, along with Z-grade movies and on the broadcast channels, 'public service' shows produced in the TV station's broom closet with the budget equivalent of a pack of gum, and the talent to go with it. You'd think Hartford would be a bastion of intellectualism, but you couldn't tell that from the _Newsmakers_ program, where they interviewed some environmental nutjob about an emissions plan that was sure to fail in committee in the first place, but no matter since it was a public policy show that would seal up their FCC license for another week.  
   
I turned off the TV after that and decided to apprise and enlighten myself with what they had on their coffee table in regards to their magazine collection. Surprisingly it was pretty diverse. A couple _Newsweeks_ and _Nations_ here and there (Rory's), along with _Hospitality Monthly_ , _Foodservice Today_ , _InStyle_ , _Entertainment Weekly_ and several _People-_ style magazines (Lorelai's). My fear that Lorelai's teenager in a 34 year-old's body meant I'd see a couple gossip rags and maybe a _Tiger Beat_ in there was never realized thankfully. I flipped through the hotel magazine and just let myself get bored with the latest dish in reservation-taking systems and room service supplies, along with a very droll article about customer service during a large convention or gathering.  
   
However, despite that I couldn't take my mind off Rory, and how she'd behave me through the day. Did she have something planned for me, or was this just a friendly gesture, her offering me a place to sleep without having to worry about becoming narcoleptic on the roads? I looked around the room, finding myself taking in the room I had only been in twice so far since I got to know her. Once in a panic over my low grade of an A-, and the other time cluttered up with clothes and trash bags at least halfway up the walls because of the town's rummage sale. It was so nice being in that room...not too big, nor was it too small. Just right.  
   
Which then led me to thoughts of Rory's bed. I didn't know yet if she'd have me sleep on the couch again or go upstairs and sleep on her mom's bed, but I couldn't get that night a few weeks ago out of my head. How she stopped me from getting up and sneaking out the window and told me to slip out of my shoes and get comfy. Once she said that and calmed my fears about my mother finding out, I was under her spell, and I had to go through with sleeping with her.  
   
I think about things from her point of view that night. Did she pretend to fall asleep, then when I did, look at me when I went into dreamland? Were there thoughts in her mind of getting closer to me? If I had turned down her invitation, what would have happened? My mind keeps puzzling all that, though it's barely troubled by her past at all. No guy has ever shared her bed, much less her heart fully and truly. The question of Rory being a single woman was opened, and I was trying to figure out how I'd be a part of that equation.  
   
Before I could get too into it though, Rory came down the stairs and after getting my attention, tossed a light blue flannel shirt, along with some black shorts in my direction. "Catch!" she said towards me...  
   
Just a little too late as the articles of clothing smacked me in the face. I had to laugh, and I put them in my hand as I got up from the couch and asked her where I could change.  
   
"The bathroom is over there," she said, and pointed in the direction where it was, just off the other side of the kitchen. I thanked her and prepared to change, when karma again bit me in the ass with yet another opportunity.  
   
"Wait," she said, softly. "Before you go, do you think you could unzip me?" As the sentence went on, her voice seemed to go from normal to sort of a soft flirt once again, the kind I heard whenever Rory met Dean in the front drive at Chilton. "I'm not double jointed and had to take about ten minutes to zip this up yesterday."  
   
My inner vixen was almost giddy with excitement, and told me so by deciding to cloud all rational thought to my brain. My rational side tried to shout over it that this was something girls did for other girls all the time, however the thought of getting a nice long gander at Rory's naked back and the freckling spread throughout was causing me to feel a little lightheaded.  
   
Thankfully I found a little advantage myself that would hopefully bring the brunette into the same unhinged state I was in at that time.  
   
So with a smile, I said I'd do the same thing as long as she helped me untie my halter knot in back.  
   
"Of course!" Rory seemed a little _too_ eager to do that, but it was a yes, no matter what the tone of the answer. She turned around and brought her hair to her front so I had full access to the pull that kept her in that dress. My heart started quickening its beats as I brought my right hand towards the zipper. I could hear her breathing become sort of shallow as I brought myself closer towards her and rested my free hand on her shoulder. I started to part the teeth, my mind bringing the moment into sort of slow motion as the wide expanse of red fabric speckled with white parted in the path filled by that zipper, replaced with creamy pink skin, speckled with dark spots I had familiarized myself with days before in my bedroom.  
   
I bit my lip, nerves building as I unzipped Rory slowly, finding oxygen to be a lacking resource at the time. With every centimeter of exposed skin, I became more entranced than I did the centimeter before that with Rory. The shoulders of the garment started to fall a little as slack built up below, giving me an unobstructed view of her soft and feminine shoulders. There was no bra strap hiding them at all, and my dream memory built up an even more elaborate view of her nude state that hadn't been built up by my fleeting and passing glances at her nude form in the Chilton showers.

My nails scraped against her spinal column as I retreated down her body, I could feel her react to that with what seemed to be a tight, yet stifled moan. And when I reached her bra line, discovering the fabric that almost matched her skin tone exactly, I just about lost it. I was starting to feel aroused doing this, like I wanted to stop there and despite not having her permission, stretching the two solitary hooks holding her breasts in towards each other and unsnap it. Though it was plain, the bra befits her simple personality rather well.  
   
I looked down at the point I was at zipping her out to where it ended. Usually a guy would stop at the bra and not go further. But I saw that the teeth trailed all the way down to about three inches below her panty line. She wasn't pulling away, nor was she doing anything to suggest that I was being too forward. I unzipped, lingering my eyes over each inch of newly exposed virgin skin. I felt clenching down below and my face warm as I got ever closer to Rory's personal Maginot line.  
   
When I felt the bump of her waistband, I prepared to stop, ready to hear Rory thank me and tell me that was enough. So I stopped for about two seconds expecting that. Instead, I received an eerie silence and a sort of huff from her to tell me that I was not done.

I felt a sense of relief come over me then, and a trust build between Rory and I. My mouth was drying, my heart pumping double the blood, and there was nothing stopping me. I closed the distance between the zipper and the end, my fingers resting against her ass with more cream cotton exposed. I lingered the touch a little, trying to make it feel like an accidental brush with the heel of my palm.  
   
As I finished, I brushed my finger up her column one more time seductively as I brought myself up from a sort of crouching position, that expanse of naked skin getting to me in the worst way possible. That simple act made me want Rory even more. Memorizing her back was no longer enough; I just wanted to take the shoulders and sleeves of that dress and bring them down her arms until the entire item was sliding off down her thighs in a quick blink of the eye, until it landed in an elegant red pool around her ankles.  
   
I felt myself flush as my fingers departed from her skin, unbelieving that I was looking at her in this way, as more than a classmate. She turned around and smiled, leaving me thankful she was keeping the dress on but probably disappointing my hormones.  
   
"Now let me undo you," Rory told me rather softly. "Turn around." I was thankful she didn't ask to do me first, with that damned halter and nothing beneath it I would've had to hold the bodice against my chest before I went into the bathroom to change. Unzipping Rory would have been a little harder had I done that.  
   
I sat down on a hassock so she could work the tight knot it was in. Immediately, I felt my breathing shorten upon her fingertips running through my hair so she could get at the knot hidden beneath it all. I shut my eyes, and let myself get lost in the exhilaration as she found it and started working out those knots. Her fingers up against the top of my neck felt absolutely heavenly, and I was lost in that feeling, the sensual dance being renewed once again. I felt her breath against the back of my shoulder as she grunted with effort to undo the knot.  
   
"I think you tied this a little too tight Par," she said through her teeth. Apparently the insurance knot Ms. LaCosta made was quite tight, a little more than Dean's so called 'permanent knot' from the bracelet I easily defeated thanks to a lipstick knife. I couldn't let Rory know this however, so I lied and claimed I made a second tighter knot myself during the midnight break.  
   
She kept trying to work that first know open, but the back of the dress wasn't being cooperative to her. Tugging, pulling, trying to work it with her fingers, all ended up with her damning the knot and wanting to go for the scissors. I knew she wouldn't though; the vintage nature of the dress prevents it from being altered, even if it's only a ¼" wide and 16" long piece of lace. Fran would be sure to let me know that for the rest of my life by not letting borrow anything from her ever again if I had the lace cut.  
   
Rory was stubborn, still trying to work the knot out without much luck. I was getting somewhat impatient; in the time I sat on that footstool I wanted to change into those comfy clothes and go through my grooming routine. I was just about ready to take a large risk and work my dress the wrong way up my body to slide out of it.  
   
I said I was about to, but that never happened. Rory had enough of letting her fingers try to work out the knot, and as I thought she was about ready to give up and I felt my hair slide back onto the middle of my neck, I found something else tugging snarl at the bind. At first I thought nothing of it, Rory could be trying to work it out with the sharpened end of a pencil...  
   
Only I could feel a small and abrupt rush of air spread out from the back of my neck and around the bottom of my scalp. Her fingers came back a bit after that, but there was still a heavy sense of vanilla perfume rushing up my nose. I shut my eyes, not trying to confirm that what was happening, actually was.  
   
 _Oh God_ , I thought to myself, Rory's breath as close to the nape of my neck as possible without a kiss being initiated. I could feel her trying to tug at the not with her teeth, and slowly working it out with the combination of her teeth and fingers. The knot started to ease out a little, but the way her mouth on my neck like that felt...was almost like a slow and teasing kiss. I felt everything on my back goosebump, and thought being lost each time her lips touched my skin.  
   
I shut my eyes, and yelped a little when she accidentally nipped the skin going in for another attempt to loosen the knot. However, she didn't say anything and stayed strangely quiet for the next couple minutes as she slowly, and agonizingly yanked the bunny out of its hole or however you might describe a tight loop of a knot being loosened. Her lips seemed to linger for a bit against the heated skin after finishing, and there wasn't anything in the world I wanted to ruin the moment.  
   
"Sorry about that," she said, sort of shaky to me as she scooched up and got back into a comfy position since the first knot I made that day would be a lot easier. "I just needed to, uh, get that knot out, it was pretty stubborn. You might want to remember that next time you put on a dress like this."  
   
My response? Sort of not very intelligent. "Uh, I will. You really know how to let a knot out Ror."  
   
Alright, so it was beyond stupid, but Rory's lips seemed to have that effect of sucking my bearings dry. Just as long as she doesn't try it again in a life and death situation, I should be alright for the next time I end up making a strange error in dressing like that. 

With the tightened knot gone, that left the knot I made, which naturally was slipping out. That one was much easier to undo without much lingering touches on Rory's part, and after another few moments, I felt the weight of my chest suddenly shift down as the strings fluttered down from my shoulders back down to my chest.  
   
A hanging silence hovered over the air for a bit after that. She brought her other hand up and massaged my back as she had a second sense that the stress of the halter against the back of my neck made it and my shoulders sore, considering how much weight they had to hold. I basked in the tremors her hands sent through my neck and down my body, thinking about how close I was eleven hours before to kissing her, and in turn, her movement towards me. God, how much I wanted Rory made me ache so much with desire for her. I didn't want to move, didn't care for anything else. These small pockets of silence help me out when it comes to gauging what she feels for me.  
   
Finally, I had to go, my arm was getting sore from holding the bodice of the dress against myself. I grabbed the clothes and went into the bathroom, locking the door, and then quickly changed into the shirt and shorts, not letting my eyes linger at my heated form more than they needed to. I carefully folded up the dress and put it into the empty side pocket of my emergency bag, and then proceeded to brush my teeth and my hair, and then wash my face. I was so sleepy and slogged through the tasks, but still managed to take a long look at myself in the mirror.

I was far from the girl who left Rory in devastation the last time I stared at myself in the mirror those few hours before. I felt happier, much more at ease and comfortable in my own skin, and most of all, confident. I felt so relaxed, the barriers of our friendship unstrained anymore by past history or socioeconomic concerns. I was still just a bit scared about my feelings for her, wondering if today I would capitulate to my feelings for Rory.  
   
If so, she picked a fine outfit for me to do it in. I buttoned the flannel up to the second to last button, maybe give her a few ideas, but mainly because I wanted to still feel a cool breeze on my skin. She'd have to strain in to see my cleavage, but to give her at least a little hint, a provocation...that's what I was intending to do.  
   
The shorts were buried beneath the shirt, making it look like I was just sleeping in the shirt. They were comfy enough and were sort of loose on my body, pretty much the effect expected. After all I don't have as much in back as Ms. Gilmore does, she bought them to flatter her own charms.  
   
No, I'm not also in love with Lorelai if that's what you're trying to take out of this. For a woman her age though, she does look quite nice, even Louise, Miss Fickle herself has this sort of little thing for her that kind of weirds me out. Then again, my friends have been acting out of character lately. Madeline for example, seems fixated on Brad Langford lately, so much she's been turning down dates with Blue Demon football players left and right. They're in the playoffs, big men on campus, and my raven-haired ditz of a friend is telling them no so she can fawn over a guy who has more than a normal interest in computers, robots and taxidermy! My friends are changing, along with my allegiances. Rory has become the very definition of a best friend, but I just want to keep that shred of hope that maybe, just maybe, she might have feelings for me, that she might be gay.  
   
I was hoping for the best, to at least come out of that house unscathed when I left later in the day. But by the time I finished my bathroom chores, sleep was finally getting to me in the worst way, and my fucked up biological clocked needed some winding. _Time to get to bed Par_ , I thought to myself as I put my grooming stuff back in the bag and left the bathroom, preparing to sleep on that cursed couch.

Why? I was under the impression that after 25 hours together, Rory would want a break from me, which is all good and well because of my naturally uncompromising nature. Those weeks before when I was in her bed it was just to talk, there weren't romantic possibilities floating in the air, what with my choice of wearing a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt that did nothing to flatter me. There was more tension in the air then, an angry tension from our argument the night before that.  
   
So I was prepared to wrap myself in the afghan hanging of the back of the sofa, two rooms keeping us both separated and letting us get the rest we so deserved after all that dancing. The throw pillow would be fine for my head and I could get used to that couch eventually.  
   
I was sitting down on the couch and about to get into a vertical sleeping position, when I heard a door shut in the kitchen, and Rory ran into the living room.  
   
Now before I get into the details of what she said and what happened next, the only thing on my mind was sleep, honest. But if the girl you love comes out the way she did, you might want to change that definition of sleep to the other kind.  
   
I was caught, literally as she came into the room, changed out of her dress and into her pajamas. Usually this would mean something that resembled the Nick and Nora brand, with monkeys and bananas patterned all over the blue or pink fabric. That's about the only thing I remember positively about the Puffs initiation; her looking cute in her birthday cake pajamas.  
   
I think she's been choosing her nightwear a lot more differently than before though. She was still in a shirt and pants mind you, not wearing a merry widow or some kind of thin barely-there lingerie. But the way she looked this morning, it's going to stay with me for a long time.  
   
Her hair was straightened out, and she was wearing blue scrub-style sleep pants, the kind with the drawstring. They looked light and airy on her legs, and made them look longer than if she was in her regular pajama pants. It was on top I really noticed a change though.  
   
She was in a tank top, but not like the kind she wore when I brushed her hair. It had spaghetti-style straps, and the neck plunged just a little lower than the Tuesday shirt. It was a ribbed cotton shirt, and flattered what she has in front so damned well, like her chest. I found myself looking at her and trying to hold back my impulse to drool at her look. The hem of the top wouldn't easily be able to tucked into her underwear either, since it stopped just short of her belly button. It seemed like the top was two sizes smaller than her number, but the effect it had on me...if she was trying to get my attention, Rory can read my mind well! After having to use my imagination all day to think about what she was wearing under that nice little dress, it could finally get a rest.  
   
Rory knew my weakness; a her in tight and flattering clothing. Clothing that showed off her small breasts very well. I swear the neck of that shirt was so low that if she bent down, I'd be looking at more than just her freckling, there would be her pink and rosy buds, lurking beneath the white cotton. I could see her nipples puckered beneath the shirt, and they were well aroused.  
   
God, if I ever find out Rory was letting her fingers do the walking up down her thighs while I was changing, the damned things that could do to me!  
   
I still found myself trying to lie down, but Rory took the blanket from me before I could start to try to cuddle up.  
   
"Nope, no couch for you Par," she said, smirking and seeming a little more awake than she should be. "I know how you hate sleeping on it, and Mom would freak if you slept in her bed. Why don't you sleep with me?"  
   
 _Because, I don't want to just sleep with you Ror, I want to--_ Before my inner pervert could misconstrue that statement into something embarrassing, I wrapped myself around this new development, that she wanted me in her bed again. The space between us would be very little, and the temptation would be very high to bring her closer to me.  
   
 _You’ve already slept with her in that bed_ , I was reminded by my memory, _not to mention you shared a room with her for at least ten weeks._ That much was true. But I then reminded myself that there was a chaperone monitoring everyone in the dorm building at any one time, one posted in each wing. Even if my feelings were running hot for Rory back then, there was no way I was going to take the risk of trying to lure her in. That first moan between us, Mr. Van Andel would burst in, and we’d be questioned so fast about our intentions that it wouldn’t be funny.  
   
I was still unsure about things, and if she was falling for me like I was falling for her. But my mind was worn along with my body. There wasn’t much choice in the matter; Rory’s bed was decently comfortable, and as for the couch, there are some nice plastic chairs at the airport I’d rather sleep on than that.  
   
I sighed, looking up at Rory, expectant of my answer. Then, just as fast as I had doubts, I cast them aside. “I would love to share a bed with you again Gilmore.”  
   
“Great.” Her acknowledgement, which should have been an exclamation, instead came in a loud yawn. She stretched her arms out, causing her top to rise up her stomach and expose a little more skin. I was finding my mind track again interrupted by a fantasy of getting that shirt off her the rest of the way thanks to my hands, raking my palms over her breasts slowly on purpose, then bringing them back down to her side, getting her closer towards me as we backed into the door of her bedroom, and then...  
   
I already said something of that sort moments before, didn't I? Me and my one-track mind, there's a horny teenage boy here screaming to get out somewhere. Not to beat a dead horse, but once again my eyes glazed over with lustful thoughts of my classmate and soon to be bed partner as I got up numbly and after she shut off the lights and locked the doors and windows in the house (no use keeping them open if you're wiling away a Sunday sleeping), headed into her bedroom with her.  
   
"Oh, by the way Par."  
   
"Yeah?"  
   
She passed in front of me and entered her room. "Flannel does suit you well; you look very nice." She smiled, and I found myself brushing off her compliment with a quick one of my own. However, instead of a 'you look nice' plain kind of accolade, I went off on a tangent about her tank top and how hot she looked wearing it. I mumbled through most of the words, looking at my feet as I started fearing my chances with her were about to end because I was gushing about a shirt she probably wore many times before. My inner vixen was starting to leech into real life, and after I told her she had a very trim stomach, I was afraid that was it; my feelings for her would be somewhat vocalized and she'd freak out about what I was telling her.  
   
Imagine my surprise when, as she bit her lip and her body language communicated that she was somewhat nervous, when she again complimented me.  
   
"Well, I could say a few things about you too. I uh, kind of have a thing for your legs."  
   
"Huh?" I was puzzled, since I always thought they were my worst feature. My short stature guaranteed I wouldn't have the curves of a Beyonce Knowles, with her thick thighs, nor did I have that tall type of supermodel stature because I was tiny. I swear that when puberty hit those inches I should've gained in height went straight to my breasts instead to build up the cup size. I brushed off the compliment, trying to distract her. "They're just legs, I use them to walk and they serve their purpose. Nothing really special about them."  
   
"That may be true," she started to say as we sat down on the side of her bed, "but they make up at least a third of your height, you can't help but notice them. Especially when you're wearing those corduroy pants that fit snug and tight. As for when you wear a dress or a skirt..."  
   
Rory trailed off and brought her eyes lower from my face down to my legs. I saw her hand move towards me, and before I knew it, her hand was just above my knee, resting on my bared right thigh. Honestly, she had done this before, many times. Like when I needed to be calmed down or something, or she placed something like a newspaper or a book on my lap.  
   
In those instances however, I wasn't wearing shorts that were cut to within a few inches of my apex. Also, I was in a scholastic state of mind. Not to mention, Rory wasn't just setting her hand down and leaving it there; she was rubbing her hand up and down slowly between the cap of my knee and just below the hem of the short leg.  
   
She bit at her lip as her fingers scraped my leg, and I had to keep in a moan as she explained why. "You...just have nice legs. I mean it's apparent you take good care of yourself even if you try to come of as plain and unconcerned with your beauty." Her nerves were a little high as she took off her slippers, keeping the heel of her hand on my leg. "I swear, I haven't ever seen you wear hose because you're just so naturally smooth."  
   
 _Is Rory trying to kill me with kindness?_ Her hand, sure enough was still on my smooth legs, seemingly doing a spur of the moment biology experiment to try to find that stray exposed root or missed hair that stood out like a sore thumb. Little did she know that every inch had been well-covered, and I was smooth as my birthday, albeit with a little help from Mother Nature and a smart combination of scientists and botanists.  
   
"Geeze!" Her reaction to how I felt was as if she just discovered the microwave oven and it's panorama of uses. "No hair at all, nothing. Were you born this way, not to grow very much hair?"  
   
It was time to give her a little peek into my 'beauty' regimen, what little of it there was to be found. "Well, I do have a dirty little secret; when I tan, I also ask for a leg waxing. Hurts like hell, but it leaves me free from the drudgery of using a razor. That was more at Fran's suggestion though, she took me one day to this spa down in Old Saybrook, when I had an in-service day back in ninth grade as kind of a recharge. I decided to get the works, and though I didn't take well to the pedicure, manicure, or facial mask, the wax was well worth the pain. I've been doing it monthly ever since and the hair is coming less and less with each treatment."  
   
Rory's interest in finding out if what I told her was true ended up being high, so she took an even more obvious opportunity to rub my thigh. "God, that does feel nice."  
   
"Like them?" I kept my voice at an even keel, despite my distracted state.  
   
"Yeah, it's too expensive for me, but so worth it with you." Her eyes were directed at my lap, and I could hear her breath shorten. "I mean it Par, you do have nice legs."

I thanked her as she moved the hand higher and higher, by then it was almost at the hem of the shorts. She seemed a little nervous about going above that line, but I just let her go ahead and linger, delighting in her soft touch. I thought in my mind about her continuing her ministrations, moving them beneath my shorts as our collective oxygen supply deepened as we drew closer, Rory's smooth fingertips along the side of my panties. I could see her get a sort of wide-eyed look as she pushes a finger beneath, and finds out first hand just how high that I have myself waxed and stripped of hair, something I started doing the month before when I started thinking she was getting my signals.  
   
However, my body was thinking sleep, thus the only thing her hand rubbing my leg did was relax me further. I yawned a bit again, and started to feel the weight of my eyelids become greater...  
   
"You know, I think we should get to bed." She let go of her grip on my leg, the heat from her hand going right back with her, and got up so she could crawl onto her side of the mattress. "What time do you have to be back at the Manor anyways?"

There was about thirty seconds of an awkward pause hanging as I felt a hot spark in my leg where she had just touched me moments before. Getting my bearings back, I told her I'd probably be expected home about 8pm.  
   
"Is your mother getting home at that time from San Diego?"  
   
I sighed. "Knowing Mother she'll probably stumble in drunk with that louse she calls a boyfriend she met at Mohegan Sun around one in the morning, then they'll pass out on the sofa in the guest house since the staff can barely tolerate her sober in the Manor. They always send her to the guest house so that I'm not disturbed in rest, Daddy made that clear in their service contract, that she cannot impede my education progress through her transgressions."  
   
"So when you get home..." I could tell she could read my mind, figuring out the answer without much else said, so I finished her line.  
   
"Finishing touches on homework."  
   
Rory smirked, I was in the affirmative. "I thought so, I have to prepare for the 'surprise' pop quiz Mercurio's sure to throw us in Russian Novels tomorrow."  
   
I rolled my eyes at the mention of Chilton's worst-prepared instructor, whose entire curriculum and syllabus is posted on a Chilton student's website that is pretty much the same since a paper copy was made of it back in 1988. "That guy is so predictable; he's never changed his curriculum since the coup in 1990, and then all he did there was change all the 'Soviet' and 'Soviet Union' references within his notes to 'Russian' and 'Russia'. But the class helps our grade, so I suppose..."  
   
We got into bed together and talked about school for a while, trying to lull ourselves to sleep with conversation sure to put us in slumber. It was a little chilly in the room so I took a few more inches of blankets, but Rory didn't seem to mind. I took a pillow, she took another, and after a little more talk about the pop quiz, I asked her if I could turn off the lamp on her nightstand.  
   
"Sure, you must be tuckered out," she said to me as I stretched my arm over to the lamp and turned the switch off. "Need anything else?"  
   
"I'm fine." I looked at Gilmore in the slight darkness of the room, light stopped by her window's drawn shades. She just looked so at ease, so happy and comfortable with me being there with her to win the dance title, just after convincing me a trip on the road back to Hartford would be hazardous to my health. It was then saw how lucky I was that she was there for me, no matter what I put her through. Rory would always have my back, defending me even when others try to create slander and libel against my character. She's never given up on me either. For all that we've been through, this weekend has been one of the best ways ever to finally take us out of the antagonism that used to define us.  
   
"Sleep well, Paris." I said the same thing to her, and it took her only a little time to fall asleep, so that by 6:45am she was out and her brain was winding down activity after such a grueling day. I followed her into dreamland shortly thereafter, but only after giving myself an alternate answer to Rory's question where she asked if I needed anything more.  
   
 _I have everything I ever wanted right here_ , I thought to myself, my left hand trembling at the closeness to her own right hand as I took a long glance at the girl I've fallen for so far, eyes closed, hair messy in front of her face, and her chest rising up and down as soft puffs of breath emanated from between her beautiful and puckered lips. _A nice comfy bed, good company, a warm and caring body near me to keep me from being chilled, a kind girl I willingly shared the stage for. Rory, I have it all right here, in you. I wish you'd know that, but I'd rather be your friend than be your enemy, or nothing at all. If you're ready though, I want to see a sign of some kind, be it today, be it sometime this year. I'll wait entire scores of years just to hear whether you love me or not, but I'd rather know, sooner than later.  
   
_I was almost fading into unconsciousness, but before I did, I placed the tips of my forefingers against my lips, making a soft smacking sound with my mouth. I then brought the kissed fingers up against Rory's left cheek, sharing the soft gesture with her. I tucked the loose strands of hair on her face back into her ear, and she looked so serene, quiet, as if nothing has changed her at all from the day she stepped into our school, where others might have crumbled under the pressure and become competitive and bitchy. I then smiled and brought the fingers back. Wishing her one more whispered good night, I then within moments fell into the sleep I so rightfully deserved for myself.  
   
Sleep in itself, that should have in theory been giving me dreams pumped sexually to an extreme level, were by definition tame compared to my current sexually charged tracks, and seemed to be more about an instant replay of the dance marathon more building a new scenario. Kirk's hijinks, my issues that remained with Tristan, and those last few close hours with Rory were recalled, but didn't change all that much from that of reality.  
   
The last dance in the dream was odd though, with Rory and I doing a tango. A very steamy tango, I'd have to say, what with my reckless disregard in the dream for the reverence and history of the marathon as I slid my hands up her thighs, brought her towards a side wall of the gym, then hiked up the skirt of her dress as she moaned for me to give her what she wanted; gratification. The dream shifted focus between my view and hers as we ditched the competition and kissed our way into the bathroom, where I ended up doing uncouth things to my current bedmate against the same sink I had cried my tears of confession to Ms. LaCosta the night before. It was raw, untamed and very passionate, so much that when it abruptly ended with her about to reciprocate on me...  
   
I found myself awake in the bed. No soreness, but a sudden awakening from the rigors of REM sleep. First thing I checked was the alarm clock on the night table, which read just after 11:40am. Then I turned around.  
   
Where I found the back of Rory's head facing me, her hair tickling my nose. I also found my body pressed up against hers, more in some places than others. My midsection was pressed hard against her ass, my chest right up against her back, an arm loosely wrapped around her stomach. I could literally feel the rise and fall of her back against my front. Though I couldn't feel my left leg at all. I wondered why, so I tried to shake it, but then I found it was trapped beneath Rory. My right leg was fine in the physical and mental sense.  
   
The sexual sense however, was off the charts and going haywire, for I found it wrapped around her two slim gams. My body was very close, and I was feeling overheated, because apparently in rest, I was luring Rory into a spoon position. I stared sweating in fear; afraid that the sleeping girl next to me was going to awake discovering this predicament and lay into me despite the accidental nature of the spooning.  
   
I was lying in that position completely still, afraid any movement would disturb Rory from her own sleep. I did have good reason, for the combination of a heavy flannel shirt, nothing beneath, and the ribbed cotton of the back of Rory's shirt put my breasts in an extremely scratchy position. The fabric of the flannel was right up against them, so that each time I shifted in any direction, my nipples stiffened even more. With no layer between the shirt like a bra, I felt it, and damn, it felt really nice. But the fact I was in this compromising pose, and Rory was far from ready to become more intimate than two friends can be, that seemed to desensitize me just a little.  
   
Rory should have been up by then, preparing to lecture me about unlady-like behavior, maybe even accuse me of impropriety. So I tried to move the hands and push my leg out from beneath her. However, this only caused her to shift even closer.  
   
I tugged at the leg pinned beneath her, having to slowly ease her weight off of it so that she wouldn't be aware that anything went on, even though I slept and fell into this compromising position. I let her go from my grasp, taking back my legs and arms, and lay straight in the bed, wiggling my way from beneath her thigh. It took a little bit of time, along with some luck, but after a few minutes of coaxing, I was free once again, leaving her undisturbed.  
   
I turned around in the bed so that next time an unconscious spoon attempt would throw me to the floor, and looked at an old tourism poster of Prague on the wall, analyzing the colors, the blending and what building was being advertised as representing the Czech capital in the poster. Keeping my thoughts away from Rory as much as I possibly could, I fell asleep again, only this time the rest was so deep, I didn't dream at all, which was good. I would've probably headed into another sleep talking mirage if I kept lingering on that spooning of Rory without her knowledge.  


* * *

When I woke up again hours later, I found that warmness against my side that had lulled me to sleep hours before had disappeared. I arose from my laying position and sat against the headboard, looking to the left and finding the side of the bed Rory slept on to be empty. The room was still darkened by the shades, so I had no way to be able to tell what time it was unless I checked the clock.  
   
Truth was, I was well rested. Much more rested than I usually was in my own bed, in my own house. Usually I have to deal with the stress of my mother possibly having some kind of bipolar incident and trying to barge in my locked door, or some nosy staff member with ill will on their mind trying to find out my secrets. I could relax around Rory, be a little more at ease; I was showing as such with the way I slept, despite my panic about the close sleeping arrangement.  
   
I looked towards the clock, and found it to be reading quarter after three. _Just over eight hours, not bad_ , I thought. My brain didn't feel clouded and I felt my biological clock return back to normal, forgetting I had been up at least six hours past the regular Sunday morning bedtime I maintained.

I got up and sat down on the bed, finding myself familiarizing myself again with the small bedroom she maintained off the kitchen the Gilmores rarely, if ever used. Good thing too, since the oven seemed like an ancient antique, I swear that a designer would have a challenge trying to create the perfect kitchen for those two. They ate at Luke's just about every day, partook of delivered foods when they didn't, and fueled themselves on caffeine all the time. I swear Rory's only brush with vegetables comes on the school's lunch salad.  
   
I yawned and wiped the sleep out of my eyes, then got up from the bed and felt the plush berber of Rory's carpet beneath my feet. I hadn't slept until three in the afternoon in so long that I forgot the last time I did; I'm such a creature of routine. Mother would have my head if she ever found out I slept this long, and probably do even worse things when she learned that I wasn't sleeping alone and thinking sexual thoughts about another girl, whose bed I happened to be sharing.  
   
There wasn't much to do at home, so I could spend most of the rest of the day relaxing with Rory if I wanted to. Awake, I got up from the bed, and opened up Rory's bedroom door so we could talk about the dance and whatever assignments we hadn't finished yet since they were still more than a month due and our final graded projects for the semester before the exams.  
   
Leave it to Gilmore to again, surprise the ever-lasting heck out of me.  
   
There, sitting out on the kitchen table, was a lunch of a hot turkey hoagie, a bag of onion-flavored Sun Chips, and what looked to be a foam cup of wintergreen tea. Right next to that plate, the Sunday editions of _The_ _Hartford Courant_ and _New York Times_ , ready to be read, just waiting for me to be read and have the news, features and opinions scrutinized and filtered through my brain.  
   
That Rory was so observant of my routine and meals in the first place, that told me something. I loved eating turkey, and whenever the ala carte line was out of salad that's what I would choose, along with the Sun Chips. She also knew that I'm an avid reader of the Sunday papers and in my normal Sunday morning routine, find it the perfect accompaniment to my watching _Meet the Press_ and _Face the Nation_ , followed by reading all the meaty sections to one of the Sunday morning jazz and classical shows on the radio. It was too late for that part of the routine now, but at least she gave me what I wanted that she could control.

I smiled as I looked over the spread at my place at the table, swimming in the fact that I could sit at the Gilmore table in my pajamas and eat in relative peace without Mother bugging me about proper dress, table manners, and basic decorum. That was another thing that was drawing me towards Rory's arms, that eating to her was for its intended purpose; to have fun with food and have some nice casual socialization during the meal. I didn't have to worry about insulting a well-paid chef by not eating an appetizer or side dish, nor did I have to think of something witty to say in order to keep a conversation that was dulling the senses of all the guests going. It was just lunch, plain and simple.  
   
After a trip to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my hands, I felt hungry after at least fifteen hours without a good filling meal, and at least a day since I had something resembling what normal people would call dinner. I tackled the turkey hoagie eagerly, feeling like I was in heaven as I took in the tastes of the meats, cheeses, vegetables and the oil slathered onto the bun. With the wintergreen tea, it tasted wonderful, along with the bag of chips.  
   
I called her name out towards the living room that I was up after she didn't come out to greet me, but she seemed to be elsewhere so I didn't hear anything back in the affirmative. Not that I was disappointed about that, it gave me a little time with myself to recharge my batteries.

After getting about a ¼ through both the sandwich and bag of chips, I started reading the front page of the _Courant_ , where there wasn't much to read about besides another fight between Rowland and the House over the state's budget, plus a feature on how professional sports teams keep spurning Hartford despite all we've tried to offer. I could care less about the debate over building a stadium downtown and just wanted some raw numbers on business and economic development in Central Connecticut. All so boring, all driving me towards thinking of Rory a lot more than I usually did. Where she was, what she was doing, and wondering if she had forgotten about me. I felt so bored, I just wanted to talk with her, not wait until she came back and pass the time between now and then by reading a newspaper I wasn't feeling particularly attentive towards.  
   
I turned the pages of the paper, but wasn't paying attention throughout the mean because my mind was so distracted with all these thoughts of Rory so close, my encouragement and my returning an interest by almost kissing her last night and sliding the zipper open as slow as I could without any notice. Even my daily dose of the serialized comic strip _For Better or for Worse_ (the first thing I read everyday even if the words 'WAR DECLARED' are in 96-point type on the front page) wasn't enough to take me off from what I was thinking. I needed some kind of sign to know what she was feeling for me, if she did. The first thing I took out of her invitation to the dance was that she had a slight interest, but not enough to say for sure she wanted to be more than my friend, for all I knew she asked me only because of my strategic skills in regards to gauging the others in the room, and combining those with my dancing talent. I read through the _Courant_ (advertising inserts, TV section and any accent sections set off to the side right after I opened up the paper), but didn't have the willpower to go through the _Times_ today. I was no mood for reading, which was much too odd for my mind to wrap itself around.  
   
 _That's because it's Rory you want to read_ , it told me instead. I had moved over to the living room ten minutes later and sat down on the couch, discovering Rory's texts, notebooks and tangerine iBook sitting on the coffee table sort of spread out all over. The computer was closed with the schoolbooks stacked on it, while the notebooks were spread throughout the table. I couldn't help but laugh to myself about this; even towards the end of a three-day weekend where all her work was done by Thursday evening so she could focus on the marathon, Rory still had to review, just like I did. I still didn't know where she was, but at least I'd be able to read what she noted for my sixth period Advanced Economics class. She took it in first period, so her notes had a much more fresh feel to them than what I did, using a mix of muddled longhand and lecture audio recorded via an MP3 device I picked up when Daddy brought it home to me as a present from his trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas back in January. I'll write clear when I have to, but usually I write fast and barely dot my I's or cross my T's. The last thing I want to see is some unscrupulous student steal my very specific observations, decode them and post them to a website for all to read. I sipped the cup of tea as I read through what she had noted in first period, memorizing it and sending it to the memory banks in my head.  
   
I did this with all of the classes Rory and I shared, thankful for her permission to look at her notes. I fell in love all over again at the way she could be so specific about things, yet simplify them for the layman at the same time. A complicated formula about why the Mexican peso and Italian lire were so high numerically against the American dollar was reduced to a simple mathematical formula using a pack of gum, a bottle of Coke, and the price of the Apple iPod as good examples to show how the prices worked. It made me realize that she was always one to pay close attention to her work, and that she'll blow away all comers when she goes to Harvard's journalism school. She might want to be an international television correspondent, but I could actually see Rory writing investigative pieces for national magazines and newspapers just as well, maybe even a cushy staff position at the _International Herald-Tribune_ out of Paris. Really, she's that good, I admit it.  
   
It took me about a half hour to read through most of those notes, noshing on my sandwich and tea throughout as I took a blank piece of paper so I could get a basic table of contents so I could combine what I learned from Rory's notes with mine, a compare and contrast if you will.  
   
It was then that I got into the notes for Russian Novels, the class Rory and I loathed with a passion more than Communism. Say what you will about Lenin, but at least he seemed to suck the boring inspiration out of many Russian authors while he ruled and in turn, saved a lot of children throughout the world the need to have to analyze a 1,700 page novel on the Bolshevik Revolution and how it applied to a nuclear family in the Russian state of Evenki (read; not very much at all, they just had to get used to saying president instead of czar, yet it took 300 pages of needless exposition to get this through to the characters). I opened up the notebook and set about seeing if I missed something. _Not very much here at all, she seems to have it covered as little as possible_ , I thought to myself as I paged through the pages upon pages of blank lined paper, unable to find her familiar script on it.  
   
"Oh well, I guess we'll have to study together," I told myself as I gave up towards the back of the book, and prepared to head out of the house to retrieve a pair of sweatpants I kept in the car in case I happened to get a flat tire on the way to a formal party in January. I tossed the light blue notebook back on top of the coffee table and was about to turn away...  
   
When I found out my life was about to change in such a short time.  
   
The notebook hit the table on the side of its spine, and as it fell onto the surface, opened up towards the last page. I was surprised to say the least, and thought I had discovered a new goldmine of more notes that Rory had taken in her spare time. I thought nothing of what the writing on the paper was, so curious, I picked up the notebook again and turned the back cardboard page onto the cover so I could again start to take notes.  
   
What was on that page made the contents look a little cut and dry. The page was divided into two by a darkly scribbled line of lead down the middle, and atop in the title area, pro and con were written in capital print. However, the con side was completely empty, with the pro column filled completely down to the end line. I started reading through these to myself, finding nothing that seemed odd about what was listed. It seemed like it could've come out of _Anna Karenina_ , with there nothing being mentioned except 'She...' starting each line. I went through the listing, trying to recall moments in the book that resembled 'she has so much courage', 'she knows how to have fun when prodded on, 'she looks lovely in a cute dress', 'she has an attitude about not giving up that inspires me so much, and pushes me to improve myself to shine in her eyes', and a lot more than that. I kept reading through this little list, nothing raising a red flag to me.  
   
I paged back one and still didn't find any cons listed, despite the format from the first page being kept for the next two pages. I thought they were academic notes, and though they didn't seem to match up with the attitude Anna kept in the book, it seemed like Rory could connect them to her from what she wrote. Once I reached the middle of page two however, things were starting to match up out of order. I didn't understand why she would write that the character 'was there for me when she didn't have to be, helping me in a low moment,' nor was there an understanding about why Anna Karenina 'gave me a drive home to remember'. _Hold on a moment here_ , I reminded myself, knowing I was correct, _the book was first published as a couple chapters in a national Russian newspaper in 1875. The first practical automobile didn't hit the road until at least twenty years later. Really, this doesn't match up..._ About that time the lure of finding a red correction pencil to correct Rory's notes was starting to bite me pretty hard.  
   
I kept going up and up the list, trying find anything to connect her _Anna_ notes to what she wrote. But how could I when she was writing nonsense like 'her shirt is so warm and soothing', 'she's starting to warm to the idea of becoming closer,' not to mention 'the way my mother is my best friend, she seems to be the same with her nanny. What a great woman she is'.  
   
"Did I miss the non-existent nanny bonding chapter in that book or was I asleep through it?" I grumbled to myself, moving on to page three, where more notes were listed that started with 'she'. She this, she that, shouldn't Rory have said something about Leo Tolstoy himself by now? Her reasons continued on, 'I love the way she rolls her eyes when she's annoyed, and 'that secret smile she has for me drives me crazy'. There seemed to be a pattern developing as I scanned up the page. It still wasn't making much sense to me at all, this talking about a her and a she in such reverence. There was nothing in these notes I could take back home with me, and seemed to be the worst formed comments about a book that I had ever found. I went through the two pages before the third, trying to connect them to literature somehow, anyhow. _Maybe she wasn't talking about Anna Karenina, maybe these are for a chick-lit novel, something Helen Fielding would write._ I sighed, about ready to give up on all these notes and their tangibility.  
   
About then, I turned the page over, and found the page below #3 empty of any notes. There was nothing there at all, and going through the book as I got up and threw the waste materials and bags from lunch into the trash can in the kitchen, I walked back into Rory's room and sat on the bed. I brought my eyes over to the right page and was about to start scanning down the page...  
   
I found my eyes drawing towards the deep black title, scribbled in pencil. The title was like something you'd find in a thesis, or a clinical study of some sort. There was something different about this than the usual or status quo that got my attention.  
   
Namely, that **I** was the subject of the title.  
   
"The Pros and Cons of Romancing Paris Gellar," I read aloud to myself, crossing my legs and not yet realizing the impact of what Rory had titled these notes. I repeated the name, trying to figure out if I was seeing things. Once, twice, three times. The letters didn't change at all, still saying that this was a pro and con list about seducing me.  
   
 _Romancing Paris Gellar, who would be..._ This couldn't be true, that was not what this was titled. This was a pro and con list, plain and simple, something you did along the lines of Harvard vs. Yale, Men vs. Women, Yankees vs. Red Sox, Upper vs. Middle Class. Surely she had not used this common form of comparison to try to construct an argument about how I should be complimented or damned for my behavior. The tilt was supposed to be far from this result, with the cons filling at least seven pages plus, accompanied by scathing criticisms about my attitude. There were not supposed to be only eight reasons for me that didn't endear me to her, one of them being that I need to examine a question being asked longer when it comes to my personal life so that I didn't overreact to said query.  
   
This wasn't me Rory was talking about and listing in such a straightforward form, it couldn't have been...however most of the first page was filled with 'Paris does' this, or 'Paris would' that. As I read through the text below the subject's line, something was starting to spark inside of me, that she was rattling off things.  
   
There were things along the con side, a pen mark crossing out a con that I hated Luke because of my first impression of him. Another scribbled out line told of how I wasn't in love with the town of Stars Hollow, then one more about how she thought I wouldn't accept her invitation to the marathon because she thought it might be beneath me. All those were scribbled out.  
   
It became clear that there were a couple on that con side that were unlikely to change. One involving the roller coaster track our friendship is on. But the other stuck out like a sore thumb.  
   
She thought that if she admitted she liked me, I would reject her and break her heart. That **she** liked me, and **I** would say no.  
   
Let that settle in your thoughts for a moment. The fact I've been thinking about no one else but her for the last four months, and in a smaller way since last year, that I wanted to be more than Rory Gilmore's best friend, but to be her lover. That she was saying she liked me. What reason would I ever find to reject her advances?  
   
Of course she had told me that many times before in a non-interested sense, also that she respected me. But combined with the context of the title, and that sentence...  
   
It was then my eyes drew towards the first column of the pro side of the list. A line that had been changed many times, and was now lurking just below the list title. I could see that the eraser had been used many times there, and the words replacing it were above the line.  
   
At first the sentence had been I _respect_ her. That was scribbled out and replaced with what seemed to used to read _like_ , and that word was erased again, to be replaced with a multi-word entry fit in barely within that word space, _wish I could have_.  
   
Now in my eyes, the sentence took form, what she wanted. The lead was fresh and sharp on the page, denoting that indeed, she had rewritten this line only hours before.  
   
Instead of reading _I respect her_ , the line reads _I want her*._ Naturally the asterisk seemed to tell me a footnote was down below, so I hurriedly scrolled through the text on the lined page.  
   
There, on the bottom in very small print below an entry where she commended my maturity over the hemline issue, I found where the asterisk reference lead down to. My eyes scrolled the entry...  
   
 ***I want her so badly, much more than I ever wanted Dean. I wanted to kiss her last night on the dance floor, and I want to kiss her even more than anyone else I've known in my entire life. I want her to be mine.**

 ****Before that moment, I felt as if everything I had done over the last three months was a futile chase for the love of this girl, this young woman who I thought wouldn't reciprocate these same feelings I held in the time we were friends, ever. This could not possibly be the same Rory who had only in August a love triangle that resembled a soap opera, Jess the rebel and Dean the dependable both yearning for her love as I held a lesbian crush on her that made Bianca Montgomery from _All My Children_ seem like she had absolutely no drama in her life. An infatuation that since the embryonic stages, thought would remain solitary, a fleeting fantasy that would eventually fade away eventually when I found that special guy in my live to make lusting for Rory like my Care Bears fascination back in 1988; a fad, or fleeting lust. It would never be known, I could keep it secret, never reveal that I preferred the fairer sex when it came to falling in love, not to mention that fairer sex had to be 5'7" and brown-haired, with eyes that disorient me because of the way they enchant, a face a mother and anyone else who comes her way can love, and a coffee addiction that made several drug dependencies seem tame and easy to shrug off cold turkey.  
   
 _She wants to be mine. Rory wants me._ The thought was shaking in my mind that she wanted me, and not only that, to press her lips against mine, the basketcase who almost brought her down to her knees sophomore year. The girl who had given me the finest neck massages I could ever know, and the best damned times socially I could ever have. A girl I had shared a shower with, and instead of avoiding the question, admitted that she liked my chest. Rory, who shared a loathing of my own mother and the society she drags along with her. She has fought so much to prove that she can follow my lead step by step, no matter how I might try to throw her off.  
   
I read through the list again, and it read like an exact chronology of each and every careful inch towards moving from respecting me, to just plain want. From that date with Jamie from Princeton in August where she wanted to celebrate with me instead of playing yenta for us, to the entire hemline issue, where I found out she was so serious about saying she liked my legs with her own shallow support of the issue. I moved on into October, where she thought I looked quite hot being muddy and sweat-ridden on the field hockey pitch. Then how she wanted good conversation when we chatted in that shower and I misinterpreted her intentions. How she felt I was mature three days and an overnight later for sucking up my pride and apologizing for what I said, and then again, shared her bed.  
   
Things were coming together as if they were lining up in a shooting gallery. Events over these last few months were turned into a long, slow, tortuous seduction that she knew she was pulling off and not cluing me into. The entries on the pro list kept on turning up the heat, and I was surprised to read of her admitting to her list that my presence in her dream state causes her to have a kind of dream I never associated her with. Not much on specifics, but you could probably take 'When I dream of her, I wake wanting to taste her in my mouth' as far from innocent.  
   
I could tell I was getting into this week once I reached the second-to-last page in the list again. Entries which formerly were muted, instead turned into ways to say that she loved my touch against her leg, how she felt throwing Dean's bracelet into the broad waters of the Connecticut with me as a witness, that 'she was adorable telling me she'd dance with me'. The list went on and on, cons long forgotten and pros leaching across the scribbled middle line because she was running out of room.  
   
My mouth was wide open, my eyes were opened, and my hormones were flaring out of control as I got to the end, freshly written entries about the dance marathon filling the last lines of the notebook, until 'she thinks dancing to _Eternal Flame_ was an excellent way to end the night' ended it all.  
   
 _Oh my God_. That was the only thought it my mind as I shut the book and set it to my side, in utter shock that the signals I had been reading over the last few weeks, brushing aside as just seeing things, were in fact Rory trying to signal her interest in me.  
   
In me, the girl who's so rough and abrasive I could have a sandpaper grit number tattooed on my ass. Why in the world would this blue-eyed beauty, who had all she wanted, the grades, the devotion of the town, not to mention the caveman of a boyfriend, want me as her girlfriend. Why in the first place would she pretty much admit to her pro and con list that she never felt true sparks for men at all?  
   
She's the golden girl of this town; supposed to have the glowing career as CNN correspondent, make the Gilmore bloodline happy, have the 2 beautiful kids named in some variation of Lorelai or a male equivalent, with the perfect husband to go with her long drawn up plans. Meanwhile I'm just here having all sorts of satisfaction and pleasing issues. I want to make everyone happy, not go off track from my own long drawn up plan.  
   
Things were starting to clear up, yet at the same time complicate themselves. How could I face her knowing she wanted me? Why would she want me in the first place, was I a pity case to her?  
   
Judging from the list, pity wasn't even in the cards. Obsession was more the apt term to use for what she wrote in that book. I just sat there numb, my fingers winding against the spine of the notebook, trying to picture what I had been quite vividly in my dreams for the last year.  
   
Rory Gilmore wanted me. Wanted me as more of a friend, but in the way I had been dreaming of every night, leaving damp pillowcases, bed sheets and late night calls from Fran upstairs of 'Are you OK _minha menina_?' in the wake.

Hours before I had spooned into her in my unconscious and reeled back upon finding out that I did, thinking it was something wrong to do. Now I was thinking in my mind, which seemed to be in a mindset usually associated with hurricane planning efforts, that she liked it.  
   
She tried to move in against me on purpose. She would've allowed me to spoon into her. I was huffing in and out, oxygen becoming a precious commodity. I had trouble wrapping my mind around this. This, thing that Rory had for me, that I could never seem to read. None of her gifts from Dean were anywhere to be found at all, the bracelet long gone...  
   
"Tuesday set things in motion," I said to myself, looking at the blue notebook. "Without the sprinklers or Dean's pigheadishness, I wouldn't have been here right now, she wanted me to warm her up. Rory wanted me to take off her bracelet, sort of saying 'I trust you Paris' towards me. She took the initiative towards me when she needed a dance partner and didn't give a second thought towards Jess or the many other guys in town who fawned over her..."  
   
"Par? Have you seen my RN notes, are you up?"

As I tried to analyze my chances with Rory to death, I suddenly heard that sweet voice that made me go weak coming into the kitchen. Apparently she was back from wherever she went and had noticed one of her notebooks had gone missing.  
   
The notebook was in my hand, clutched in a death-grip, the smudges of my fingerprints from running it through the print all over the pages. I gasped in horror, like I was afraid she was going to find out about her dark secret. _She probably doesn't share any actual feelings for you_ , I thought to myself, trying to cover up the lust I had with denial once again.  
   
"Paris?" She called my name again, her voice seeming to sort of strain. I figured I couldn't just escape out the window and flee with her notes, so I got up from the bed and walked out of the room, showing my face to her.  
   
I had the notebook by the end of the spiral, trying to decide whether to let her know I knew about the list. I put on a face of indifference, trying to clue her in that I did not know a thing. I figured she might want to tell me first.  
   
 _If ever_ , my cynical conscience nagged. I came out of the room, to the sight of Rory in that same tank top she wore to bed, only on the bottom, blue jeans trimmed to her slim figure instead of the pajama pants.  
   
Without much aplomb I handed over the notebook and asked where she had been. She told me she had been up after one in order to get a bite to eat and called into Joe's for some subs and food, explaining how the food had appeared on the kitchen table when I got up, also asking the guy from Joe's to pick up those Sunday newspapers.  
   
"When I finished my lunch though, I was still kind of tired, so I wanted to get a couple more hours of rest. But you looked to be so comfortable in my bed alone, I didn't want to disturb you. Instead of crawling back into my bed and waking you up, I slept upstairs in my mom's room for the last two hours."  
   
"Oh, OK." I was happy to hear she hadn't left the house, but kind of distracted. _Oh dear, that exposed belly, why God, why did you have to make her look even more sexy than she usually does?_ Why was I thinking those thoughts about her, I was more intelligent than this. For the love of Pete...  
   
"You OK?" She seemed concerned about my lack of wordplay. I was keeping myself on short sentences; scared I'd say the wrong thing. "I know it was shocking winning the dance marathon, but..."  
   
Somehow after this we sat at the kitchen table, and had a conversation about the dance, and how my feet still seemed sore from the endeavor. I tried not to look at her, but couldn't help it because the soft vanilla perfume she wore the day before was still barely detectable around her neck. Her luscious and slender neck, which was fully exposed for me to take in. We were separated by four feet, so there were no temptations to befall me.

But oh God, still no bra to be found, and the height of the Gilmore kitchen table was lower than most I was familiar with. She made an animated point about what Kirk and Carrie did wrong in their performance, and to tell you the truth, I wasn't listening. My eyes were drawn towards her chest, and as her hands waved around, her breasts seemed to sort of bounce. Not bouncing like an exotic dancer mind you, but with the thinness of those straps holding the barely-there shirt on her, I was imagining that after a couple more sharp movements of her arms up and down, the strap on one of the sides would break from the stitch holding it together, fluttering down and giving me more of a view of Rory than I expected. My thoughts continued to drive towards impureness at a good clip, my eyes wishing the Gilmores spent extra for a glassed-top table so I could get a good look at her legs. Ever since she shunned the hose I can't help but gape at them out of the corner of my eye when I'm driving her home. Not as smooth as mine are, but they still felt good in my hands.  
   
The conversation almost seemed to be an afterthought as I realized as I was doing to Rory with my glances in her direction, she was doing the same to me. I was wearing a big flannel shirt, but it still exposed alot of skin in the front from being unbuttoned. As I said something about Mrs. Kim's unegged sandwiches, her baby blues seemed to cut a laser line down from the bottom of my chin, her mouth opening in amazement as I bent down a bit. She was staring at me so blatantly, but once I noticed the movement of her pupils...She switched right back to booksmart innocent Lorelai Leigh, with not a smutty or lesbianic thought in her body.  
   
It seemed like we were doing a dance once again; only this time we were sitting down and had three feet of an oak-walnut mix separating us. She'd look, I'd look. Occasionally my bared toes would find her ankle and brush up against it, and then within the space of a couple minutes I found one of her feet, nails painted bright red and signifying the legend that underneath that ingénue façade she kept at school there was a bad girl lurking within her, against the bottom portion of my shin. It took all I had not to pray that damned foot would happen to find its way between my legs and end up against the red wine-colored silk of my already dampened panties.  
   
My breath shortened and I felt like my heart would take leave of my chest. I just looked at her with so much want I wanted to throw that table into a corner and show her that I knew what she had in the back of that notebook currently in the center of the table. She had set it right back down and we went right back to talking, so I was wondering why if she needed her notes so bad, she wasn't getting to work.  
   
I was scared to come right out with what I had read in the book, and to let her know that. There was just this nagging feeling in the back of my head that she would take that as an invasion of her privacy and never speak to me again, and I wouldn't want to lose her friendship in that sort of abrupt way. We kept up the nervous chat throughout the remainder of the afternoon as the sunlight in the living room started to fade out and become overtaken with twilight.  
   
We had moved to the living room after I finished my bag of chips, and I had made sure to bring the notebook with me, her attention to it lost. I felt myself shake with each look she directed towards me, and I felt guilty, like I was reading about the dark lesbian-crush holding side that Rory had never shown.  
   
She stretched out across the couch in a laying position as I sat in the chair with my hands having a death grip on the blue notebook. I had never been so scared to bring up something in my life, and I debated with my conscience whether to let her know what I felt. My stomach was somersaulting from the girl two feet away from me, curled up in an afghan and making my mouth dry at how much I could imagine a scene of both of us under that blanket in the future...  
   
I was ready to burst out my feelings for her right then and there. But I didn't need a scared Rory on my hands, God forbid I have a repeat of Dean's first 'I love you' scene where she scurries away from me in shock. _Just ease your way into it Gellar_ , I told myself. _Just think of it as flirting that doesn't end because you don't want to reveal anything_.  
   
"Ror?" I started out. I smiled at her and tried to ease her into a conversation by asking if she was interested in any men lately. This would give me a good clue into her intentions, as I was sure her breakup with Dean wasn't something abrupt.  
   
"Not really, with all these tests and quizzes there's really not much time to find time to date." Considering Rory had strung along Caveman for two years and kept her GPA above four despite, her quote seemed like a bullshit excuse.  
   
"I mean is there any guy out there you've had an inkling about?"  
   
"Nope, not really. Every other girl's fawning over the guys on the football team, but I can't stand them. As for the other boys in Chilton..." she faked a yawn. "Boring seems a proper term to describe them."  
   
"Really, not one guy?" Now I felt I was on the right track. "What about Brad?" Yeah, like she'd want him, but it would cut any tension that was in the questioning.  
   
"With the way Madeline moons over him, she has dibs on him. Besides, he's not really my type by any means."  
   
"So you've noticed the looks she's been giving him?"  
   
"Looks? Par, when we came out of fifth period on Thursday she stumbled over a trash can looking at Brad with googly eyes! Plus have you noticed how many times he passes our lunch table on Maddy's side every day, I'm thinking some brushing of the shoulder with his hand is involved there."  
   
"Uh, not really, to be honest," I answered. Really, Madeline and Brad's dance had gone unnoticed to my eyes, considering Rory's close proximity to myself everyday from 12:10 to 12:45pm at the lunch table. Nothing could take me out of the catatonic state of eating and occasional staring I was in at that time of day, not even if those two unknowing lovebirds took everything off and mated right on the table, I'd probably still be mooning over Rory.  
   
"There was that one boy in Lane's band you told me about yesterday, Dave Rygalski? From the way you describe him he sounds perfect."  
   
"Yeah, for Lane. He's also not my type, I don't usually have a thing for musicians." Again with the mystery surrounding her. "He seems dead set on her anyways, I can tell by the way he's trying to impress Mrs. Kim by playing the Jesus card."  
   
"Impression through religion; sounds like Kim has herself a keeper." We both laughed for a bit, and I asked her again if she was interested in anyone, just to make sure. She nodded vigorously a no to this, but I did notice she seemed a little distracted by something, namely the wide expanse of skin along my neck.  
   
I was starting to get even more butterflies fluttering through my belly than I did when I discovered the list. There was a building sense that I had to tell her, and though I wanted to tell her after about a week of rehearsal of going through the motions, maybe invite her out to dinner, there was no better opportunity then that moment to my mind. It was blunt, usually unforgiving, and took no prisoners as I would suddenly say something to throw a competitor off track.  
   
Leave it to my unbalanced self, with Sharon's chromosomes floating around inside, to just lay everything out on the table.  
   
I called for her attention, and she probably expected me to bring something up like a school subject.  
   
"Rory?"  
   
"Hmm?" She was still cheerful and at ease.  
   
"You know how I said that I wasn't interested in Tristan romantically anymore last night, even if he were to come back?"  
   
A nod. "Yeah, I remember."  
   
"Then did you notice why I didn't really take to Jamie like you thought I would back in Washington?"  
   
Another nod. "Yes, I'm sorry you didn't match up well--"  
   
I interrupted her, and made my way over to the couch, asking her to move over and continuing to hold the notebook. She seemed a little nervous about why I was dragging it along like a teddy bear, and I prepared for the worst.  
   
"Well, there's sort of a reason those things didn't end up working out in the end, especially with Jamie." My mouth was drying as I watched Rory and her body language start to tighten, which took me out of the element of the conversation.  
   
I remember thinking there that I couldn't do it, admit that I was the way I was. I looked into Rory's eyes, nervous about what to say. So many parts of me were telling me to back out of this and just lie through my teeth. The portion of myself against this was already formulating something involving a kissing booth at the Winter Formal with both of us as the paid prostitutes...ahem, receivers of $1 kisses for the entire night, hopeful I'd find a spark with one of the guys in Chilton.  
   
No matter what I tried to think though, I couldn't lie to Rory. There was no way in hell I was going to keep the fact that I feel electricity, not just mere sparks, when she's near. Another reasoning is that even if it's just a hand to her hand, my day isn't complete with at least one instance where we touch each other. In years and years with Tristan I never felt anything close to wanting to touch him to fill a void.  
   
Once I'd admit to her, she wouldn't be just an innocent girl I lusted after. She would know that I was interested in her, and she could construe the reading of my notes as an invasion of her privacy. It might be just a phase to her even if I did admit and within days she'd be pining for a new boy coming into Chilton, just like those twists that happen in teen dramas all the time...  
   
Lo and behold, the boy would take her away from me and I'd be forced to relive the images of Rory kissing someone other than me. If Unknown New Guy got her, I wouldn't have her, and that next relationship she might have just might be the one where she decides it's time to truly rid herself of the Mary label she's held since her first day.  
   
 _You could be that one Paris_. There was that same voice who challenged me in screaming my like for her aloud in the bathroom the day before, just as Ms. LaCosta came into the room. _She thinks of you as a challenge, and if you were to share this want for her, that might set up more possibilities. You know you use the small bits of anger she displays as a guide to her emotions, and that part of her along with the innocent tease...you wouldn't keep your hands off her.  
_    
My face started flushing red, it was always tough imagining a wanting Rory when she was right in front of me, looking at me wide-eyed and asking me what was wrong for not saying more.  
   
She took my hand, threading her fingers between mine and telling me that whatever was on my mind, I could tell her.

I sucked all the willpower I could, took a deep breath and spread it through my lungs, and just went full tilt after putting on a strong face betraying my emotions.  
   
"I need you to keep this in complete confidence Gilmore," I told her, sternly. "I've only trusted this to Fran so far, and she's kept what I have to tell you to herself for so long I'm surprised she's been this resilient. If you do find yourself uncomfortable with this, please just go to your room without any vocalized judgment, I'll leave quietly."  
   
A pause, then a soft OK from her. I had already thought about this long enough, and with her hand in mine, I didn't want to essay my coming out, summarizing it like a review from _People_ seemed to be the best course of action. Another deep breath, and here it went...  
   
"I, I...uhh, well you see..." So much for copying Ellen's simple declaration that 'Yep, I'm gay', because those words weren't coming. I found myself iced and not able to spit it out, afraid of the impact of the words on the girl in front of me. It seemed like I'd never be able to say it, and I'd fall back on the 'set me up with a guy excuse'.  
   
In the paralyzed state I fell into however, what I couldn't say with my words, could easily be vocalized with my body. I found my other hand taking Rory's free one, and her concentration seemed shaken. She was putting on the same strong front as I was, and inching a little closer to me on the sofa.  
   
"Whatever it is, it's OK," she said with a soothing voice, her jeaned leg almost seeming to press up against my bare one. She released her grip on one of my hands, and started moving it up my arm, leaving goosebumps in the wake. I saw something in her eyes I had only seen precious few times within.  
   
Determination.  
   
Her hand moved up and up the flannel of the shirt, but to me it seemed like a layer of heavy cotton wasn't between her fingers and my skin. She seemed to suck her lips back into her mouth, and though my eyes were concentrating on those deep blues of hers, I could feel all my senses going off.  
   
Her soft, angelic face wasn't like it ever had been before, so close to mine as that hand brushed against my shoulder. Her eyes were moving closer and closer towards mine, and I couldn't help but feel a shudder.  
   
I weakly tried to ask what her motives were with a strained out "Rory?", and felt like my brain state was reverting back to infancy as I lost all thought. Her index finger in my hand ran against the curve of my lifeline. I looked down, the intimacy of the gesture becoming clear as I clung to the blue book as if she would find out about what I was going to tell her involving my sexuality.  
   
My fear was unfounded as the distance between us, which seemed to have been inches, turned into centimeters. Rory was so close to me that I could smell a sweet mix of that same Aqua Fresh she always brushed with, combined with the taste of a toffee vanilla cup of coffee.  
   
One last chance to vocalize, let this blue-eyed, small town girl know that I'm interested...  
   
"Um, never mind actually." I thought I was confessing, but I was freezing up on her instead as I didn't tell her a thing. I was looking at her with all the reverence I could muster, and instead of stating that simple two or three word declaration, I was shying away, turning myself stone cold once again.  
   
I expected Rory to back off, move onto awkward banter revolving around the topic 'So how 'bout those Blue Demons?'. Not like I know how they were doing, I was too focused Friday night on preparing to wow Rory to the dance marathon title rather than chilling my fingers off in the bleachers of Archauer Stadium hoping the football team would get into the CIAC playoffs and keep circ numbers up for the next two weeks.  
   
I didn't look at her, staring down at my hands like a little girl lost. I knew how Rory felt, and how I felt for her, but she probably would consider the relationship an experiment instead of taking it seriously. She was her mother's daughter after all, and said mother bounces between so many guys in a year you can tell she still hasn't found that _a única_ in the 18 years since she was sixteen.  
   
She kept her hand in mine however, and said my name to bring my attention back towards her. Rory was in no mood to have me back off, and made that clear with her firm tone of voice.  
   
"Paris, no." I brought my gaze up towards her, and found her eyes take on that stern unflinching look that was but second nature to me. "If it's serious enough that you'd want to keep it secret from everyone else, I want to know. I promise I won't tell anybody, because that's what friends do."  
   
 _But this friend is about to shatter your entire view of her_ , I mused to myself with my heart picking up its rhythm. I remained stubborn and told her it was something small that didn't need to be microanalyzed.  
   
"I don't care if you're about to tell me you slept with Jamie and you're pregnant with his child, I want to know what's bothering you!" She was still firm, and what she said just about shocked me.  
   
I flared red and immediately denied that I wouldn't have bedded that boring dullard if I was _Indecent Proposal_ 'ed by him with a large cash payment involving a suitcase to do so.  
   
"Well thank God for that." She kind of smirked at me, running that finger through my lifeline. I felt my forehead coat with a layer of perspiration and my face flush. Everything wanted me to yell that I was a lesbian, but I didn't want to. My heart needed to remain shielded from the eventual torrent of vitriol that was sure to come from her if I admitted my feelings. "You know me though, whatever it is I'm a lousy gossip, so I won't spread this through the school, promise."  
   
It was then explained to her that she would never understand my confession, and that it was too wrenching to let out. I couldn't let her know that I wanted her hopes and wishes in that notebook to come true because that would be weak.  
   
"You don't think I'd understand?" Rory's voice picked up a little. "You don't think that I would ever understand your little problem. For crissakes Paris, I've lived a life that I would love to give you myself, yet I'd love to be able to edit out certain parts, like the first three years where my mother, fresh out of her sophomore year at Hillside was shamed out of Hartford and the lives of my grandparents because she didn't take the trip to Planned Parenthood like all good little pregnant Hartford upper-crust teenage girls do!"  
   
She stood up, and in a way that made me want to keep notes on how she'd ad-lib in a debate, continued. "You know what my first address after I turned one was? There wasn't one because my mom raised me until after my terrible twos in a garden shed at the Inn, next to the pond! It was heated, it had a TV, a bed, a couch, and a bassinet, but not much else. Then we went from apartment to apartment over the next seven years in and around Stars Hollow, as Lorelai worked 14 hour days at the Independence trying to earn just enough so we could buy this nice house in a nice neighborhood and I wouldn't have to ever worry again about having to explain to my few friends why I lived upstairs from a bookstore! Those friends abandoned me once junior high started once they learned in sex ed that teenage pregnancy was something to be ashamed of, and that despite my mother getting her own house at the age of 27, she wasn't to be looked at as a good role model. That when I learned that Lane was a true friend and would never, ever judge me for what I am and what I've come from. I had no friends except her though seventh until tenth grades, you know how that felt?"  
   
Oh God, I was making her break down; this wasn't a Rory I was familiar with, being human and infallible. "One of the reasons I kept putting in an application for Chilton year after year was that everyone at Hollow Jr. High and the high school always made me feel that no matter what I did, no matter how much I kept my grades up, I wasn't to be spoken to, I was the child of shame. Yeah, the older people in this town I grew up around think I'm the best thing to ever happen to this hamlet, but the schools here are as cutthroat, if not more, than Chilton ever could be, kids are so ass-backwards in this town when it comes to tolerance. So I did the schoolwork as hard as I could, poured my energy into everything, kept myself up through their taunts, just so I could have a shot at going to your school. And when I was able to attain it, I was relieved, so damned happy I could escape that school and stop being so shy and withdrawn. But when my mom learned she'd never had enough for tuition, she went kicking and screaming back to her parents, desperate for any help. I wouldn't want to have to ever be in her shoes, hoping for the best and the least contact possible with those two whose wishes she defied for so long."  
   
She slid back onto the couch and held my hand tight, continuing to vent, and I was powerless to stop her. She poured out two years of frustration of who I was and how she's been trying to figure out how I can have such a kind heart at some times, but most of the times act like such an iron bitch to her and everyone else. She told me it was fine to do it to fellow Chiltonians; they were just as bad, if not worse than those in Stars Hollow towards her. She kept asking about why I'm so vexing when it comes to our friendship. God, just seeing Rory in this condition was wearing on me. I understood Rory the Scholar, Rory the Golden Child just fine. But as I know too well, it's hard keeping up a façade for such a long period of time, and there was still facets of her that not even her mother, and in turn best friend, has no idea about.  
   
"You don't know how much I hold in at times Paris," Rory said to me as our eyes met again. "When I broke up with Dean on Tuesday night, there was so much I wanted to say and call him on, he was never the right one for me. I mean I kept this thing up for two years that we had, and I did love him for a time. But really, since the play a year ago, I stayed with him more out of the necessity of saying 'I have a boyfriend' rather than being unhitched." She crimped her forehead and seemed frustrated as she inhaled and exhaled deeply for a bit. "I never, ever took a risk with him, and my mind kept trying to think of ways to say I want more from Dean. I just could never feel comfortable around him and his life, and to be honest, I never could picture lasting through college with that guy when I couldn't even think about him watching me from the spectator's section at graduation."  
   
Her hand wrapped around mine tighter as I tried to reassure her that things would work out, and holding my tongue, told her that she'd find Mr. Right eventually.  
   
I thought the talk would move on to droller subjects after I said that, and that we'd move on from the topic not brought up yet about my sexual orientation.  
   
Well color me pink and call me Piggly Wiggly, because that wasn't how things ended up at all. She looked up at me, eyes wide, as her other hand moved towards the one I was using to hold the notebook. There was that determined look on her face, along with a bit of caution in her features and tightened body language.  
   
Rory spoke softly, trying to slowly bring back up the discussion.  
   
"I understand there's probably a Mr. Right for me out there somewhere, and at Chilton, a Mr. Right Now." A smile and a laugh for both of us for the nervous joke. "The problem is..." She took the notebook from my somewhat loosened grip, set it in her lap, then took my left arm by the wrist. "What if wanted a **Miss** Right?"  
   
 _She didn't say that to me, did she?_ That was my reaction as I found myself strangely surrounded by her words.  
   
"A Miss Right?" I repeated for her, numbed.  
   
"Yes, a Miss Right," Rory parroted back. "Over the last few months, I have fallen out of love with Dean, but at the same time, found myself in a strange predicament where my dreams revolved around another woman rather than him. After a few more of those, and trying to compare and contrast this seemingly unnatural feeling, I connected the dots, crossed the T's, and weighed all the evidence of my relationship with Dean with that of my past encounters with guys. Looking at all that, I realized there was no spark to Dean and I, and in turn I never found myself drawn to boys in general."  
   
Trying to stay in denial mode that I was that 'another woman', I tried to keep the debate strong. "But Jess, you were interested in him for awhile, I mean you skipped school that one day to be in Manhattan just to see him after the accident."  
   
"There was lust there Par, but never love. When I kissed him at the wedding, there was nothing there, no urge to go further than that. He's more than a friend to me, but just in the male best friend sense. There's too much there with him to deal with and I'm not going to pursue a relationship with him just because I had a couple of sex dreams with him."  
   
I was nervous as I asked her to confirm her sexuality, with her hand still in mine, and making me anxious and jumpy as all get out.  
   
"Well, that's the problem. I think I am...that, but maybe I can still find a spark with a guy." She flailed her other hand out and widened her eyes. "What if it's just a phase, and I'm just thinking this way because I figure I can't keep a boy in my life, so why don't I rope in a girl and see how that goes. I mean I haven't shared this with anybody, and I'm scared as hell because I'm expected to be the pride of Stars Hollow and make 'em proud. The older people in this town revere me, and what happens if I let them know that they'll have to lock up their daughters instead of their sons, and I'm not this supposedly innocent girl, because I have so many corrupted thoughts floating around in my head, and oh God..."  
   
She was starting to go on a babbling track that was starting to make her seem unhinged, and I was saddened to see that my refusal to let her know my secret was doing this to her. In this blur was the fact that she was saying she was gay herself. My mouth was drying and words weren't coming out because I didn't have any idea how to tell her that I was in the same predicament, at least the way she was. Her hand seemed to be permanently bonded to mine, and I saw her start to cry.  
   
 _I don't want to see her sad_ , I thought to myself. My heart was breaking for her; only hours before we were celebrating a well-earned victory. Now we were both on that couch, in the same boat, with about 95% confirmation on my end that it was me she had been thinking about me in those dreams she was having. It was that other 5%, the worry that she was thinking of another girl altogether that was getting to me.  
   
It was time to get blunt and stop letting emotions cloud things up. I felt the beating of her heart in her wrist, like Rory was running on adrenaline. My throat tightened as I said her name and she brought her attention back up, wiping the tears from her eyes with her fingers.  
   
"Yeah?"  
   
"These dreams you mentioned..." My voice wavered, but somehow stayed on track. "Was I that other woman? Have you been uh, thinking of me in more the terms of a lover than just a good friend?"  
   
There, it was all out on the table for her to analyze. I was putting my heart in the pot and hoping that the gamble would be worth it. She looked into my eyes for a moment, trying to gather a smile, but failing to as she expected the worst from me. She sort of blushed and then bit her lip as her voice took on a soft timbre.  
   
"Paris," she told me. "You've been carrying around the RN notebook for the last forty-five minutes. I know your mind and how it ticks, your curiosity is something I like about you." She then let me know she put it on the bottom on purpose and hoped that I'd look at it. "I started that list all the way back in the beginning of October, and it's far outpaced what I've ever liked about Dean. I kept denying and denying my feelings, and I started feeling this way heavily when we shared the Howard dorm through the summer. But it first took root so long ago last year in a very small way..." Rory wandered off, and I was left in a stunned state.  
   
She had just told me that she was thinking about me in a way unlike what I thought she did for at least a year. That I had been reading her feelings perfectly for the last three months, was starting to bring me into a euphoria I could've never believed I was feeling.  
   
I kept putting the words 'Rory' and 'gay' together in so many ways in my mind as I felt my heart pound. I had many pictures of how I'd come out in my mind, and some of her doing the same thing, but this situation, this reality was so much different. This was us, the comfortable blank silences, our minds filling those blanks with opinions and hope. This wasn't something that could be rehearsed, because it was so raw and from the heart.  
   
My eyes locked with hers one more time, and I felt so many conflicting feelings float through. Do I tell her and go through with it, letting her know that I feel the same? Or do I brush off her interest with a 'no thank you', remaining in my own personal hell having to watch love pass me by once again and hope there's another Rory Gilmore out there for me?  
   
But there wasn't a chance I'd ever find her mind twin anywhere in this world. The nervous mannerisms, unique coffee addiction, tendency to ramble, along with her unique model-like looks in that body, I knew I'd never find such a combination of wit and beauty anywhere else, excepting 132 Cherry Lane in Stars Hollow, Connecticut.  
   
My mind set things right before I could relent. _You're not going to turn this down, right? I know you're a little afraid of things right now, like reactions and getting used to calling Rory 'honey' instead of 'bane of my existence', but this is so right, you know it. Just look at her right now, those eyes raking you up and down like she wants nothing but your lips on hers. Then take a look at what you're doing, between all these moves to keep it all in, almost drooling mentally at her attire and body.  
_    
Which was true, I still was looking at her with lust through her confession. That Rory was willing to take my heart and explained things so rationally, gave me much more reason to fall for her. She wasn't just in it for the curiosity; she actually thought of me as in tune with her, understanding how she ticked.  
   
"So," she mumbled out, again looking down at her hands. "Never tell me I'd never know how it feels to be you. I want to know what you wanted to tell me, and even if it's something negative, I'll see it through your viewpoint. This is a give and take friendship we have Par, and I just gave the confession that I think of you as more than a friend. I just hope you don't shut me out now that I said that."  
   
More tears and sobbing from her after that, I couldn't handle seeing Rory like this. I had to admit what I felt for her to keep any more pain from befalling her.  
   
"Ror," I said calmly. She looked up as I brought my hand out of hers and moved it across the bare freckled skin of her arm. She looked at me with what seemed to be a mix of loss, hope, innocence and lust, her blue eyes widened at my touch, mouth parted open.  
   
We were at the line, ready to breach it with my next words.  
   
"You just knocked me over with a anvil, because since last year," I paused to wet my throat with a sip of tea. "I've felt the same way for you. Rory, I like you, in that romantic sense."  
   
I felt Rory stiffen immediately, sort of in shock and going into Willow Rosenberg mode, where speech was slow to come and much stuttering ensued. "R-r-really? You, uh, do like me err, like that?"  
   
That caused me to laugh, and I let her know that I had read every page of that pro and con list, surprised as hell, yet elated, like I'd received a G4 Mac with a 30" monitor and 60GB iPod for a Hanukkah gift from my father, that this was the best news I had ever read.  
   
It was time to confess; yet I wanted to keep some things secret so we could have talking points later, so I didn't let her know the first hints of the crush came at the Bangles concert or a few other things. I told her how much being the emergency Romeo had affected me, and that there were so many times I wanted to admit but events in both of our lives interfered. I told her how I never even considered anyone else to be my VP and that the summer in Washington to me was meant to find out if I could handle living with her day in and day out, and in turn that she might. I found it to be a success, and she told me the affirmative, though letting me know that sometimes the sleep talking was a little odd but in an endearing way.  
   
When I got to the night where I went out with Jamie from Princeton, I let her know that I had no desire of continuing the relationship from the moment we greeted each other, that I was thinking of her the whole night and had the sense I was cheating on her despite no vocalization of our feelings. Rory tried to assure me that she thought she was doing the right thing, but I couldn't be mad at her for the setup. I took it as a last gasp at falling for a boy, and the results of the experiment; a dismal failure. She then told me she felt so alone that night, unable to think of anything else while she kept her like for me hidden and tried to use the setup and ensuing date to gag her feelings for another girl.  
   
I admitted to being pleased with her wardrobe modification after the hemline issue passed and that I enjoy every brush, touch and sly move to get my attention, and I want more, much more than that.  
   
"When I'm around you, I can't handle myself, academics are second to you," I implored her. "The moment I hung up the phone Tuesday morning, I went from 'I can't wait to tackle that AE test', to 'I can't wait to see Rory'. That's what you do to me Gilmore, and though I try to push away, you've done all you could to show that you'll pull me back in. I like your tenacity and your courage to pursue this further, and this morning when we won..." I wandered off again as she moved closer to me, her hand resting on my thigh. My breath seemed to quickened, but I continued on anyways "When we won, there was a sense of accomplishment that even with all our issues, we can come together and go through something that in the minds of others, might seem amateur. I felt good last night winning, and I loved it even more that I won with you at my side."  
   
Everything seemed to come together after that. Rory and I became comfortable with the idea that we were attracted to each other as we talked on and on about things such as the field hockey match and the boat trip in Baltimore where she said she may have admitted had Jamie not arrived on the scene.  
   
When she said that, I thought about how I may have reacted then. Probably because of how public it was, it would've been ugly because we really didn't know each other in the way we've been for the last three months. Sure, I would've been happy, but back in July we would have acted on lust instead of an actual foundation for a relationship. There was no bedrock there; the bond we shared was still tenuous, like the cinder block anchors of a mobile home in the eye of a hurricane. We **had** to know each other more, become comfortable with inching out of our comfort zones before Rory and I could even start thinking of a relationship.  
   
I know it in my heart; a relationship in Washington would've been a catastrophe, an experiment gone wrong. No matter what storybook allusions I held in those eight weeks, admission of my feelings at the foot of the Jefferson Memorial or hers on the Inner Harbor ferry would have ended up in disaster. She was still with Dean; I was still undecided on my feelings.  
   
And that left another question on the tip of my tongue. Did she break up with him, for me?  
   
Simple question asked, simple answer said. With a small smile, she confirmed a suspicion that I had been thinking of since she asked me to the marathon.  
   
"The opportunity presented itself at the diner, and before I could talk myself out of it with my usually large guilt complex, I broke up with him. I didn't even plan to ask you to the dance marathon before then, but once I got home, things started to fall into place."  
   
I smiled back at her. "Just to make sure of one more thing. The sprinklers, that was totally unplanned, I mean that wasn't part of you trying to tease me more, right?"  
   
She shook her head no and grinned. "That, my friend, was a happy accident." We were unconsciously moving closer to each other, and both feeling like the tension that had wound around the conversation was gone. I was feeling sort of flirtatious, so I decided to correct her.  
   
"Don't you mean girlfriend?" I said, curling my finger across the pulse point of her neck. We were both smiling like those sappy couples you see in TV commercials, and I felt that way. She took it a little seriously, as she should, but still was playful.  
   
"Is that what you want Par?" She was smiling at me, and though usually I'd analyze a life decision like that until I was blue in the face, remembering that first entry in the pro/con list, there wasn't any need for second-guessing.  
   
 _I want her_ , the list said in her cursive.  
   
 _I want her_ , my mind was telling me, Mother, my fellow students, friends and family be damned.  
   
I told her that yes, I wanted things to be that way.  
   
"You're sure?" she cautioned. "Because once you and I pursue this, nothing is going to be the same again. I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into by getting into a relationship like this."  
   
Rory had a valid point; I had to make sure that this is what I wanted. I wasn't just, as with a guy dipping a toe in the water and running far if things didn't work out. This was my friend--no, my best friend that I was pursuing. As she said in her notes there's a chance I could break her heart or fall for someone else, male or female if things didn't work out between us. Combine that with the volatile past we had, then what happens if one of us finds some jealousy issues and tries to make too much out of it. We'll fight, and the next time it might not be with anything but wordplay.  
   
I looked at her for what would later be the last time as just my 'friend'. Her hand was intertwined between my fingers, and her face was about 8" away from mine, her lips glistening in the sunlight filtering in from the windows. Her eyes were opened wide, and when I brought my gaze down, her chest was looking very delectable to me. She was curled up in the corner of the couch as if she was ready to read a good book. That is, if she held one; the only thing she was reading with her eyes was the realization that things were changing between us, and that I wanted to be a willing participant.  
   
 _Go for it_ , my conscience implored. _You want to show Sharon that you can face up to a challenge; this is a high five on the difficulty scale! Sure, you like her, but to keep a relationship with a former enemy so long, you're going to need more than luck to get this right.  
   
_I brought my free hand up to her face, finding a couple of stray hairs hovering above her eyes that bugged a little. I used my fingertips to brush sensually against her cheek, and then started to descend towards her in expectation.  
   
"100% sure of this Ror. If you knew how I thought about you over the last few months, you might faint from an overload." I smiled at her and her face lit up like a fully lit set of menorah candles, eyes widened and following that hand on her face from below her cheek and towards her right.  
   
"Well, uh..." distraction again was working in my favor, fragmenting her words. "I bet my dreams match up pretty well, considering all of what I told you and how it affected me." That elicited a laugh from me, and I was curious a little bit, I felt my face flare up in embarrassment.  
   
"What am I like in these dreams?" Unconsciously, I didn't even know that Rory was moving closer to me and coming out of her little hovel on the couch as I slid further down the sofa from her.  
   
"The usual," she told me, the sensuality no longer covered up as it had before by nervous hiding. "You're dominant, assertive, very territorial..." I was jarred by the left arm of the sofa hitting my upper back. Strange how Rory is somewhat the same in my dreams, but in a more soft approach than I thought I was in hers. "However, you're still very sweet, concerned and dare I might add..." she brought down her voice to a soft whisper and her arms started to wrap around my back. "...cute."  
   
 _Stop making me blush, stop making me blush..._ Pleas to myself to keep things calm weren't working well and I started to feel like such a sap. I told Rory that I don't do cute, never have, and never will.  
   
"You are right now though, and I'm not afraid to see it. Yesterday you looked cute; two days before you also looked cute, and right now you're too cute for any words." The way Rory was looking at me; like a very tender steak. I started feeling warm and on edge, as if any sudden movements would bring us into a passionate embrace of my doing.  
   
"Thanks, I guess." Her mouth was now mere inches from mine, and my breathing reflex seemed to lose its ability to combine the task of speaking with bringing oxygen to my lungs. "You're the same, always. I might even, uh, fathom to say..." Another stilted deep breath. "...you look hot right now Rory." God, look at me there, talking like I was describing the cute lead singer of the next great band. That is if that singer happened to resemble Sheryl Crow. See, even shallow with my secret crushes on women here!  
   
"Hot?" She questioned with a uncharacteristic smirk. "I'll take that as a compliment then, along with perhaps--"  
   
She started closing that distance between us, the countdown in my head down to single-digit inches. _Six inches, five inches, four..._ My mind seemed to turn off and the only thing keeping me from flatlining into a coma was my hormones.  
   
"Yeah," I barely gasped out as my hands nested within her hair. "That would be nice."  
   
 _...Three to get ready, two for the show, one last chance to close your heart._ Rory's hand touched my cheek; I did the same for her. Her blue eyes sparkled in my gaze, and she must have thought my pupils were crackling with a fire not even Tristan could start.  
   
"It would be nice," was the last thing she said before the inch became fractions, those fractions became smaller fractions, then decimal points going from tenths to hundredths to thousandths, all the way down to millionths as my year-long pursuit to make her know that I wanted her ended.  
   
0.00" is equal to Rory kissing me, and though I could describe it in droll and completely silent terms, I'm going to be girly here and say that, wow, it took my breath away. It was a soft kiss, something that started fairly benign. Being the unprepared portion of the couple I just went with what she wanted, her soft lips against mine and trying to imitate what she was initiating with me.  
   
Within moments however, that shy and reserved girl that usually defines Rory seemed to drift from her body, and she started gripping at the side of my neck, wanting to heat up the kiss. I also did the same on my end and tried to keep up with her, afraid somehow that I was going to fuck it up. There was nothing to fear though; as her actions with her mouth indicated that she wanted more than just 'smack-smack' pecks. I easily agreed to her wishes and it didn't take long for those soft pecks ended up long, insistent open-mouthed kisses.  
   
Mind you I wasn't ready to bring it up to frenching, and Rory's body language indicated she wasn't either. This was us proving how we wanted this relationship to start. We couldn't go into this with 100% lust, we still had to have our wits about and make sure that one or the other wanted this or that. Though it took me a bit, I finally recalled the advice I had read on a website that I wrote in shorthand onto an index card for that date with Tristan about how to kiss goodnight. I used that, and though for a different purpose, as in saying hello to my girlfriend named Rory, it seemed to work. I found my head against the armrest of the sofa, Rory above me and her legs across mine, doing well to stay out of a sexual position.  
   
We said barely anything through this first kiss; just enough to say whether we liked what we were doing to each other or not. I was more focused on things going haywire with my senses. I could smell nothing but Rory and her light flowery body wash scent mixed with faded vanilla, and heard nothing but the insistent pounding of my pulse in my ears, along with the sounds of kissing and our shifts on the couch. She was still kissing me with vigor, and I was starting to reciprocate with all the passion I've had in reserve for so long.  
   
My hands in her hair, keeping her soothed, I just kept myself on her lips, trying to keep this thing between us heated up. Our noses touched a couple times, and everything about this situation, it seemed right.  
   
After months of want, weeks of sly flirting, days of want, hours of close contact, and minutes of desire, things had finally come to a head, with the result being both of us having this kiss on her couch. Never in my dreams could I have thought this moment would end up this way.  
   
I was surprised with how aggressive Rory was since I expected her to be sort of vanilla and plain when it came to passion. She was far from that, giving me some teasing hints of what to expect from a relationship with the occasional lip-nip and her body weight atop of mine. It was wonderful, some of it was so dizzying I forget details, and I felt like I would lose all my breath; whatever kisses she ever gave Dean, they had very little passion compared to this one.  
   
I felt myself beyond aroused, trying to be careful that she didn't sense my nerves and the fact my legs were tightly crossed. I panted for breath with each chance I got, Rory's arms wrapped around my back, seemingly not ready to let me go. I felt so underdressed, for only the shirt was in the way. My face was flushed to a dark crimson and my lips were numb from the kiss, I couldn't dare imagine what would happen if the kiss continued on from what it was. Rory's legs were a little too close for comfort, and feeling her chest against mine, though I would have loved to heat up the kiss, she needed a slow build-up. I wasn't just going to leap into bed with her, and she was probably thinking the same thing towards me.  
   
So with more hesitation than I had turning in my Harvard application, I pushed her back gently. I made sure to smile, reassuring Rory that her courageous move to be the one to initiate was for the best. She pushed over to the other side of the sofa, our gazes never retreating as I looked over the results of my side of the kiss.  
   
Her hair was sort of disheveled from my fingers' tendency to have something to do since I'm a rabid multi-tasker even in the throes of passion, and her face was a dark pink, dampened from perspiration dripping down her forehead caused by our closeness. She was just sitting there, smiling and breathing heavily, and all I could think to myself was, _I did this, I caused her to lose her bearings_. I smiled, still nervous and sort of on edge. My longtime dream had just come true, and I didn't want to ruin it.  
   
Despite the fact I seemed to get everything out, there were still a rabble of butterflies floating around my belly. _Did I do it right?_ was the question to myself as I tried to gauge Rory's reaction to that first kiss. I analyzed it in my head, the timing, technique, whether I should've done a flick of my tongue against my teeth in or to tease her a little, also whether I tasted fine, because the mint of the tea may have been a little overpowering.  
   
"That, that was really nice." All the thinking in the world couldn't stop that first reaction from coming out of my mouth, in a nervous stammer. "Geeze Gilmore, that was, wow--" From there I started a ramble that would make me feel right at home over at the Institute of Living. Looking back at my reaction, I really need to improve not only my kissing description skills, but also my conversational skills in general. I was flighty and prone to getting off-point, asking her things such as if I kissed too wet or had too much pressure against her lips, even if my nose was too big to nuzzle.  
   
"Paris, calm down." She set her hand in mine. "I liked the kiss, and the way you kiss, it was just right, and because it was you, it felt nice." She looked at me in a way that was reassuring, and sided closer to me. "As long as you won't start talking to me using index cards from now on, things are starting off pretty well."  
   
I had to laugh at that; only I would go into a date armed with more questions than Art Fleming and Allen Ludden combined together. "So I was...fine? I didn't seem like an amateur when I kissed, because you know, Dean and you together, you got pretty heated at times--"  
   
Before I could get out another word, she interrupted me. "Never as heated as **that**. Trust me, you're a good kisser, I should be recovering from that for days." She gave me that smile that weakens my defenses and I couldn't help but agree internally.  
   
However I was feeling my inner vixen come out to play, and I was a willing participant. So I slid one of my hands across her face, and put on the most seductive smile I could imagine.  
   
"Actually," I let her know, using a soft and seductive, yet firm treble to lure her in. "I could hypothesize that the kiss was good. However Gilmore, I'd just like to make sure this isn't a fluke and that it was a pretty nice kiss."  
   
I shifted closer to her on the couch as my index finger traced the extent of the hairline on the back of her neck. A sensitive spot I was thinking since the scalp seems to have plenty of nerve endings to give her more funny feelings in the pit of her stomach, not to mention make Rory feel like her gray matter dripped out of her ear from the elicited feelings.  
   
I heard her moan just a bit, then bring up her composure again as she noticed I was watching her. I came closer and closer as she slitted her eyes and puckered her lips together.  
   
"Mm-hmm, the results of the first kiss were inconclusive." Rory's blues met my browns, and she was giving me that secret 'I like you smile' one more time. "We need to conduct some further testing in a closed lab environment, like this living room, for instance." Her words elicited a very uncharacteristic laugh from me before I moved in for the kill, telling her we'd be one of the oddest gay couples in history with the way we flirted.  
   
"I guess that means I'm Oscar then? You're the one who's always organized while my locker's a mess--" I cut her off with a quick peck on her lower lip, and decided to give her a taste of her own medicine.  
   
"I hate to say this Gilmore, but you better let your mouth get occupied with something else." We kissed again, and she moaned into my mouth as I did a little nipping motion with my teeth on her lower lip. "And don't call me Felix, 'cause the older men? They just plain creep me out, if I ever get it in my head to date one, you may shoot me at four paces." I then kissed Rory Gilmore breathless with all I had, leaving her speechless but for a forced out 'duly noted' in-between breaths. I could tell when her eyes closed shut and she tried to shuffle back away from my body things were really starting to come together for the both of us.  


* * *

The rest of the day was happily uneventful, and though we finally had to separate off the couch after about an hour of slow meandering conversation about what this was going to do for everyone that we knew (and OK, maybe a little more kissing), Rory and I were far from in a panic. There was a certain calmness about her as she let me know that she thought long and hard about the reaction people would have to all of this. Everything on both our ends had seemed to come together to form this thing we have. My sly physical flirting and her using the English language and events to shift the momentum this way like the field hockey unit and the dance marathon, along with our conversations that seemed to take a more soft tone over the last few weeks, everything had come together almost perfectly. Some things were unplanned (Dean being let go and the fight in the conference room), but all these events, they had solidified our bond and were helping to spark this relationship that I never thought would be possible at this rate.  
   
Time ended up passing way too fast, and before I could fathom it, 2½ hours had passed, and I had received a phone call from Francisca wondering where I was since she was a little worried. I took it in the kitchen and with Rory watching explained that I had caught a nap at Rory's and there was more to the story, but I'd have to tell her later. I smiled, finally able to not look one way or another to make sure Rory didn't hear anything that would prejudice her. I swear since those kisses happened we never took our eyes each other through the afternoon, but for trips to the bathroom and my changing into a pair of sweatpants I had in my car since the temperature was in the low 40s and there was a small threat of flurries in the evening.

After assuring Fran I'd be home soon, I ended the call and looked at Rory with an apologetic look.  
   
"It's uh, 6:50," I told her, trying to justify the time. "I'd better get home, because I have some spare editing work for the _Franklin_ I put off for the weekend." I played with the cuff on my buttoned flannel, looking nervous to Rory, and both of us were in a mood where separation was the last thing we wanted to happen. We were in the slow burn, honeymoon phase and I wanted to find out more about how Rory came to the conclusion she wanted me. However, there's plenty of time for that in the days and weeks to come; it's not as if we were at the end of _Casablanca_ and I had to take off for points unknown.  
   
"Yeah, I have about an hour before my mom comes home, the house could stand for a clean-up." Rory smiled as we both looked around the living room at what five days alone had done to this household. Pizza boxes and takeout bags piled in a corner, some of the pillows were either on the ground and astray, and there was still a blanket spread out on the ground from Rory practicing the nights and day before the marathon.  
   
"Well at least you can proudly say you didn't have to resort to cooking at any time," I told her as we walked out into the front foyer. "I just hope Lorelai loves the surprise you're springing on her." I gave her a look upon realizing something. "You are going to tell her that I was your partner, right?"  
   
She nodded and said that I would get a nice long boast about how much ass we kicked on that gym floor together, which left me relieved. Why would I have anything to fear in the first place, it was common knowledge we won already.  
   
I was still worried about something else as I leaned back against the front French doors and I prepared to let her go after 37 hours with her in my arms' length.  
   
"Ror," I said nervously. "I'm a hundred percent sure I want to try a relationship with you, I just want to make sure that from earlier, when you said this might be a phase, were you being truthful?" I looked into her eyes, expecting to see her scared and trying to explain things. But she's thought about this a lot, which much I'm sure of, because she was sliding her hand into mine and trying to keep me reassured.  
   
"If it's a phase, it's a phase," she answered truthfully. "But we have to take a risk here, there's an attraction between us, and from what we talked about this afternoon, we can't sweep this under the rug. We can't give up on this because it looks bad to Hartford society, and if it does, we'll support each other." She looked up at me, giving me an easy smile. "I really do like you Par, and everything I wrote down in that notebook is the complete truth, I've felt more of a pull towards you than I ever did with either Dean or Jess, and I must be into sadism to have lasted this long trying to get in your good graces."  
   
Man, she had a pretty nice point there; how many times did I belittle her, only to have her bounce back up towards me like a jack-in-the-box. So many times I could've lost her, but each time she stayed attached in the name of friendship and competition. I have to admit, she's managed to stretch the very definition of loyalty to its absolute limit.  
   
I made eye contact with her, and after thinking over her words, let Rory know that I felt the absolute same way about her, and that I'll do anything to keep her, even though I'll have to keep this entire secret for now. I don't feel comfortable having to deny all that's happened today and in the last five days besides the dance marathon, but I want to get to know Rory through the old-fashioned courting dance, and the only way that can happen is if we keep this hush-hush.  
   
She was being shy, I was being shy, yet I didn't want to leave.  
   
"Thanks Paris, for everything this weekend," she said to me. "You went above and beyond what I was hoping would happen these last two days, and I'm relieved I don't have to hold back things anymore."  
   
"You're welcome," I said as I found myself drawing closer involuntarily. I didn't know why, but my hormones must feel like they've been released from a stronghold I kept them in for so long. I don't feel shy and self-conscious around her anymore, so I felt comfortable taking her by the hand. "I never want to do the whole-day dancing gig again, but this being your girlfriend? I'm dedicated to you now, so if you need to call me, you know the number and the email." I smiled towards her, and Rory seemed to sigh as we both leaned in at the same time another soft, warm and longing kiss. I was glad not to be wearing any lip makeup, for the feeling of Rory's lips on mine is something I want to get very used to. By the time the kiss ended, we were both flush, and smiling like idiots. Idiots in the first stages of love, but one time I don't take that word as an insult.  
   
"I'll see you tomorrow when you get to school," she told me in a voice that seemed a little too cheery for a goodbye, "otherwise I'll contact you somehow tonight after Lorelai and I are all talked out."  
   
"I'm not going to be up at 12:30 in the morning," I joked, and Rory rolled her eyes and said my name in that 'I can't take you sometimes, but I'll take you anyways despite' tone.  
   
Just then, I got this flash in my mind of Rory waiting at the town bus stop across from the town square, Dean no longer there to see her off for the day and seemingly alone in her Walkman-soundtracked world, watching the world pass by her as she sipped from the foam cup of Luke's finest. I could tell from her attitude on Tuesday that she was starting to loathe the bus, and in conversation during the dance, let me know that the driver was a real jackass to her when she rang the chime at my corner. There was also the guy who sat in front of Rory who leered at her like she was jailbait. Not to mention she's still pissed two months later because cuts in the CT Transit budget means she has to do a loop through North Hartford that's miles from her final destination of Chilton because they're too stingy for a dedicated route between the southern part of the county and south Hartford.  
   
I also thought back to Tuesday where I was able to have her in the front seat on the way into class. It was a lot less lonely driving south towards the school, and though we were both in a rush that morning, imagining the half-hour of bonding and deepening our relationship I could have with her, Rory's mood in the morning could improve if I extended my ride offer to the morning. I thought about the extra cost and maintenance of another 35 miles a day on the Jag to myself, and found it to be a small price to pay despite the extra fuel. Driving her myself would also take the worries of depending on the whims of the bus driver to find out when my now-girlfriend would get in. Before, I barely trusted them with her safety. Now though, I couldn't fathom her taking that bumpy and wearing trip to Chilton on a bus each day.  
   
Not to mention the brownie points I'd score with the elder Gilmores. Lorelai wouldn't cringe at seeing the $40 she had to give Rory for a monthly bus pass put to much better use (or to pay for some of my gas), while Emily, her grandmother would be overjoyed to see her granddaughter finally getting along well with a classmate well enough to get a lift to school from her each morning. Never mind that said classmate has completely shallow intentions for giving her grandchild a lift to school.

I let her know this new plan I had, and of course, she started trying to shy away from my plans immediately.  
   
"I couldn't do that to you, your entire morning routine would have to be changed, you'd have to get up earlier than you do now," she argued. "What about your servants and Fran, they're not going to be happy about having to get up early, and your car in the winter! The road into town here isn't exactly friendly in driving snow..." Aww, I just like it when she gets all rambly and tries to stop me from spoiling her.

So I shut her up again with another slow lingering kiss, which I'll have to take in mind from now on as a good strategy to use to beat her when we mock debate. I broke it up and explained that I could go to bed at 10:20, an hour earlier from now on, and that the servants are already up and awake by 4:30am, long before my then-current wakeup time of 6:15am. Fran would be cool with everything, and if the roads didn't seem to cooperate, Rory forgot that I have a Range Rover in the garage I drive in the snow that has a high center of gravity and snow tires that wouldn't get stuck, even on the two-laner that goes into the Hollow.  
   
"Oh yeah, you're rich, of course you'd have an SUV just in case." She laughed nervously towards me. "Are you sure it's not a hassle? You're very kind for offering, but--"  
   
Time to get into strict authoritarian mode about then. "I'll be here Ror, and I will drag you off the bus if you try to get on it! I want that extra half-hour alone with you so much, so just take the rides, I'm not going to take a no for an answer."  
   
"Fine." She sighed. "Just don't be late and watch out for the bumper-attacking deer on the way down." I grasped the doorknob, we both headed out of the house, and we walked down from the porch, to the gravel driveway my car was sitting on. It was a dawdling kind of seeing-off, both of us just taking in the silence of the early evening as I took my keyring out of my pocketbook and deactivated the alarm system. We both looked left and right, hoping we were truly alone. The seemingly limitless time we had before was gone; it was time to leave her for the rest of the night.  
   
Rory held her arms close to her chest because of the cold weather. The tank top seemed to be a bad idea out there, but my mind still found something positive about it, namely her chilled breasts aroused by the cold. I kept my eyes on the car so I wouldn't be caught looking at her so blatantly...  
   
OK, I did look, twice. Hey, you'd do it too if your girl didn't dress well for the weather. She didn't seem to notice, though she gave me a knowing look as I went into the car and started up the engine. Before that point, saying goodbye to Rory was something that was inevitable. After this Sunday though, I can never say goodbye to her again without feeling sort of melancholy.  
   
I brought the window down, and she bent down to my eye level.  
   
"Thanks again for the wonderful weekend, I'll try to get a smaller replica trophy from the town shop as soon as I can for you." She smiled, and I couldn't help but do it too. Knowing that this was Stars Hollow and the neighbors next door could be watching from beneath their blinds, I gave Rory one last kiss, in a friendly way on her cheek that wouldn't arouse suspicion.  
   
"I won you hon." I let her know, turning into a full-scale sap. "No trophy or ribbon has the same significance as being able to say that you Rory, are mine." It was unexpected and something I never expected to tell anyone in my lifetime, but with Rory, I can let my guard down with her.  
   
"And I'm yours Par," she let me know once more. "Until tomorrow," she started to back away from the car. "Goodnight, and I hope things go well for us tomorrow."  
   
"Me too Rory, goodnight." With one more longing look, I watched Rory walk towards her porch in the rear-view mirror, as I reveled in the fact that girl, she was mine.  
   
 _I feel...content_ , I thought to myself as I turned on the radio to one of the all-news radio stations out of New York to catch up with current events. It was mere background noise however, for I was still wrapping myself around Rory sharing the same feelings that I had for her. Suffice to say, the shock won't go away for days, and I'm sure when I awake at 5:30 tomorrow morning, there's going to be a pinch on my arm to confirm this fact, that we're both smitten with each other in such a deep way.  
   
I pulled out of the driveway and onto Cherry Lane, leaving this weekend of November 9th and 10th, 2002 for history to decode. Rory's figure seemed to shrink in the rear view mirror with each new foot of road, the strain on my heart from missing her already starting to take root. When I reached the intersection of Cherry and Peach, which went towards the square, the small glow of her porch's light was all that was left of the view. I flicked on my right turn signal, stopped for as long as the law required me to, and turned right, back towards Hartford and an existence I'm not sure I want anymore.  
   
Things are going to change from hereon out for both of us, I know this and Rory probably has this front and center in her mind. Over the next few months we're going to learn who are our true friends, that accept us for all we are. There's going to be people we'll find out can't stand the sight of two girls holding hands intimately, or worse, want us to 'renounce' our gaiety and try to cure Rory and I of this 'sickness'. I haven't read my friends or most of my family yet; right now it's about 50-50 that Madeline and Louise would accept us for who we are; Louise has some morals in her somewhere I'm sure.  
   
My paternal (read; Jewish) side is going to be that way too, so really, I'm more afraid of my mother and anyone else on her side I share genes with, because they won't take well to this. If Sharon keeps ignoring me now in my asexual and fiery bookworm guise, what's to say she'll put a curtain of silence over me if she finds out I like a girl, and even worse, a frugal and non-rich girl from Podunk who comes from a woman she loathes? It's something I'm dreading, but thankfully thanks to Mohegan Man, will remain an open question for a long time to come; two weeks at the least. I'll only see her for five minutes after school each day, and then it's off with her on another whirlwind adventure to yet another boat dealer's lot in southeast Connecticut. She has this newfound obsession with yachting since Mohegan introduced her to it a few days. God, I hope Mohegan Man has all the piloting and captaining skills of the star character in some bad 90's flick I saw once on overnight TBS, _Captain Ron_. A flying leap off the starboard side might do Mother's mental fitness some good for once.  
   
The ride home was silent the rest of the way, save for the catching up on the news and those thoughts, and I pulled into the garage next to the Manor about 8:15pm. I took the dress out of my emergency grooming bag and was thankful to find it unwrinkled and still in mint and vintage condition. Fran trusted me with this heirloom of her mother's, so I took all the precautions I could to make sure she received it back the way I found it. God, I love her. Without Francisca, I'd be such a sour girl and yearning in desperation for any kind of attention. She's kept me sane throughout the process of wooing Rory, and without her advice, I would've ruined things between Rory and I months ago.  
   
When I came into the kitchen and went through the first floor towards the grand stairway up to the second floor, I found the house empty, but for a butler dusting a dining room china cabinet and the maid bringing up some wash and spreading a lily-white tablecloth across the dining room table. I was able to go upstairs without so much as a 'hello', since Mother has seemed to taken employment advice from Rory's grandmother and fires staff she controls whenever they don't meet her standards, which means often. I swear, that neat freak and etiquette Nazi, Hyacinth Bucket from that Britcom would tell Sharon her turnover is beyond crazy. But as I've said in the past, as long as she never touches any of the staff members hired by Daddy, especially Francisca, I could care less if a convicted felon was making my breakfast or cleaning my shower.  
   
It felt so weird coming into that house wearing Lorelai's shorts beneath my pants, and her flannel instead of my usual high-quality wardrobe, and as I stepped on the second floor landing from the stairs, suddenly everything around me seemed too large for me. The large windows along the sides of the hallway, 8 foot tall paintings of my ancestors and the high double doors all down the hallway, this mansion, Gellar Manor, has been where I grew up for seventeen years.  
   
After experiencing the cramped, yet cozy environs of the Gilmore house for twelve hours, things seemed too large to me. Although I keep a small bedroom of 15' x 18' (by upper-class Hartford standards), I could probably live comfortably in a middle class-house's bedroom just fine. My bed is the largest thing that I own, and I've taken advantage of the DVD and digital media era by turning my desktop computer into a do-all, radio, TV, stereo system and all around media system in addition to my schoolwork and web work. Everything I have in ones and zeroes is backed up four times over, with two of the backups offsite at Chilton and in a hard drive I safe deposit in my bank. My wardrobe is small, making my walk-in closet almost a sleeping-in closet. The only thing I could say clutters up are books, magazines and paperwork, and that I have meticulously filed downstairs in the library.  
   
It's odd, I'm so lucky to have been born into a wealthy family. I have a room any girl would dream of, with lots of blank wall to hang limitless pictures of Justin Timberlake, Usher, and the other male effigies of this lifeless media generation. I could have a large vanity on one side of the room that could easily fit the entire makeup department of Bloomie's in with space to spare, and enough room in the closet for more than 1,500 pairs of shoes, giving Imelda Marcos a run for her money.  
   
Thing is though, I'm simple. I live simple. The walls are bare, save for hanging art and the corkboard above my desk, along with embellishments my mother insisted on making and I didn't turn down, sadly keeping her from a nervous breakdown and a trip to the sanatorium. I don't care to get into those, but mostly they involve a mural on one wall that's supposed to look like a blue sky with clouds, but ended up having the appearance of an incomplete drywall project with the 'clouds' horribly done and the sky blue far from the correct portion of the spectrum; it's more dark blue.  
   
About the only abnormal thing in the room is a mini-fridge in a corner off to the side with diet soda and cold ice tea on hand, and I only purchased that so I could stay out of Sharon's hair for as many hours in the day as I can. With the private bathroom and some smart shortcuts, I could survive at least a year without seeing my mother if I ever felt compelled to shut her out completely.  
   
Ahh, the private bathroom. With a $10,000 Kohler shower unit in one corner with about 15 separate showering and massage settings including a waterfall, and a massaging bathtub in the other, along with a large sink, I'm lucky in that regard. I can bathe in absolute privacy without fearing anyone barging in or worrying about running out of hot water since each bathroom has it's own hot water heater. That was my first stop after getting into my bedroom, as I quickly disrobed and kicked off the underwear I had been in for almost two days. It was a very enjoyable showering session, and though I didn't partake any kind of fantasy situation with Rory while I cleaned off the sweat, tears and dirt that built up from the dance marathon and the stay with Rory, it warmed me to know that I didn't have to be afraid to from this point on. Rory made it clear I was in her fantasies, so her having marquee billing in mine would not cause me to feel guilt anymore.  
   
The time seemed to pass quickly after I got out of the shower. I changed into light silk pajamas, colored a baby pink, and sat down at my G4 Mac to catch up on the news about Chilton I missed over the weekend. That's where I learned to my chagrin thanks to a good recap article by Davidson Banfield, my #1 sportswriter that Chilton's football team was dealt a heartbreaking loss to Seth Thomas Intermediate in their regional final playoff game Friday night, 40-38. No one in that entire stadium though that STI's placekicker would hit a last-second 55-yard field goal with the wind blowing into him since his personal best before that was 36, but his foot was strong enough to force the ball between the goalposts, leaving the Blue Demons, the Demonette cheer squad and all the students and alumni wearing Chilton blue stunned and leaving Archauer Stadium wrenching that their season ended so anti-climactically. It was sad to read, and I couldn't bear to edit the article, since Dave articulated what the average Chiltonian had felt the moment the ref's arms raised in the air signifying the successful try. It's going to be a down-in-the-dumps day in the halls tomorrow, I know that already.  
   
The other teams from the school had won their matches/games though, numbing the pain of the football loss somewhat, and some scholarships were given out, so though there would be no boost from a state semifinal edition of the _Franklin_ , I'd still be able to get together a nice edition to put out.  
   
Of course, with Rory's help. I smiled to myself, thinking of how interesting brainstorm sessions would be after tonight. Why do I have a feeling that this is going to be like an office romance? Things will be done eventually, but only after plenty of groping, sweet nothings and snuck kisses in the broom closet. I share two big student group responsibilities with her, so to have my partner also happen to be my debate compatriot, student VP and assistant editor for the paper; I'll have to be careful to make sure that we both are on the same page. It used to be a hot-button issue would just cause some disagreement between us; being in a relationship with her now could be a traumatic blow to how things are going. I have to stay opinionated, but also won't be able to alienate or bully Rory into agreeing with me anymore.  
   
Though I could always start a hot make-out session with her if all else fails and blow her mind into going with my agenda. Noted for the future...  
   
I eventually caught up on Chilton news and with Madeline and Louise over the phone and instant messaging respectively, telling them I'd tell them about my weekend tomorrow. I want to get a good story formed so that I can keep in the excitement of the dance while blurring out the intimacies of Rory and I and how we're not just friends anymore. I hate to keep them in the dark for now, but I have to come out of the closet cautiously, lest it ruin my rep at school and in the social circles, not to mention Rory would be thrown to the lions with the kids finding out 'Mary' isn't all she seems.  
   
There was one person I could trust with the news however; I went upstairs to Fran's quarters and knocked on her door, holding the vintage dress on a hanger and sort of nervous; this was the only woman who knew my interest in a certain girl, and I was hoping I had done her proud.  
   
"Fran, hello?" I said nervously after she told me to come in, as she tended to a sewing project for a grandchild with a birthday coming up. She turned around and gave me a once-over as I handed her the dress.  
   
" _Minha menina_ , how was it," she asked with a smile which warmed my heart. We shared a hug, and sat down at her materials table. I had a smile a mile wide as Francisca hung the dress in the closet and I told her what had happened in a simple way.  
   
"We won the competition," I started. "It was tenuous at times and there was a point where Tristan came up and I took it the wrong way, but after that, things seemed to get more comfortable and..." after that I summarized the dance the best I could from memory, which was filled with so many of them I felt like there was an overload. I let her know about all that touching and conversation, along with competing and Kirk and Carrie. Strangely, I can still recall the taste (or lack thereof) of Mrs. Kim's eggless egg salad. There was never a time before that I was more excited to gush about a victory like this, usually I keep reserved and bottle up my enthusiasm. When I got to the part were Rory had to take me out of a hyperfocused state to let me know Kirk and Carrie had fallen, I had Fran laughing and happy for me, and then trying to hold back tears as I described like a storyteller the _Eternal Flame_ dance, and how content I felt in Rory's arms.  
   
"So what happened after? You didn't come back here, so I'd right that you were over at Mistress Gilmore's home?"  
   
I nodded. "She said it would keep from falling asleep on the way back home."

"I see." She shook her head knowingly, and gave me an unnerving look.  
   
"What? That's what she told me and Rory was right, I would've fallen asleep on the way up."  
   
"Henrico was on call, you forget dear. Even if Rory had to bring your sleeping body out to the town car, he still would have picked you up and brought Bryant down with him, who would have driven your Jaguar home..."  
   
...Which I had remembered from Fran's last-second rundown Saturday morning of how I could get home had I ended up the way I did, my drivers Henrico and Bryant being on my beck and call to take me anywhere if I needed to, ready to be dispatched. All my bases had been covered, and as I had been trying to explain this backup plan to Rory, she had taken the initiative to bring me into distracting conversation and pushing one of her hands beneath the plunge of my dress, thus fogging my mind with sorority nonsense and hoping her hand wouldn't distract me further. By the time I had said yes to sleeping with her, Henrico and Bryant were forgotten and the only thing on my mind was winning the contest and her admiration.  
   
I blushed red, telling a little white lie that I forgot and was sleepy instead of that Rory was screwing with my mind so she could put this entire chain of events in motion, and hoped Fran would understand that I didn't mean to worry the guys by not letting them know I made other plans.  
   
"No, they were fine and happy to get some sleep, the GPS showed you were at the Gilmore home so they assumed you were sleeping over there. Nothing to fear, you're not in trouble." Fran smiled at me and I sighed in relief, thankful that the dealer installed a constant GPS beacon in my car that they could monitor on the computer in the garage just in case a nutjob tried to carjack me and think he could lose the cops. "How did that go, were you a good guest?"  
   
I told her about the day, which was uneventful before I woke up, save for the spoon, which I kept out along with the unzipping. Once I got into the afternoon though, I seemed sort of uneasy, fearing I'd say the wrong thing and trigger something in Francisca. She accepts me, but there are times I think she's scared about my well-being. I explained about the lunch and studying Rory's notes, but started to fade my voice out once I arrived at the point of the Russian Novels notebook.  
   
"Paris, what's wrong?" Fran's voice conveyed concern towards me, but before then, it had been to her, an unattainable crush to me, something I would never have. It wasn't an illusion anymore, and if I told her, she might try to talk me out of it.  
   
Still, she knew me better than my mother ever could. She was the one to watch my first steps, listen to my first words (Fra-noo, proving here I wasn't exactly reciting Keats at 10 months), and who has seen me grow up from a child into the woman I am now. She was basically my mother in all but name and blood, and what Fran thinks, that influences me.  
   
Her warm, timeworn eyes looked into mine, and I knew that whatever her reaction was, she still loved me, no matter what. Our bond is something you can find only rarely, and even Rory understands that. She even told me while we talked she wasn't afraid of my nanny; she was someone who sort of reminded her of Miss Patty, her defacto grandmother figure until her and Emily reconciled in the funding of her Chilton education.  
   
I smiled towards Fran, and told her the truth as simply as I could. "I found Rory had been keeping a list of things she liked about me, a romantic list of things. Some of what has happened over the last couple months, she did that on purpose, to tell me she was interested. When I found that evidence, and told her not with my words, but with my eyes and my body language that I knew, she latched on and told me that she liked me-liked me in that way. We talked a little, and after trying to make heads and tails of this, we figured out that somehow in this weird way, Rory and I had good compatibility." I laughed nervously, and tried to gauge Fran's reaction to this news.

She was stunned a little, but soon recovered and asked me something important.  
   
"Did you and Rory kiss?"  
   
There was no hiding the rush of feelings flowing through my bloodstream; for even now as I think about this, I still feel dizzy from each time my lips touched hers. I could feel myself blushing as I admitted I indeed locked lips with her at quite a few times after 4:30pm.  
   
"This weekend for me was just exactly what Rory and I needed," I confessed. "When I danced with her, and we were up on that stage holding that trophy together, that told me that we need each other, no matter what. We might both disagree at times and get a little bitchy when we're pissed at each other for what might be a little thing, but we both have soft sides for each other, and I'm her impetus to strive to be better, whether it be at school or in her eyes. In turn, she thinks the same thing; that's our competitive fuel, and somewhere in the middle, it ended up becoming passion. You saw me that weekend after we fought at school Fran; I was a wreck without her." About this point, I started trying to hold back tears as Fran told me I wasn't my same ferocious self. "God, I'm so glad you talked me into this dance, because I haven't felt so happy since before I went out with Tristan, only this time though, I know the feelings aren't one sided."  
   
I then got up, met Fran in the middle of the room, and had a mother-daughter-like hug together as she assured me in Portuguese that she blessed Rory and I, that she had hoped that the weekend ended up this way, with Rory as my girlfriend. I felt wonderful confessing that Rory was my world and I was going to do my damndest to make this all work. Fran promised me she would run interference with Sharon, but then she cautioned me.  
   
"You're going to have to tell her one day dear, and it will end up more soon than later. I know it's going to hurt her, but she's your mother despite." I bowed my head, thinking of Mother and how she'd react. In my mind, it's going to be horrible, and I can already sense that almost seven years of frustration and anger against her will be released as I tell her I'm gay.  
   
 _You're going to disappoint her_ , my rational side reasoned, and sadly, it's most likely correct. I'm already leery and scared of her iron rule over my life, and can only imagine what kinds of things she has in mind. She's never wanted me to associate with Rory, and that was the only reason I used anger to defend against her push for friendship. I love Rory, though I'm not ready to tell her that because it takes time to say those three words to each other.  
   
"I will tell her, but not for the next month probably," I said to my nanny. "We're in the experimental phase, and I want everything to go right." Fran looked at me, and nodded her head in understanding.  
   
"It will, I promise you." She rubbed circles counter-clockwise around the top of my hand in a soothing motion. "Now after a night like that, it is time to sleep, you need to refresh and recharge, you look like you've had a long day."  
   
"A long day, but also a good day." Both of us smiled, and I hugged her one last time tightly before I left her quarters. " _Obrigado_ (thank you) _Francisca._ "  
   
" _Quando caro, eu te amo, boa noite._ (Anytime dear, I love you, good night)" I returned the love, and left her quarters, walking back to my bedroom feeling much more lighter than I did when I left this home at five in the morning on Saturday.  
   
That brings me to where I am at this moment, laying in bed beneath layers of heavy blankets, an old dog-eared romance novel in my grasp, the literary equivalent of junk food. The story doesn't have my attention however, because as I lay here, I keep flashing back in my mind those intimate moments of interest Rory shared with me through the last two days. Those close touches, her hands against my back, as we guided each other to the slow beat of the music. I close my eyes and set the book down, my mind thinking of her undressing me and undoing Ms. LaCosta's tight knot. Teeth nip against those sensitive hairs beneath the rope of my Jewish star necklace, her lips soft against my nape as her hands run all over my back.  
   
I feel a knot tighten up beneath as I imagine Rory at first undoing the knots, then her nervous voice in my ears, confessing her love for me. The name Lorelei (spelled with an 'e' in actuality instead of an 'a') comes from a Germanic legend about a sea siren on the banks of the Rhine, and though I only know her by her nickname of Rory, the name that's listed on her birth certificate, the meaning of it is fitting her behavior around me perfectly. I think of her undoing the knot, then having me turn around, where she whispers my name softly, then brushes her lips against mine softly. I let the front of the halter dress go, take her into my arms, and tell her how much she means to me as I cradle her ass into my hands, and while both of us softly kiss and tease, back her through the kitchen and into the bedroom, where we fall onto the bed in a heap, both of us starting to find our faces messed up with desire and want. I can still taste against her lips the familiar bitter tang of her own personal addiction, a hint of vanilla and brown sugar seeping in from the gloss against her lips.  
   
My eyes tighten closed, and I find myself glad to have rid myself of the matching pajama pants I wore upstairs as I slide a hand up my thigh, the skin beneath the heel seeming to overheat with each thought of my favorite brunette as I think of myself trying to shrug the red dress she cut a rug in off her slim body. I moan Rory's name softly into the chilly air of my bedroom and my hand meets the bare skin of my side above the waistband of my panties. I feel ready to slide in a finger beneath the leg and spark a fantasy sure to cool my hormones and at the same time expend that last energy I have that's keeping me awake and fall asleep in a soothing ecstasy--  
   
And now what is that tone that just jarred me out? Oh, it's just my iBook, which in a stroke of relaxing genius is within arms' length of my bed on the left side. I have it set to tone whenever I have an email from a good friend or Harvard (Hey, they could admit me at 12:01am tomorrow morning, you never know. Now that would be the ultimate great day!). I feel so comfortable in the position I'm in, but I never receive an email on a Sunday night.  
   
That is unless there's some _Franklin_ trouble. Oh dear, I better look at it. Thankful that the only wire that's connecting it is the AC adaptor plug, I grab it from its resting place and open the lid, expecting the worst as I Open-Apple+E into my email client and watch the messages filter into my main mail account, set up through the cable company. A few pieces of junk filter in, along with one of Louise's famous forwards I'll never read. I'm about ready to attribute this tone to a false-negative that snuck past my spam filter.  
   
Wait...I gasp out as I see that name that now will turn me into a sap each time I see it or hear it. I smile a little as I double click on the message, and let the words spill onto my screen;  
   
 ** _From: LLGilmoreIII@snet.net (Rory Gilmore)  
To: paris.gellar@comcast.net (Paris Gellar)  
Subject: Good Night  
   
Par,  
   
I'm here in my room, trying to think of what to say while my mom runs to the video store for candy and movies (a school night yes, but it's been five days and we've missed each other so much, time to bond) and before I get to tell her that you and I are the dance marathon champions, when my mind and my heart are still numbed because of what happened this afternoon. I'm still stunned, but don't worry, in a good way. I mean there have been first kisses I've shared, but Dean and Jess were never on the same page with me. That you've been thinking of me this way for at least the last five or six months, it made the kisses even better in hindsight. I promise you I have no regrets about this, and even though we'll have to go incognito on being together for now until we come up with a telling plan, I want to be closer to you, no matter the cost.  
   
Also, I'm sort of looking back on our first two years when we were at odds, and though it may not seem like it, all that fighting brought us closer. I could be thinking a little too forward about this, but after all that fighting, I feel like we can survive anything. We're both fighters Par, and we've both shown that so much. Though we've never resorted to fists, our words are strong and they fly fast, and with both of us in a romantic relationship like this, we can overcome anything, I think. You kiss like you fight; strong and never wavering...lol.  
   
I also think that if we fight, making up will be sort of...passionate. Though I'm not thinking we'll be like that just yet, I have to admit that after I fought with you in the conference room, my mom made this observation to me as I ranted on the way to Grandma's that I was talking about you like we were already sparring partners, and not in the boxing sense. I'm not saying that I want to fight again just for that positive side effect, far from it (God, I hope not). It's just that even when you're pissed off at me, and I'm wanting to tear out all your hair in one swift motion from your scalp because you're pushing my buttons, well let's just say that the 'I want her so bad even though she's poking me and drawing blood with a pointy stick' button is big, red and blinking compared to the smaller keys I could push.  
   
I kept everything back from you for so long, afraid of what you would think of me wanting you, I don't exactly scream out lesbian from the way I act. But there was always something about you Par. From that first day you told me not to forget that you owned Chilton, I wanted to figure you out, find out what made you tick, be the way you are. That's why I kept trying to stay in your good graces; you were interested in me even if you did loathe me, you paid attention to me when others in Chilton weren't. Over time that because a curiosity, and then a mission, until I finally realized, I think I want you. I don't know if it's going to be the relationship of a lifetime, but I'm bored with guys. I'm done being auctioned off and fought over like a talented ball player or something of that sort. I want to have a relationship on my own terms, without having to worry about going too far or fucking up because I let passion get in the way. I'm not interested in guys anymore; I don't think I ever was, and had Dean never introduced himself to me at SHH, I don't know if we'd be at this point Par, becoming partners, or even in the deepest part of a relationship. Things may have been different, but I do know if things have happened like they did and I had a second chance at making changes, I wouldn't change this one bit.  
   
We're perfect together, in sync, simpatico. Maybe we're even soulmates. I'm going to convince you, that falling for me is the best risk you ever decided to take. I like you as not only one of my best friends, but you know how it feels to be under all this pressure. I'm not scared of anything, and I hope you're not either, because from this night forward, you're my girlfriend, and I'm committed to you. Never, ever doubt that, for those sparks we share are real as can be.  
   
I'd like to write more Par, but I just heard Lorelai barging into the house with bags in her hand and she's making a rather loud cowboy yelp that's really distracting...oh God, not another cowboy phase, I swear sometimes I should be running the Inn and my mom should be at Chilton :-p. Gonna end this message, and I'll see you outside Luke's tomorrow at 7am sharp, I thought it over and you'll be my ride to and from school from now on, I'm sending my Ralph Kramden-like driver to the moon permanently (or at least passengerless at the Stars Hollow stop). Let me know if you want anything for the trouble and I'll have it ready. Sweet dreams honey.  
   
Ror  
   
P.S. - Uh, just in case you thought about this, the kiss? To me, a good sign I didn't cry or run, because I was thinking about that all day, thank God I didn't. Take that as a sign that I'm ready for this, because I sure wasn't ready for Dean or Jess!  
_**   
I look over her message, feeling even sicker for her with each and every word. She's putting a smile on my face and I'm sure she's sitting with Lorelai in the living room right now, listening to her mother describe an Elvis Presley haunt, while at the same time, thinking of me in bed, reading this and getting emotional over it. Yep, I'm a wreck as I read her kind words and what basically reads like a mission statement, that I'm coming into a not just a relationship, but a 24/7 commitment with her. It's something I've been ready for since last year, and it's finally true.  
   
Her line about getting aroused after the fight? I smirk a little. Though I was a wreck myself afterwards, she had seemed to already forgive me for my overreaction, and was wound up from it? I didn't know that I was **that** good! My breathing shortens, and I have to get a thought of pushing her against the rail of a blackboard in the heat of an argument out of my mind.  
   
It's clear from her thought out words though, that she's ready for this; the pressure and problems that come with having a relationship with another girl. She's not going to care what others think, as long as I make her happy, all is well with us, and I'm going to stone myself into trying to keep her as happy as she possibly can be. I write a reply just as long to her quickly, depending on the auto-correction for once in my client to get through the message. I respond to her point about anger becoming lust, and maybe love succulently, and let her know I feel that I have the same feeling about us; we're right for each other, no matter how much we might seem like an odd couple. I confess a few more things, and feel pleased as punch that she'll let me drive her to school.  
   
Finally, hearing that she didn't cry because the kiss seemed so right, that was such a cute thing to include in the message. My worries about her crying and running were high, but once she got deep into it, I knew she was planted on the couch and upon my lips until she was out of oxygen. I'm on top of the world as I click the send icon, and close the laptop shortly thereafter feeling as if nothing can go wrong with this relationship. Now we just have to build a strong relationship on top of good kissing. It's a challenge, but I feel like we both can overcome it and any others that get in our way.  
   
I'm about ready for bed now, my eyes seem heavy with sleep, so I undo the silk pajama top and throw it off to the side as I settle myself in beneath the covers. Before I do however, I reach out and open the drawer in my nightstand, pulling out something that I've been hiding whenever Mother or Rory have been in the room before. In a smooth dark maple frame, a 4x6 of Rory and I smiling towards the camera, both of us standing in front of the Supreme Court. A 16 year-old aspiring politico from northern Kentucky was also at the same time honing his photography hobby during the Washington trip, and told us to stand and pose together in front of the tall and broad steps of the heart of the nation's judicial branch so he could test out his abilities. Because his camera was digital, at that luncheon Jamie asked me out, he handed out printouts of the pictures he took to everyone who wanted them. He only had one of our pose, but Rory didn't mind if I wanted it.  
   
The day after Rory and I arrived back home, I put it in a frame, and would take it out of the drawer whenever I felt I missed Rory. The picture was wonderful, a shot where we were both smiling widely and looking towards the camera, both of us happy in that moment in time. I can still remember the boy asking us to smile, and her arm at my side, cradling me and bringing my body towards her. Her blue eyes seem to sparkle in the picture, and those dimples she displays during a wide grin make me weak. It was just one picture, one small picture.  
   
But what was in it encapsulates all the hopes and dreams I have of her. I look at this photograph of us, this window to the start of what changed this relationship we have from a rivalry to infatuation. I don't have any idea yet if I'll be looking back with her ten years from now at this same picture in a photo album and saying 'remember that summer of 2002 in Washington, and then the autumn we fell in love? It's just wow, I can't believe it's been that long, almost like that was a few days ago.' All I know is that with the distance between our homes, I do miss her next to me, her warm body against mine as we sleep together in bed. It's already a feeling I want to have back, but I know that for now, it's going to be a rare event.  
   
What I can do is look wide-eyed at her picture, and smile at the fact that all that was hidden in our minds when it was taken, the crushes, hopes and longing looks we were giving each other and now know for sure we were each doing, it's now out in the open. I kiss the glass above Rory's face softly and wish her goodnight, as I set it back onto the nightstand, where it will now have a prominent and permanent place and not be hidden again, and in all likelihood since I end up on my right side when I wake up, she'll be the first thing I see every morning.  
   
For now though, I have an appointment with her in my dreams. What she told me today, and what she did is so fresh in my mind that I shouldn't see a problem falling asleep. One last look at her picture, and I can imagine her lips drifting higher from my neck, Rory wrapping her arms around my midsection possessively, then her teeth nipping at the outer shell of my right ear, whispering heated innuendos and obvious flirting to have me slip out of my dress and slide one of my hands against her thigh, drifting up her pale skin slowly and with agony...  


* * *

 **_To be continued..._ **  



	9. And Then Paris Kissed Me...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory uses both her head and her heart to tell Paris how she really feels for her, and uses her feminine wiles to lure the blonde into her arms.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Nine | And Then Paris Kissed Me...  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Rory POV  
 **Spoilers:** This takes place the day after my modified _I Can't Get Started_ , where Rory won the dance marathon with Paris, and Jess and Dean were nowhere to be found.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, sexual thoughts and actions, along with some innuendo)  
 **Disclaimer:** All I want for Christmas is Paris...uh, no, ewww. not you Ms. Hilton. If I wanted genital herpes I'd have called you, now shoo, go make another sex tape or awful album or whatever a useless heiress like you does! As I was trying to say, all I want for Christmas is Paris **Gellar** and Rory together. In my way however is Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television, so looks like that wish won't come true. Doesn't mean I can't do it here in fic though (maniacal grin).  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Rory uses both her head and her heart to tell Paris how she really feels for her, and uses her feminine wiles to lure the blonde into her arms.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** It took me three months to write this, and I apologize for making you all wait, because some real life things (aka the boss at work putting the kibosh on extra-curricular writing) got in my way, so now I have to write overnights and during the day with distractions. I'm starting to deal though, so hopefully chapter ten will come out a little faster than this one.  
   
The usual thanks to Raven and Cinn for taking time out of their busy schedules to beta this for me. Thanks to Brian and The Raven (who wrote a great Lily Rush/Lorelai Cold _Case_ / _GG_ crossover I highly recommend, just look for it under her name in the GG section of RotS) for their email encouragement, and those at GGSlash who keep begging me for an update.  
   
Because this never gets old, for the tenth time; If you're on ff.net and haven't figured out by now that Rory and Paris are about to become a lesbian couple and you aren't into that kind of thing? Click out and read one of the many Java Junkie, Trory or Lit fics available, there's plenty there. Though don't click on the really dark stuff where Rory attacks Paris about Asher, she's so above that. Just a couple of notes for you ff.net'ers too; please let me know if words in the narrative get cut off or entire lines suddenly disappear and lead off into the next sentence without resolution. FF.net's filtering software monkeys with it, taking out anything resembling a web address or a stretched out word, even if it isn't. I'm going through to change things before I upload, but if anything's funny even after my last once-over, leave me a review so I can fix it.  
   
Also, just advance warning that after this chapter as the story heats up, the versions posted to ff.net will be edited to conform to site TOS and content standards (i.e. no IM chats, which I plan on including in future chapters). I recommend the sites above listed in my archive permissions if you want the unedited version of the story.  
   
I had an all encompassing holiday greeting in this space, but seeing as this is coming out closer to King Day than Kwanzaa, I hope all your celebrations went well and that you all have a very happy new year!  


* * *

I was feeling as high as a cloud as Paris and I slid in the backseat of her Jaguar, with Miss Patty being our personal chauffeur for the short ride between the high school's baseball diamond and my home a ½ mile from the town center. Paris was somewhat coherent as she buckled her seatbelt, but as soon as that task was done, her head was against the window and she seemed to be out like a light quickly for the ten-minute drive home. I could tell just by looking at her that the dance marathon took a lot of her, and beforehand as we waited for Miss Patty, she had leaned against me, so I had kept her steady for most of the next fifteen minutes between the last dance and that point.  
   
Miss Patty started the luxury car's engine, and after a delay of a few minutes as we navigated the gummed up works of the parking lot with the rest of those leaving the school, we were on the road, leaving my worn eyes to try to gauge the slumbering girl to my left.  
   
Paris was relaxed, the dim light of the upcoming dawn casting a soft glow on her face, her lips out and puckered, tempting me so much. Her legs were crossed together, and though her positioning was far from what could be called sexy, it was definitely very serene. I was glad to see her in such a human state, and I smiled as I looked at my compatriot and Miss Patty turned the car onto Town Square Circle.  
   
I stayed like that for the next few minutes, contemplating what my invitation to Paris to spend time at my house post-dance entailed. There was a feeling on my end when I made the invitation that there was a plan B floating around Paris' brain somewhere about how she would get home, and though I don't know what that might have been, I'm pleased that my words and seductive actions talked her out of it. Now, the weekend was truly ours; I could catch her off-guard, unprepared to deal with a Sunday in my presence, and get even closer to confession. The best thing about what I was planning in my head from 5:30am on was that I had home-field advantage. The usual distractions and any interference were out of play, for I had the house to myself for at least the next thirteen hours. No one was about to stop by to congratulate, nor was Mom anywhere to be found to give me any second thoughts about my feelings for Paris.  
   
Maybe it would end with confession, or maybe not. All I knew then was that I couldn't screw it up. Those ideas floating in my head to seduce Paris would put anything Tristan DuGrey ever planned for the both of us and the rest of his little black book to shame.  
   
I looked at her in sleep as I told Miss Patty how excited I was that Kirk had been finally knocked from the top rung and that I won. I couldn't gauge her reaction since she was driving, but she was already gushing about how excited Mom would be to see that trophy in her own house and how I had won it, "I'm sure she'll be very proud of you dear," she said to me. It was more a conversation to fill the silence (Paris' stereo system was too complicated for Miss Patty to figure out and I had very novice experience working it around), and to keep my mind off the fact so much tanned skin along the neckline of Paris' dress was in my eyesight with her unable to call me on my lustful staring. Of course finding out that the backseat of her XJ8 had more than enough room to accommodate two bodies laying down on the leather bench was causing my daydreams to drift towards a more sexual way than I was used to. I could visualize the picture of myself above Paris on the seat clear as day, causing a blush to flare up my face as I looked at her. The conversation with Miss Patty was tiring and sort of white noise over those sexual thoughts of mine, helping cool down my body from the effects of twenty-four hour close dancing with the girl next to me.  
   
Patty went on and on about Kirk's streak and I kept the conversation up lightly through the circle and towards Peach Lane as I felt my eyes start to lose the battle to keep awake. My body felt tight in the formerly loose dress that I had worn to lure Paris in. Twenty-four hours of close contact with her had rearranged my hormones, and though I was wearing something smooth beneath the red fabric, the strapless bra was digging against my side and probably leaving quite the red welt beneath. I had my long coat on beneath the dress since the temperature was chilly outside and Patty didn't turn on the heat, but it wasn't very long before the conversation was fading out and Paris was waking up again after the car hit the bump between the smoothly paved Peach Street and the older and thin asphalt path that was the road to my house, Cherry Lane.  
   
We were both tired and about on par with a _Resident Evil_ zombie wanting brains in our lack of enthusiasm as we got out of the car after Miss Patty pulled up into the gravel drive, and I helped Paris with her overnight bag and the trophy. Patty seemed to eye us both with a look of 'I know something you don't Rory', but I wasn't about to ask her about this sense she had right in front of Paris. I don't know, but Patty's look as we both got out of the car just unnerved me.  
   
She said goodbye to both of us, and I waved back as Par mumbled out a tired "Bye!" as she stepped out of those high heels that irked her through the evening, and slipped into an old worn pair of running shoes, sitting on the bumper as she put them on and somehow maneuvered her emergency bag beneath her free arm and held onto it for dear life. I guess I was right from my earlier observation; this girl is prepared for almost every situation that can be thrown at her while she drives.  
   
Then we both took a side of the marathon trophy and lifted it out of the trunk, balancing ourselves carefully as I did my best to dodge the chunks of gravel in the driveway until we found the grass and the walkway up to the porch. Paris wasn't complaining about having to help out with the effort, and even with that bag in her arm, got the door open so that we could both work the four-foot edifice of our victory through the front door.  
   
I looked at Paris, and she seemed ready to trip on her ankles; she was that worn down.  
   
"Where do you want me to put this?" she asked me, "I can help you bring it upstairs--"  
   
"No, no, don't even think of it," I told her as I bent down and had her follow my cue to set the trophy down in the front hall. "You've done so much already, all I wanted to do is get this thing in the house. I'll worry about it in a bit; Mom's going to be really shocked when she sees where I put this." I already had the picture in my head of Lorelai bringing her luggage upstairs after I told her my weekend was fine, and then finding that one thing she coveted in her bedroom. I could hear the happy scream and her asking me whether there were hidden cameras in the headboard and all those other things she'd say when she found out I won the competition.  
   
The trophy was mine and Paris', that's all that mattered. But there was a much more important and critical plan spinning in my head this morning; which was to prove to Paris that I needed her as more than a friend, or a dance partner. My mind was already spinning with thoughts of how to pull this all off when she asked me where her weary head could rest.  
   
Also, the nagging question of her sleepwear was still in the air. As much as I wouldn't have minded her sleeping in her dress, I could see a red mark along the back of her neck where the halter was when I looked at her in the car, so she wouldn't have slept comfortably in it at all. The inner vixen in me also was really, really hoping that she'd refuse my request to bring her something of my mom's to wear, but the odds of her sleeping nude in my house were pretty slim. Paris is a modest girl to begin with from the way she dresses, so I wouldn't expect her to not be the same when it came to sleepwear. I told her to lie on the couch and that I'd bring up the trophy while I looked for something to wear for her, and I asked what she'd prefer.  
   
She thought for a moment as she flopped down on the sofa, then gave me an answer. "Whatever, a shirt and some shorts, I usually like to sleep in something cool and billowy." Paris smiled, and I told her that I knew Lorelai had something like that. I made a joke about her past history of borrowing clothes from me, but in a light way. She didn't overreact about it thankfully, and after talking to her for a bit, figured she might want to do a little relaxing.  
   
After watching her get a little comfy in the couch, I grabbed the trophy from the front hall, went upstairs and into my mom's room, setting the trophy down near the door and looking for something in her dresser that would fit Paris just fine. There was a debate going on through my mind about what I wanted her to sleep in; you really can't do sexy with shorts and an undefined shirt, but I'd be trying to do my best to counterbalance 'unknowingly sexy' with 'practical'. My brain might have been exhausted from doing nothing for 24 hours but go over Fred Astaire's footsteps, yet it still had enough charged juice to figure out how I'd try to draw Paris out of her protective shell and hopefully, into my arms. I couldn't bottle everything back up again; like a moth to a flame I wanted to know for sure if she thought the same of me as I was her.  
   
It took me a few moments, but after a little crude matching up and mental picture comparing, I came up with a loose pair of black shorts and a blue flannel shirt as the perfect combination for Paris to sleep in. It would be comfortable to her, and at the same time bare just a smidge more skin than she usually cared to. It seemed like the perfect outfit, and before I could spend too much time letting myself wallow in thoughts of her, I folded the clothes together and closed the dresser drawers, trying to figure out my next move.  
   
I tossed Paris her clothes over the railing as I walked down the stairs, but didn't warn her fast enough as the articles hit her in the side of her face.  
   
"Rory, please, more warning next time," she admonished, turning around and then smiling at me. "You should know by now I've always been the first casualty in dodgeball since I can't pay attention in that game enough to save my life."  
   
"Just keeping you on your toes Gellar," I let her know. She laughed, and I was able to glance once again at that serene smile she seems to only bring out in my presence. Then she placed the clothes down on her lap and looked at the shorts and flannel shirt, making sure they'd be up to her standards. _Something I was expecting_ , I told myself; no matter how plain she might seem, Paris is still of a rich pedigree so she expects that in her pajamas.  
   
She looked at my mom's clothes one more time, and then relieved me by telling me that they'd do just fine. "Nothing I'd be embarrassed to run out in if the house caught fire," she let me know, thus bringing that dark, wry sense of humor she has to the forefront.  
   
"Where is the bathroom so I can change out of this?" she asked, pointing to her dress, still on her like a second skin and causing my mouth to water.  
   
"Other side of the kitchen," I let her know, and pointed out the way, as I tried to keep my hormones in check. As she got up after thanking me for finding her last-minute PJs to wear and made her way past me in the middle of the living room, I found my eyes involuntarily drawing towards her slender back. In another situation, say with Lane or even Madeline, it would've been just a quick glance, then my attention wandering back to another subject.  
   
With Paris though, any unexpected opportunity for staring, I ended up taking. Her hair was down to the middle of her back, which left at least the lower 2/3 of it and the naked skin over it exposed to me. I licked my lips as a flash came into my mind of her undressing in the bathroom; the tie in the back of her neck holding it against her dress unfurling in front of my mind image down as the black material fell into a heap at her ankles. However, my eyes were **much** higher than the heap and leapt right back towards the middle of her torso.  
   
I then realized that I was letting a golden opportunity slip right through my fingers, unnoticed. Paris was going to change into those bedclothes, and there I'd be on the other side of the bathroom door, unable to get another close and intimate opportunity to look at this girl I had an insatiable crush on.  
   
 _Where was this take-charge side of me these last two years?_ I mused to myself, wondering why I had never even dared think this way at all with Dean. I had never seen him more than shirtless, nor took advantage of any opportunity that was offered to disrobe him. I keep thinking about Dean and I through our relationship, and not once did I see lust enter the equation between us. He always thought I was pretty or beautiful, while I thought he was handsome. There has never been a thought of jumping him or having erotic thoughts of him floating around my mind, and that sense of _I want him_ never was in play. Not just because of my mom, but the pheromonal connection wasn't there. He was a guy, and liked me. The more I think about it, the more it's clear that I went into that whole thing totally unprepared and hoping for a spark that never came, like the only reason I was attracted to him was that he was this odd groupie who hung around me all the time and thought of me as more than 'that quiet girl with a new paperback in tow everyday'.  
   
With Paris though, it's like my sex senses got a power boost. I look at her, even in close study, and I just want to set my hand down somewhere on her and have any kind of contact, be it sexual or non-sexual. I stood in that living room, prepared to head to my room to change in my own pajamas, when again, my mind has another flash. This time though, it's reverse angle, with Paris' fingers trailing down my spinal column as she helps to unzip my dress. Those fingers, calloused from a pencil grip every weekday and the 75 wpm clatter of each of her fingertips against the keyboard at her _Franklin_ desk, run against my middle, and I can feel it already.  
   
My mind relays the fact it took me at least five minutes to maneuver my way into the dress yesterday morning, three of those spent unsuccessfully gripping the zipper and getting it up from my butt, then turning it around so I could zip it up in the front without much of a problem. Finally, I used that last minute to maneuver the zipper side from the front to back it so it's the correct way and I don't look like I'm about ten years removed from the Kris Kross 'wearing clothes backwards' fad that never made sense to anyone. So now if I tried to take it off, I'd tear the fragile fabric if I just lifted it over my head, and my sore body would grimace in pain if I tried to unzip myself.  
   
That left me one more choice; help on the zipper from a second party.  
   
Guess who happened to be the only person in the room who could help me unzip?  
   
I smirked inside; _This is going to be quite fun_ , my inner dialogue told me. Then it also told me that I should stop saying 'quite' in my head, because it sounded odd.  
   
My mind somewhat distracted, I called out Paris to stop and help me unzip, explaining exactly why her help would be much appreciated. Those thoughts of helping her out with her own halter knot mixed in with my plea, and I ended up having my voice softer than intended. I was trying to be careful about not leading on too much with my feelings, and I was a little timid that she was starting to catch on to my feelings for her.  
   
Still, whatever the tone of my voice, it ended up working.  
   
"Uh, alright, I guess," she said, kind of nervous. "I could use a helping hand myself with my dress knot; that is if you don't mind. You don't have to and I can probably get it myself--"  
   
Before she could ramble more, I responded that I could do it with a enthusiastic tone I usually left for an aced test or won game at a carnival. Paris didn't seem to notice this sudden jubilation thankfully, and before I knew it, I had turned around and stood with my back to her.  
   
Suddenly, I felt then like I was layered for a trip back up Mt. Everest, and that I needed that dress off and soon. Her thumb and forefinger gripped the metal pull on the slider, seemingly a little shaky. A light touch of the tip of one of her nails, and I was lost in delirium.  
   
I looked straight ahead towards the fireplace, trying to find a focal point to distract me from the feelings being aroused from Paris' simple brush of her fingers against my back. _Just unzipping, just unzipping, honestly. Nothing sexual to be taken out of this...  
   
_At that point her left hand braced my shoulder, and it became more than unzipping to me. Just that one touch alone sent a colony of butterflies through my stomach, because I knew that right there, she'd figure out for sure I was wearing a strapless bra. I brought the hair along my back up to the front, and relaxed my body to hasten the zipping process further.  
   
My concentration was at first focused on the shaded front window, looking at the dull beige shade and light yellow curtains shielding the window from the view of anyone who happened by. I found all my senses tightening up as Paris' hand moved down the middle of my spinal column, not fast and swift, instead, she took her time.  
   
I could hear her exhalations waver a bit as I felt cool air sweep up the skin bared, and bit my lip to keep any sudden noises stifled and my feelings unsaid. Down and down Paris worked, as I felt the dress loosen up quite a bit in the front with each new portion of slack. My mind spun with a thought of turning around and shrugging off the dress, a sudden move to catch her off guard and see if my intuition of things was correct.  
   
Thankfully, just her unzipping my dress was erotic. The moment felt like, along with the room surrounding me, with the dim light coming from that cursed monkey lamp (which I edit out of any dreams and fantasies I might have; animal lamps don't exactly scream sexy atmosphere) and her warm breath against the back of my neck, it was a romantic air in that room. She was close, but not too close; enough to tell me this is a sample and that if I want more she'll have to know about it. Paris' soft orchid perfume was behind me and wafted between each side of my neck and into my nostrils, making me want to turn around...  
   
She reached the middle of my back, exposing my bra. She's come close to seeing this much of my skin exposed but had never ventured any lower. Paris paused, and for a short bit I feel her smoothing the zipper line from the nape down to the bra line, her curved index finger and thumb running along both sides of the zipper and across my skin.  
   
"Just so the zipper doesn't snag," was the reasoning she gives me; that has to be a lamer excuse than 'I need to wash my hair tonight so I can't go out with you'. Zippers are rigid, never fail, and there's not a lot of material along the track to make it snag. No matter though, for my eyes shut and I feel a warm sensation run from my stomach and up to my cheeks. She unzipped beyond the bottom of my bra and continued, and I feel even more exposed than I ever have before. I feel as if my legs are going to topple in on themselves at the first opportunity and figure out that standing while unzipped wasn't the way to go. Her left hand moves down to the middle of my back and rests against it, rubbing it like she's trying to reassure me.  
   
 _What are you doing to me Par?_ I told myself, as with each inch, I feel like I never wanted to leave this spot and wished the zipper was longer than the three feet plus length it actually was. I did end up gasping out a moan I thought was undetectable; Paris had found one of those sensitive spots where I couldn't help but react somehow. I hoped she didn't detect it, and thankfully she didn't.  
   
My eyes stayed shut as she reached the dip of the small, where she continued to torture me with her feather-light touches and raspy breathing. Her hand was getting ever closer to that line not even Dean had crossed in our dancing, and my only thoughts weren't innocent by far. My heartbeat thumped in my chest, and I stood still and took a slow glance down my body. Looking down at myself vertically, Paris was again doing the same thing her damned perfect fingernails did Tuesday morning. In twenty-four hours of activity, I never felt modest about my small chest. Now I hoped that when I turned to help her out she wouldn't notice each of my hardened nipples peeking up through three layers of thin foam, cream cotton, and red rayon. My body was flushing, and as her slow unzipping seemed to reach my pantyline, it felt so tight and wound up I had to somehow not only even my breathing, but find the inside of each of my palms interesting, for I wanted to hook one or both my pointer fingers along the side of my hem, and slowly slide one of those hands up the skirt of the dress.  
   
I felt so alluring, and Paris didn't know it at all. For all she knew she was either unzipping my dress and not thinking anything more than platonically about it, or she was trying to send me to an early grave with her torture. I didn't expect this at all and Paris was playing with an entire box of matches with the way her fingers stayed within that stubborn 2" width along my spine. My body tried to remain still, try not to show how much her touch was affecting me. Still my hands trembled and my heart was pounding, with my legs feeling like they'd give out.  
   
That was nothing compared to when she reached the near end and stopped for a moment right at the waistband of my underwear. I had expected her to continue, for Paris doesn't do anything half-heartedly. When took her hand off the zipper abruptly, I felt jarred suddenly. I could feel her stare, and somehow I thought I'd heard her thoughts spinning around. My mind was projecting a thought in her voice; _This is too much too fast, I better reel back_.  
   
I **didn't** though; I wanted her to finish and have something to remember me by. I groaned, and my eyes slitted as I tried to communicate she had my permission. For this may have been my seduction, but I still had things to gauge. If she finished and closed in those last four inches to the stop of the zipper, that would give me a huge clue to her intentions.  
   
If she didn't though, I would back off my advances, that simple. Just like if I had told Dean to stop massaging because I wasn't ready.  
   
There was no need to fret though, for my groan of 'you aren't done Par' was enough to tell her to continue. I felt her hand brush up against my rear and finish the job, wallowing in that seemingly accidental touch and feeling shudders of pleasure up my spine. Her fingers lingered for quite a bit and then she started up from the crouch she was in to travel down my body, the fingernails of one of her hands gliding effortlessly up my middle slowly, seemingly for an eternity. The hair along my arms stood on end and I involuntarily exhaled a deep breath as they departed from my body.  
   
Now I know why the art of the tease is of such importance in the charged and more sexual type of literature. I've read so many scenes in so many years from so many books of seduction and the after effects, up to and including sex. At first when I got access to some of those books when I moved to junior high, being a curious red-blooded twelve year-old girl, I paged right to the sexual parts and read the scenes. However, they've never really had the effect on me a nice slow tease can do, and I started paying much more attention to the scenes before the actions, because the flirting did so much more for me than the actual activity. The shirt coming off, the brushing of the hair, maybe a hand running along the side of a woman as her lover feels her up through her slip; it's something you need in order to write a great American novel. Sex is all well and good, but in the end, it's just the dessert to end a great meal. Without the appetizer of the flirting and that main course of seduction, you're starved for much more than you actually got.  
   
I let myself relax for a bit to calm so that when I turned around, Paris wouldn't see my beyond flustered and aroused state and think that something was up for me. It took a few spins of my mind around the 'never in a million years' portion to cleanse out what I was feeling. Yeah, seducing Dean in front of my mom as she watched really helped settle me down.  
   
I had her walk towards a hassock in the room to try to keep her steady, then sit her down on it so I could undo her knot in the back. My mind immediately reasoned that since she had a knot in a backless halter dress rather than a long zipper, thing would be a lot less charged in this part of the changing, and leagues easier.  
   
What I didn't expect was that Paris studied her knot instruction in Girl Scouts a little too closely. I heard her say 'thank you' and sigh happily as I brought her hair up to her front and undid her first loose knots, and then find myself in an odd roadblock situation.  
   
I looked at the nape of her neck, trying to trace how I could undo the second and much tighter bind, which was forming a bundle of deep red-colored skin where it came together. My eyes appraised it, however the tomato-onion pattern made trying to find the end and beginning a muddled mess. I tugged it hard, hoping to entice the entire thing loose. It didn't budge in any way.  
   
I worked a fingernail to where I thought I'd find the beginning. It still strained to come apart and I was finding it to be stubborn. Pulling only seemed to make it worse, and working my finger between Paris' neck and the knot seemed not to do much at all except aggravate her when I tugged and found her body fall towards me from it. Sure, of course I relished this opportunity of my fingers against a very sensitive spot on the back of her neck, but that knot just didn't want to come apart. I complained about her tight knot; and I could've sworn that her dress would stay on with that first knot she made before leaving Hartford.  
   
"My apologies Gilmore," she droned. "I felt like I was going to fall out of this if I didn't add another knot, so I made another one and tied it tighter than usual." A reasonable response, but words wouldn't get her out of that dress any faster.  
   
I continued to try to work her dress open, to no avail for at least five minutes. I could feel her body start to overheat, and my eyes weigh with sleep. I had to get this done pretty quick, otherwise we'd both be finding ourselves sleeping in positions that make my kitchen table chair sleep before the Shakespeare exam look like a luxurious shiatsu massage.  
   
Working it wasn't doing anything, and nails in the knot weren't either. I was about ready to stop and give up from the frustration of not getting it out. For a moment, I gritted my teeth, mad that I couldn't do this one simple thing I promised to Paris. My plan to give Paris seductive touching was down the Bemis and would end up failing.  
   
My teeth were together, and I looked at that knot, when my mind melded a connection with those two simple things. My teeth; that knot. A very tight knot that wasn't coming apart, and my teeth, which had much more grip and power than I'd ever have in my hands.  
   
 _Hmm..._ I pondered this to myself, looking at Paris' very bare back and trying to cloud out any uncouth thoughts of her, and then at the knot. It seemed to make sense that when all else fails, you use your teeth, be it in opening a drink bottle or ripping open a rather tough bag of snack chips. It was far from ladylike and using teeth to work something open was always meant as a last resort.  
   
I was at my wit's end here though. The knot wasn't coming apart, and feeling around for the beginning slack of it, then tugging it open with my teeth seemed like a good solution, and an even better idea.  
   
That's when the emergency alert in my mind went off.  
   
 _Lorelai Leigh, don't forget whose knot that is!!_ Oh yeah, it was Paris' dress. And her back. And her neck.  
   
Yes, I was seriously considering biting the back of the neck of the girl I was lusting for, and licking my lips like I was about to gnaw into a tender rack of ribs.  
   
Now if this was the old me, in the days of Dean, I would've stopped right there and told Paris to undo her own dress, because I wouldn't do that. It could be taken as dirty and sexual and she'd overreact, I just would know it. She could wriggle out of the dress I'm sure and I'd be off the hook.  
   
But this is me almost six days removed from the end of my heterosexuality. I was no longer the doting girlfriend of one Dean Forrester; I'm the newly gay Rory, trying to show Paris that I'd rather she not end up with a dullard trust fund boy from Glastonbury to warm her up at night. To her, she might have a stuck halter dress. But to me, that black cotton tasted like sweet opportunity.  
 _  
_ I looked at her tanned neck, saying a silent prayer that she would think this was all innocent. It was better not to tell her plan B before I bit in, lest she freak out. The element of surprise would ease her mind, so I went in and softly nipped at where the knot could be undone.  
   
Already I felt as if I'd lose control, because my breath rushed from my mouth. I started working the loop and it started to loosen a bit; my intuition was right. Temptation was high to suckle the area around the halter and bring my tongue against her skin. I wanted to so much, but for the sake of Paris and my own thoughts, I relented. She could feel the rush of my breath against her skin and I could see her shake a little. My plan was working; she was becoming lost to the world around her.  
   
The knot was finally starting to cooperate, and I worked the wettened fabric with my fingers to unloosen it, taking my mouth away for a bit. Still needed a little bit more slack, so I went in again to try and bite in at the knot.

That second time wasn't a charm though, for instead of biting cloth, I got a small patch of skin right between my choppers. The bite wasn't that hard, but still enough to make her moan just a smidge, then...  
   
"Ror! Ow!" She yelped in a high tone of voice as I bit down, not as rough as I expected. She actually seemed a little calm about it, and her voice seemed to be a little wavering. Still, she didn't move, just reeled back for a couple seconds to reach back and rub down my bite mark, then slid back into her previous sitting position. I took this as an 'OK' sign and finished doing my best to unknot her dress.  
   
My mini-bite was distracting however; my mind was trying to stir me into thinking that it was a way of asserting ownership of Paris' heart, no matter that it was accidental. The remnants of her perfume, sprayed along her neck were also getting into me, for it was certain I couldn't avoid it with the inches between my nose and her skin. The lingering smell of her shampoo, along with that orchid scent sprayed along her neck, I was finding my blood stirred from the intimate contact with her. _Geeze, not now, what if she turns around_ , is what was in my mind in order to scold myself from letting the sweet mixture of her favorite scents and the natural smell of her skin disrupt bloodflow. No matter that I wanted much more of this, did I ever need more it. I wanted to do a lot more than unknot Paris, but I had to stick to plan. Either I did it slowly or I would end up scaring her or having to back off because I edged against a comfort zone and she'd start to realize I wasn't doing this accidentally, or being this close to gauge the knot.  
   
My mouth and hands worked to make it release, and after a couple of minutes, I had worked the stubborn one open enough to unfurl it, and was finally left with just that one pithy tie she did early last morning. I apologized to her for what I had to do, and she was a little shaken, but thankful that I had done what I had to do to help her out of her dress.  
   
The last knot was the absolute easiest, and within ten seconds, Paris was free from the dress, as I threw the thin cords over to her front so she could head off to the bathroom and let the dress slide off the rest of the way. Before then though, I saw that both sides of her back, especially where the dress was over, were red from the imprints of the fabric edging. I wanted her to relax and make her descent into dreamland easier, so I massaged her back softly, along her shoulders, rubbing in and out from the tip of her shoulder blades back to the nape of her neck. Paris seemed to sigh, and this sort of belated thank you for her warming me up on Tuesday was well-deserved by her after a tough dance marathon win, not to mention how much she's made the breakup with Dean that much more soothing.  
   
Dean would never do these things to spoil me, because he never wants to push himself further. He takes the minimum classes in high school and after encouraging him to take more English classes last year, only to find more auto/mechanical lessons on his schedule after only a few days, I pretty much gave up on the idea of 'first love forever' right then and there. He was a good first love, but my wildest fairy tale dreams never consisted of I, as the unhappily married Rory Forrester, having his grimy self sit on the couch and whine about cars and the people who ask him to fix them until kingdom come. How could I be happy when the only guy in my future was not only someone I didn't love, but who didn't mind that his old TV isn't not only not ready for cable, much less color? If he's not going to strive for a goal and let me help him, screw it. I didn't need Dean before I went to Chilton, and I certainly don't need him now.

I looked at Paris after I finished and before she went into the bathroom to change into the pajamas, and though a little tired, she was still smiling at me, happy that things between us were far from strained. God, I liked being the pursuer of her feelings, because it's so much more satisfying knowing that it was I who was doing this to her.  
   
I watched Paris go into the bathroom, then headed to my room and shut my door, desperately wanting out of the unzipped dress and the lingerie beneath. Things certainly couldn't get any better; Paris was sleeping in my house, and I was getting steeled to tell her that I thought of her as more as a friend. _Looks like an occasion for the purple sheep pajamas_ , I thought to myself as I straightened my hair in the mirror and prepared to retrieve that pajama shirt and the matching bottoms from my dresser.  
   
"Hold on," I whispered to myself, thinking aloud. "That might be all fine and good for a regular sleepover, but you have Paris in that bathroom probably thinking about how wonderful those lips on her neck were."  
   
I was in my bedroom, almost completely naked but a fresh pair of undies, and about to play into that cute image I was trying to shrug off so I could show Par that I could do more than look demure. She had also seen me in regular PJs already, and they didn't do much to flatter my figure or tease. On top of that, the entire plan was to repeat her sleeping in my bed like she did a few weeks ago, but with some kerosene thrown on the fire. I'd barely feel her in bed if I wore purple flannel, and that would silently scream to her that maybe I'm not interested, that this is friendly and our undressing wasn't meant to be anything but normal.  
   
Trouble was, I wanted her. My body definitely showed that too, what with my breasts looking even more sexually alluring to me by the day with each new look in the mirror. They were aroused from the unzipping, and when I rubbed my stomach, then along the bottom, I felt like moaning from my self-contact, shutting my eyes and imagining that Paris had brought her touch from the small of my back and then around. I also felt a very nagging itch between the trunk of my legs from all those steps during the dance, along with the feelings I had of her. I ran a hand along the cotton of my panties, and though it wasn't wet, I still felt very sensitive down there because I almost wanted to get off when her hands were along my back. If she was a slow dresser, I would've given myself a quick frig, but there wasn't time to consider. Also in this case, giving myself pleasure could backfire and actually have kept me awake if I had, so waiting to release my tension was the best thing to do.  
   
"You have to play into that," I told myself, "think of that in the way you dress." Those thoughts brought me back to Tuesday and the sprinklers, along with laundry day forcing me to improvise quick. My uniform preparation slipped that day, and though I expected it to be a disaster, the sprinklers and lack of underclothes ended with one of the most sexually satisfying days I'd ever had, and finally getting the weight off my back that was Dean. I smiled, recalling those hovering brown eyes Paris gave me as she slid her backpack onto her shoulder, turned around, and found her fellow classmate with her own shirt held in that girl's hands, her mood going from angry and pissed off down to wanting some friendly bonding, and that girl wearing a tank top that left very little to the imagination.  
   
She loved it, and I loved that attention so much, along with the dirty ideas I formed. That scene you occasionally see in a bad sex drama of the woman looking over herself in the mirror and confidently stating to herself that 'I'd do me'? That was me in the Chilton darkroom at lunch, begging for Paris to get me off as my hands got to really know how alluring a girl I could really be.  
   
 _I want her to want me_ , was the line in my head. Then that Cheap Trick tune played in my head, which thankfully I decided not to sing into my hairbrush as that would only make Paris question my mental state. I found myself thinking that a ribbed white top in the top drawer of my vanity with very thin spaghetti straps that I usually reserve for a 100° day when I'd rather be naked would be the perfect top for seduction. I took it out, and slipped it on, expecting it to look out of place on my body for an early November morning as sleepwear.  
   
It was far from the case, and only convinced me further that I should occasionally stray from my usual wardrobe. Not only did it flatter me very well, but it was just as warm as if I would've worn the lamb PJs. I looked pretty nice, and Paris would definitely think the same was what I thought.  
   
I considered going bottomless and just sleeping in that and my panties, but again, I want to seduce her, not rush things too fast; her mind could overheat. I took a pair of blue scrub pants from my drawer I usually match up with an oversized t-shirt. It did a little to elongate my legs and make them longer, but not really too much; I meant it to be a red herring to show I might be spicing myself up a smidge, but that I still try and dress conservatively.  
   
With another quick look at myself, I determined that it was time to get out there and ramp up my flirting, for I still had a few things in mind to make my intentions known. "She ain't gonna know what hit her," I told myself with confidence into the mirror, as I heard her come out of the bathroom and walk back into the living room.  
   
"It's time." One more look in the mirror, and it was time to go into action. I waited a few beats, then opened up my door and readied myself for the sight of Paris Gellar in something that though dowdy, was still infinitely much more alluring and sexy to wear than a frumpy nightgown that made her look like she was carrying septuplets instead of a junior in high school looking to get important life connections from a secret society.  
   
I came out and saw Paris preparing for bed as if she was the inconvenient guest she may have been in February, but certainly wasn't this morning. I know she loathed sleeping on the couch and kept hearing about it days after that night she impromptly swept into my house to ask me for help, and ended up staying the night. She slept in her regular clothes, yes, so she was a bit uncomfy. Still, she's used to sleeping on a $2,000 mattress every night so it was a shock to her system to sleep on a piece of furniture she wasn't used to.  
   
This was a sleepover after all in the rawest sense of the word; she just wasn't some far off relative from Kansas who I offered the couch to out of obligation. This was a girl who was quickly becoming my best friend, and maybe if I played my cards right, my future lover. My body was already overcharged beyond belief, and I yearned for her close to me, for Paris' presence around me was keeping me single-handedly grounded.  
   
No way was I going to just say goodnight and walk back to my room; I had to take action. So I swept into the room, and before she could get comfy enough to not justify moving from the couch, I took the blanket right from her hand and told her that I wouldn't allow her to sleep on the cursed couch. I looked her down sternly and also let her know not to bother heading upstairs to Mom's room because she wouldn't ever allow someone else to sleep in her bed (though I don't know for sure).  
   
This was a side that **I** was unfamiliar with myself, taking charge of the situation and though with some numbing, pretty much demanded Paris sleep with me in my bed. I tossed the colorful afghan onto the chair and just looked at Paris, lost in her thoughts and pretty much shaken by what I did.  
   
I liked it though, being the one who was in control for once. Paris always had the upper hand, and through these last few months I had to get the permission, silent or said, to rub her back in class, help her out with the date with Jamie in Washington, and asking her to be my dance partner. Most everything was her reaction to my action.  
   
Here though, she had absolutely no choice. I wasn't going to let her sleepy self out of this house, nor would I allow her to stay up so long she'd eventually nod off on the couch and fall asleep in a sitting position. It was my bed, my house, my rules. I wouldn't push if she said no to sleeping in my bed, but I conveyed with my emotions and face that I'd be gravely disappointed if she turned down another wonderful bonding opportunity.  
   
With the way she looked in my mom's clothes though, I was praying she'd say yes to my invitation. She was lying there on that couch, her feet barely reaching the other side of the sofa because of her short stature, and I wished right then and there I could telegraph that picture in my mind to a printer. Paris just has this classical and timeless beauty about her, from her long legs and up to her beautiful and anger-worn face. When she's pissed I can't help but think that beneath those rolled eyes, gritted teeth and furrowed forehead, there's a soft girl in there, yearning to be loved but never finding the right one to share those feelings with. When I look at her, I don't just see that enraged girl with a superhuman interest in her academic studies; I see Paris, the hopeless romantic, going from Marie Curie trying to discover with her husband more of the properties of radioactive materials, to just another girl who has a heart waiting to be filled.  
   
Two years later I still can't get out of my mind her look at Tristan as he tried to flirt his agenda into her; that nervous look and the loss of words as she sunk from 5'3" to 3'5" in the space of thirty seconds against her locker. Why Tristan would be more interested in me, or Summer is still a mystery to me. Paris revered him, and I still hear those sad words, where she called herself a loser and undeserving of my help the day after the date, comparing herself to a charity case.  
   
She never has been that to me, not for one minute. Her life might be sad and her skills in high society unused, but she's just another girl competing to be #1, just like I am. Thing is, Paris should be more than that; she should be respected, revered, and given all the attention she deserves so much. She's far from perfect and even-keeled, but despite that, I love her for it.  
   
That nervous little Jewish girl has found her way into my heart, and for that I had to show her just how much. It was time for the next phase of the plan after about a minute of pondering and a little bit of "Well, should I?" and "But the bed--", when she let me know, though with some hesitation that she'd take my invitation of sharing a bed.  
   
 _YES! THANK YOU!_ I cried out in my mind, and with her eyes seeming to take the same direction as mine (in that she was staring at me in a rather unnerving way), she got up from the couch, and I felt another bout of yawning coming on. I stretched myself out, and she seemed to stop in her tracks, for even with shut eyes, I couldn't hear her move towards the bedroom. I could sense her eyes on me, moving up from my face and down to the middle of my body, where I felt cool air against my belly.  
   
It wouldn't be wrong to say she was on edge, but she was nervous a little as I went around the bottom floor of the house and locked every window and door in sight, the better to reassure her that I could understand her nervous look towards the usually unlocked door before we moved towards the kitchen.  
   
I was pretty much on pins and needles as she came into my room, feeling like I had to lighten the mood. Being a little dominant was putting her senses on red alert, and I had to help calm her way into slumber because her mind had to be filled with thoughts of failing tests left and right Monday due to the dance.  
   
She was on an edge, seeming distracted by the unfamiliar atmosphere that was my room to her. She had been in there before, but not like this; in a mood for study or at six in the morning where her mind wasn't on the atmosphere and furnishings.  
   
Paris wasn't comfortable; she was scared to come in, feeling like she was a needless distraction to what should be a time to recuperate with sleep rather than a socialization opportunity. She looked at me, then immediately darted her gaze to the floor below moments later.  
   
The best way to warm her up was to compliment how she looked, which I loved. I stopped her in the door frame and told her she was looking lovely.  
   
"I do?" she questioned. "I wouldn't normally sleep in this stuff."  
   
"It's a nice change," I assured her, "you look wonderful Paris, honestly. The shirt is nice and loose, and the shorts fit you well."  
   
"I guess I do." She seemed flustered, yet went on, her gaze shared by me and the carpeting as she eased herself from the threshold of my door and into the bedroom. "I don't look as nice as you though, that top looks like it fits like a glove."  
   
 _Nothing to be taken sexually_ , was the instant analysis from my mind as I brushed off the compliment. After finding some more words, Paris continued on, and well, let's say that Dean had never been as complimentary about my clothing as Paris was a few hours ago.  
   
"I mean it Gilmore, you're like a perfect fashion plate, anything you buy, it fits well, especially that top. I mean obviously I could never pull off that look since I have a surplus of...breastage." She smiled shyly, and it took all I had to hold off a laugh at the expense of a fellow NHS'er using that last word. "You can do shy and elusive so well; you don't have much in your financial coffers, yet you stretch your wardrobe so well. When you put together that outfit I dated Tristan in, your attention to detail was certainly amazing. I could never spend a million dollars and look as simply cute as you would in a tank and scrubs. How do you do it Rory, I mean..."  
   
Yep, she was nervous alright. Her hands darted around her body and she seemed to try to throw attention towards me that was unneeded. Her eyes weren't looking into mine and her face seemed to flush a deep red. That's what I like about catching Paris suddenly with these compliments; her plainness and modesty make her use a defensive mechanism to try to bounce off the praise and throw it back the other way.

She continued on, listing a laundry list of my attributes, trying to think of any way to keep my attention away from her as a pesky guest and keep it on me. "I don't get how you manage to stay so slim and svelte either, because I eat light and filling, yet I still end up with a new pound at least a month. Then there's you, looking all slim and trim as you eat anything you want, and make me feel so cursed. Sure my chest is memorable, but what else is there really on me that some person could say would turn their head?"  
   
Here she was commenting on my tummy, which though sounding academic and dry, was enough to send a chill up through me. She had looked at me in some way carnally through that hour, I could tell that with her nervous voicing on the subject. Again Paris was fretting and winding herself up nervously, and here I was, with my eyes on her legs.  
   
 _They look so smooth_ , I was thinking to myself. _How would they feel though?_ I was starting to be curious; not only did I need to settle Paris into bed; there was an urgent need to put my hand in the tiger cage, and see what would happen if I ventured physical touching above the usually friendly line I was maintaining. I had another reason beyond personal gratification to test things out; the track of her rant suggested that before long, suffrage, anorexia, and Calvin Klein underwear models and their heroin chic look of the mid 90s would end up being brought up, things would become ugly and I'd have to defend every size three and under woman in the world. I'm afraid to say that I wasn't exactly in the mood for that.  
   
I had to calm her down, and touching her seemed to be the only thing in mind. So when she finally settled down enough, I blurted out that as a girl, I envied her legs.  
   
At first this seemed to surprise her, and that avalanche of negative body image given to her by her mother again came to the forefront. Paris denied my compliment and tried to shrug it off immediately, trying to blunt it under more blame for what she thinks is a cursed body.  
   
What I wanted to say was that she was voluptuous, but I went for a calming move, an attempt to reassure her and slowly ease my way in. I sat her down on the bed and made the point of using my eyes to convey what my words were also doing. Paris wasn't going to squirm out of this one, and I made sure to let her know that her legs were a very important feature on her.  
   
I set my hand down on her knee; nothing freaky to be taken out of it instead of trying to make her understand. My palm rested against her cap and I intentionally stopped speaking in order to gauge what her reflexes might be if I started inching it up her thigh. Thing is a day of bottled up sexual tension does a lot to you and screws with your usual thought processes, and I was hardly thinking chastely. My look communicated it all to her, that I wanted more to tell her she had a great set of gams. I rubbed up and down the middle of her leg, trying to make it look friendly. I was all on edge, trying to keep myself in control, and it took me but a few moments but to recall that I was in the same boat just a few days ago in the front seat of her car on the way home. Talk about karma, for her touch which edged mere inches from where no one has dared was now being returned by me in kind.  
   
My nails scraped against the thick skin as I shifted my hand up a little, trying to find any kind of sign of hair on her legs. Even with the best razor that Target offered, I've been still stuck with slight stubble on my legs (another reason for the hosiery at school before I ditched them), and thinking of how Paris' simple beauty somehow resulted in her having a smooth sheen. I commented on this, and she seemed not to have any words about the topic. Her eyes followed my hands, and her mouth was kind of tight, as if she did feel something from my touch. Not calling her on it, I moved my hand higher up her right thigh. My heart beat even faster, and I felt like I was really having some guts, feeling up my peer superior like this! Paris permitted this, and it puzzled me that she would let me be this daring.  
   
I dug in my touch a little, basking in the newfound knowledge that she was smooth as silk, not a root to be found at all. My mind wasn't under control, and before I knew it I was telling Paris in no uncertain terms that I was shocked at her smoothness. Thankfully she was starting to have a sense of ease come to her, and with a little laugh at how I was acting, told me that it had been a freshman year perk she had gotten one day, and liked so much that she couldn't bear not to be bare. It was sort of natural for her to take up some kind of beauty treatment, I have to admit. Madeline and Louise, despite her many denials are influences on her style, and though she doesn't take to their hair and makeup regimens, she takes care of herself just as well otherwise. I enjoyed hearing her tell me about how a spa perk became as natural as brushing her teeth, and had to admire whomever helps her out with this job. Whoever does this for her, she must really trust since the waxer seemed to have gone pretty high.  
   
That thought was where I almost lost my bearings. I was almost quiet as my imagination took the inopportune time to ponder that exact question of how high did she go. Freaked me out in the least; at the most, that thought was turning me on as I directed my vision so my eyes to Paris would look as if they were staring innocently at her legs, but around the periphery, the focus was on her lamp. I had this flash of her and I together in that bed, sliding my hand higher until I feel that lace fringe where my hands should be far away from. I bit down on the flesh in my mouth so I wouldn't let an erotic noise out, feeling myself tighten at the mere mention within of how she was...how do I put this within a vague term...patterned, trimmed, stripped?  
   
Not that I've tried it myself mind you, well, too much. Once you hear about it though, you can't help but think how it might be, or how it might feel. Feeling up her legs then, it was only natural for my thought track to drift towards the dirty side, and I admit I've had dreams where I thought of how _au naturel_ she was, as I dreamed of kissing down from her neck, down to her belly, until I find my eyes where a sliver of silk usually would be, which in this image, isn't there. I've never focused on what was below her abdomen in real life since her wardrobe is built to minimize sexual interest from anyone, but the dreams, and now the reality that she's damned smooth, would it really surprise me to see nothing but a thin blonde line down if we ever got to the point of sexual intimacy, much less finding our feelings reciprocated?  
   
For a moment, I was having second thoughts of choosing the flannel and shorts for her; with an oversized t-shirt I'd have had a good excuse to trail higher and attribute my wayward fingers to an accident if they ended up high enough towards the inner portion of that thigh. I scratched a little deeper, hearing her sort of inhale sharply, but not so much she was reeling back. I kept my gaze locked, that vixenish imagination of mine running away with all these thoughts of taking the simple touch from a bookworm's inquiry, to a lover's wanting for more. I couldn't help it; looking at Paris out of her element, it was something that was causing the feelings for her I had kept inside to start leeching out slowly. The flushed heat I felt in my cheeks was giving me a clue that I needed to reel back from the edge a bit.  
   
 _You're blushing,_ I reminded myself, _better stop before she notices_. Leave it to me to take what should be a soothing kind of motion and misdirect it into something dirty like that. How can I think of her like that all the time and feel absolutely little guilt because I think about how good her legs feel, but want to bring that hand up higher than where I had it.  
   
 _Because she's beautiful_ , is what I simply thought in response. Nothing less than that, Paris is the perfect girl for me. She might be a little unbalanced, and yes, very kooky at times, but that just adds to the package of what makes her that one girl I have my eye on. Her arms, her legs, her eyes, hell her everything. I want to know her in and out, but to do that I have to be slow and cautious, and at that moment, just imagining her the way I did, it kept me riled up, yet the slow burn of the seduction kept me grounded.  
   
I wish in my mind that I could've done a little more flirting with her at ease with me, however, that wasn't to be with the clock reading 6:40am, and her body ready to start resting her up against her will. No doubt about it that both of us were tired and sore, and the healing powers of sleep were needed far more than any kind of sexual gratification my worn mind was begging for.  
   
I told her this and let go of her leg, causing her to freeze up for a bit so I could set the alarm to a proper must-wake-up time. She seemed to pause and act desperate for my touch again after I asked when she had to be back home.  
   
After a bit of a pause, Paris let me know she had a lot of time to get home, and that her mother, per usual was putting her own needs far from that of Paris'. It saddens me that she might have to call some jet-setting card counter her future stepfather because Sharon regards her in the same way as one of Emily's maids. For God's sake, she's Paris' mother! I can never understand how a woman like her could win custody of her when she hasn't made any kind of contribution to her daughter's life in the time I've known her. It hurts me to hear Paris talk of her this way, yet she's not at fault. She's done almost every damned thing she can possibly do to win her mother's love, and it's never going to happen. It's Sharon's fault that Paris has to yearn for attention, and then become defensive about a close friendship, lest it ruin a delicate college connection no one but her cares about.  
   
For now however I'm only thinking of things as they are; her mother is her own person and I have to respect what she thinks about me, whatever that might be. I can't do much about the future, this I know; I can only guide my present.  
   
I see that it hurts her to talk about her mother, so I distract her into a conversation about Mr. Mercurio and his predictable tendencies. Nothing's a surprise with him and we both rant on about how his class would never change. If it wasn't for our lucky seating assignments Paris and I might have long ago told our counselors to fuck the English seal on our diplomas and study-halled the remainder of the semester. We crawled into bed together, her taking the left towards an exterior wall, and I using my eminent domain to sleep on the right near my heating vent.  
   
 _Not that she needs to be close to the register; I'll be keeping her warm!_ There went my inner vixen again, running around and causing general chaos to my brain before I fell asleep. I made sure to keep my body as close to the edge of the mattress as possible so we didn't end up bumping into each other a lot in sleep. Though I was going to try to keep this chaste, the occasional Paris hand brush or soft puff of breath against the nape of my neck would be far from an annoying side effect. Just the fact she was in the same bed, safe and warm, ready to fall asleep was of enough comfort to me, even if I never said a word of the feelings I had for her.  
   
After turning off the lamp for her, I asked her if she needed anything else, and told me she was fine as I took one last look at her before sleep overtook me in the dimmed light of the bedroom, with the sunrise barely peeking over the skies of Connecticut.  
   
If nothing else, all that we had gone through over the last five days proved that there was a very strong friendship under that banter and arguing that we shared, and have won an endurance contest with nothing but our hearts and a heap of prayers and luck. _I'm lucky to have you Par_ , I let her know, unsaid as her sleepy brown eyes penetrated my gaze one last time as she settled her side of the covers against her, and the pillow she was using against her head. _You're the most I need, and you're my drive to be the best. If it wasn't for you and your pushiness these last two years I'd still be stuck in that high school I loathed going to before Chilton, and far off Harvard's radar. I wouldn't be able to make my mother and grandparents proud of me for winning the impossible contest without you in my arms. Forget about me letting you go anytime soon Par; this time I'm going to be the buggy little pest eager to pick something with you, the tables are turned. Thing is I'm not looking for a fight; it's your love that I want. Hopefully I get to say something today about it, but if I don't, you will know eventually. The only thing I can really do now is pray that you feel the same with me.  
   
_After that, it took but a couple minutes for me to fall into REM, and into some of the most restful sleep I've ever experienced. It felt slow and meandering, like my worn synapses had been plugged into the outlet and were recharging, I could really feel it in my dreams. They were of Paris, and the two of them were far from nightmares. One of them a fairy-tale like dream of her being my Princess Charming, dislodging the poisoned apple from my throat with her kiss as somehow I tied our past Shakespeare project with the storyline of _Snow White_. Funny, I always pictured myself as more of a Goldilocks honestly, especially if the bears happened to leave behind a cache of caffeine. Which then leads to Mama and Papa Bear being Mom and Luke, Baby Bear as Kirk, and my feeling like someone snuck some LSD into my Sleepytime Tea. Just don't ask, my dreamworld is odd enough as it is having to think of Kirk whining about someone sitting in his chair while he wears bear ears, much less him as my biological brother!  
   
The second dream was a little more rooted in reality than the first; another one of those future moments images where we're sitting in a Harvard library and comparing notes, as both of us know we'd rather be doing something else back in our dorm room. My hands are on the book, but my eyes were elsewhere, staring at Paris from across the table and how a complicated essay on Prussia was vexing her. It was just...quiet and contemplative, at least at first. Towards the end, she noticed my staring and called me on it, as I failed to explain away the fact that her low-cut shirt was exposing a surplus of skin along her clavicle. Then after asking me why I'd want a study night when my mind was clearly on something else, she told me to gather my things and that we were on our way to the dorm for a romantic movie night. In the sense there was a romantic movie on our TV screen yes; however, we weren't watching it at all.  
   
I guess this is what happens when you tire of being taken to Wonderland or the English countryside of _Pride and Prejudiced_ as you grow up; the dreams become a lot more real, and so much more expressive of how you feel about your life. It felt nice to dream of something besides books or hopelessness with Dean, and to have the girl next to me who I have them about made those mirages so much more thoughtful and vivid.  
   
I finally settled into a deep sleep after awhile, dreamless and quiet. The small space and Paris' body heat helped lull me off, and I couldn't help but feel much more comfortable than I usually was. Her soothing breathing near my ear, that occasional mumbling in her sleep about assignments, her hands against my stomach, her left leg below mine...  
   
There was a sudden jolt as I felt something against my waist, and then something heavy against my back, and suddenly, I was sort of awake, but not much awake since I was only in the fourth hour of rest. I looked at my alarm clock, reading 11:04am, and thought for a moment that I'd overslept again. I was in my regular Sunday state of mind, and thought that it was funny Mom hadn't woken me to get to the Inn by 11:30 for my usual Sunday job; helping out in the dining room, checking some room book math and licking and stamping envelopes in lieu of Michel's day off. It didn't give me much money, but it was enough for me to eat healthy in the ala carte line for every lunch at the very least, plus I didn't have to pay taxes on it.  
   
I opened my eyes to my surroundings, the drawn shades and darkened room around my bed, with Colonel Clucker standing sentry at my bedroom door. It felt sort of odd to me. _Shouldn't I be more spread out and sleeping on my right side?_ I thought to myself, wondering why I was sleeping in a way I wasn't used to. My mind traveled back to that feeling against my waist and against my back, which felt so unfamiliar to me.

Still a little sleep-woozy, I brought my hand down from above the covers, and then beneath it, curious as to the feeling. I brought it beneath, running it down my side and against my breast, until I reached where the weight was.  
   
That's when all of those pictures from Saturday came back to mind, and all that Paris and I had done. My fingertips touched that flannel, and everything came back to me.  
   
My breathing suddenly picked up pace, and my eyes shut as I found out that without the limits of friendliness and angry tension surrounding us, Paris was acting adventurous. I could feel her lips against the back of my neck. Just a little bit, she was far from kissing me since I heard her breathing as if she was asleep; and she probably was too. I couldn't hear a noise from her at all as her arm rested against my belly as if she was trying to cuddle up.  
   
I was in shock about how close she was to me in that bed, even though I shouldn't have been surprised because of how small my bed is with two sleepers. What I was in was the most awkward of positions you could ever get into with another person.  
   
 _Paris_ , I thought, _is spooning against me. She's right against my body, what on earth do I do?_ I was spinning because of how, despite the fact I wasn't looking towards her, compromising it must've looked. I woke up once with Dean next to me on the mats of Miss Patty's, but he was far from looking like we had just had a passionate dalliance. This was a lot different though.  
   
It was just supposed to be close sleeping, and I didn't think anything more than the occasional touch would happen while we slept in the same bed. But I was in a spoon; one I couldn't get budge out of in any way, much less move. Her warm body was surrounding me on three sides, with her arm wrapped lightly across me. I could hear her breaths in my ear, and feel her exhalations against its outer shell.  
   
I could also take in her scent, the mix of her orchid fragrance, the lilting aroma of her shampoo, which somehow seemed to be a seasonal scent, a mix of butterscotch and vanilla. Her body near mine was reassuring, and though the position she was in was compromising, I was too stuck, mentally and physically, to dare wake her up and ask her to move. What Paris didn't know in her sleep, wouldn't hurt her, was my reasoning. I was still feeling pretty tired and felt a few hours of sleep yet I could handle, and Paris spooning into me was helping me do it. Her bared legs were right against mine, warm and smooth, just as I had thought hours before. The flannel she wore was comfy against my skin, and her soft sleep was like a rhythm, soothing me with her soft sounds and occasional deep-throated stirring.  
   
There wasn't any way to turn around without waking her, nor did I want to ruin this mental picture for myself. If she awoke this way and discovered her proximity to me, it would be for her to decode; she'd take offense if she realized I was the one waking her. Paris was like a heated blanket, a special treat to be enjoyed only on the coldest of days, a special feeling you want over and over again.  
   
I wanted that. So, keeping as still as I could, I pushed up one of my shirt straps before it fell, looked over at my stuffed rooster, and counting in my head to myself by hundreds, decided there wasn't any reason to wake up at 11:15am. There was plenty of time for my plan of coercion to take root, and to feel Paris' blonde tresses against my back shoulder, it was enough, along with the tight and comfy sleeping arrangement to fall back into the land of Nod by 11:30am, just in time for my dreams of her to begin anew.  


* * *

It was quarter after one when I awoke again, the sun bright in my window and in my gaze, so bright as to turn the darkness I usually see in my closed eyes into a dark red, forcing me awake despite my wish to use every minute I could possibly spend in bed until I could not sleep a minute more. My biology is a stubborn jackass however; never had I woken up at a time after two in the afternoon on a Sunday since by now I'd be heavily buried in either school or inn work, same as I had been every week since I was in third grade. Try as I might I couldn't force myself to sleep again, and with Paris tossing towards the other side and sliding out of her spoon I think an hour before, I only had a tenuous connection to her soothing sleep energy, not falling into the deep slumber I'd rather share, much less a nap. Reluctantly, at 1:20pm I started working myself out of the bed slowly, waking up reluctantly.  
   
I didn't dare disturb Paris, not only out of fear about how she'd get up, but how this was probably the best sleep she had on a weekend for years. I know Paris, she's probably sacrificed many a lazy Saturday or Sunday for charity, extracurricular activities, synagological commitments, study meetings, and probably just days having to put up with her mother as she's dragged off to Talbot's or another dud of a clothing store against her will to receive more of that 'non-datable' attire that made her look homely and dull. She didn't have to be up or anywhere for the day, and she deserved the rest for all the hours and hard work she put in to prepare for the dance marathon.  
   
My eyes took in her sleeping form, eyes closed, her head resting against two pillows, with her long mane of hair spread all over the fluffy item. The flannel shirt's sleeves were pushed up a bit from the cuffs, with her shorts riding up those legs I had lusted for hours before. In sleep, Paris looks so unaffected, natural, and plain beautiful. This state was where she could be herself, dream her own dreams, and never have to worry that her slumber would receive a failing grade. She smiles in her sleep, and I hear her mumble something I can't make out with the pillow in the way of her mouth; not that it was important to understand, since it was said in sleep and not with a lucid, conscious mind.  
   
Just seeing her that way, resting, her brain in its proverbial charger, it makes her look lovely. Her smirk kills me each time I see it, and it's always a positive sign to see one place where her worries are washed away and she dreams of nothing but the best-case scenario. When I'd watch her sleep in Washington, her sleeping face was always a barometer of how the day would go. The deep frown meant she was worried about the itinerary; that would mean delays, cancellations, and being stood up by our House rep at his Capitol office. A smile always meant we were both going to have a great day filled with discovery, inspiration, and ideas to make the whole trip an experience not to forget and give us an extra credit head start on our progress reports.  
   
The world would be well this afternoon; her smile was soft and caring, and I would be able to share it all with her. With one more look just to make sure her sleep was deep, I slipped out of the scrub pajama pants I wore to bed, and exchanged those with a tight pair of jeans especially bought for an occasion like this. Lane calls those blue pants 'The Jeans of Woo', while my mother goes with the more obvious and probably edited 'Do Me Jeans'. I had usually worn them around Dean when I wanted to clue him in at an event such as the town hayride or Valentine's Day, where I intended to warm up his libido by begging him with my words that kissing wasn't going to be the extent that I wanted to love him, that I wanted him to feel me up.  
   
Sad thing for him is that he never did it; the most we ever did on February 14th was that he offered me an 85% discounted dented Cupid cake at the end of the Taylor's market business day, along with one of those grating audio greeting cards that played a love song with the equivalent of a $3 mini-keyboard circa 1990. He also gave me three roses, but yes, again on the discount, again the runts of the floral bunch, with bright spots on the petals. The romance of last year and the three month anniversary had disappeared, to be replaced with what seemed the Yankee Redneck equivalent of a romantic night out.  
   
And no, I do not use that term as a compliment; joining the school hockey team isn't advancing your social status by any means if you're doing it for fun, and not a college scholarship to Colgate at the very least.  
   
The more I think about it, the more I dread thinking of our past more and more. I was whipped by his charms, and with his handsomeness, thus my selling of all my J.R.R. Tolkien novels at Black, White, and Red All Over because his constant viewing of the first _Lord of the Rings_ DVD as a 'date flick' became so grating as to turn me off from not only an entire trilogy of literature, but an entire genre at that. I'm only now realizing why both Tristan and Jess both loathed him; he was never enough to measure up to the pride my town had in me. Both of those boys challenged me somewhat, while Dean was safe and dependable, qualities that might be fine for the cocoonish existence I led in Stars Hollow, up until I went to Chilton.  
   
Paris has an extended view of the world that I find myself drawing closer to each time I see her. I look at her as I pick up some of my texts and notebooks from my desks to have a quiet Sunday study session by myself, and think that with all that's been in our way, including the rivalry we shared, I'm lucky to know her for who she is, and not what she has to be. I give her a last smile as I slowly tiptoe my way out of my bedroom and past the loud creak in the threshold that's woken me whenever Mom steps on it accidentally when she checked in on me before she went to bed when I was younger. My hands loaded with books and mind with memories, I left Paris to sleep until she can't, and shut the door quietly, and head into the living room to wring all that dance stuff out of my head, and replace that information in my short-term memory with dull Russian novel facts that would definitely have no use in my life in the future.  
   
I settled down on the couch and got to work, opening up the laptop and refreshing my mind with notes from a few subjects I thought I was getting rusty on. I tried my best to keep my mind on all things academic, burying my head in the textbook and even going as far as torturing myself through a particularly boring _War and Peace_ chapter to take my mind off things, and Paris. _Stop it_ , I tried to goad in my head, _you're acting like someone else entirely, this is isn't you. You're supposed to be cramming to get into Harvard, you have to keep your mind off that girl! She's your competition, the one you have to beat, and to do that you must study your heart out, right now!_ So I went back to the texts and the notes, trying to get that extra edge on the girl sleeping in my room.  
   
Trouble was, Paris might be my competition, but she was also the one plaguing my thoughts, I couldn't just up and drop her, or remain unaffected about the day that was passing. I was still spinning and head over heels infatuated with her, more at that point than I ever had before. She was forbidden to me, and we were never supposed to ever get to this point. Paris Gellar was supposed to be my life-long enemy and pain in the ass! What the hell happened to bring me to that point?  
   
Five minutes later and a look in the back of the RN notebook gave me a reminder of why in the space of just five days, I went from thinking of Paris as a girl that I'd never have, to a woman that I needed to know if she was the way I was or not. Those four pages, scribbled in Dixon Ticonderoga #2 graphite gave me a glimpse into my psyche from October 3rd and on from there. A thin grey column on the left of many reasons to go with my gut, and then on the right, almost nothing. Six reasons that were excuses, ways that the old Rory wrote down in order to justify to herself that her idea of a lover wasn't blonde and brown-eyed, and didn't have a certain part. Only one made sense, the rejection I would feel for years if she said no, or worse; called me those same names Francie had used as an all-encompassing label for members of RTS, and then left in a huff of finality.  
   
There was no doubt that I was gay; I knew that in my mind, and in my heart, that my best friendships may be with guys, but one girl, I long for her to give me more than a hand on the shoulder and reassuring words. Being married to a man I didn't love was where I didn't want to end up. At the same time, I didn't want to get involved with a woman that I didn't share a spark with either.  
   
My scribbled handwriting, the notations along the margins, the paper skinned to within a very thin macro-inch with each erasure after a badly written pro or taken care of con, it was like a love letter in Excel spreadsheet form. Reason upon reason to kiss Paris and hope for more than that, at the end of column A sat the final solution, a declaration that would tell whoever read this that my goal was for Paris to realize that I saw more in what we had than just fiery banter; that within those fighting words was something more, a yearning to know her as more than a study buddy.  
   
I wrote down a few more pros to complete the last page of the list in the back of the notebook, easily finding enough things about yesterday to finish off the list. After I finished adjusting a few of the past pros to fit more with my current opinions, I took one last look at the entire list, determined to make sure that without a doubt, I wanted this to happen; to tell Paris today that I find her attractive as more than a friend. The true purpose of a pro-con list is to tell you if you're making the right decision.  
   
I didn't even need to get past the first page; just a mere flash of one of my Russian Novels massages, and a replay of that almost-kiss last night moments after she admitted she had fallen out of love with Tristan, is all that it took to help me make that final decision.  
   
"She's going to know today," I told myself with so much confidence that I could match her stone-cold determination at every debate and quiz bowl we had participated in through the years. "I'm not going to let Paris leave this house until I tell her that I'm gay, and I feel a hard attraction to her. If it works out, great. But if it doesn't..." I looked down at myself, and thought of how she had been looking at me lately. There was still a chance this pull was one-sided on my part. Then again, she hasn't eyed up one guy at all since Tristan took off for North Carolina, unless those eyes were giving dirty looks to the ever-felonious Duncan and Bowman, who were both still attending Chilton due to large endowments by their individual fathers as 'apology gifts'.  
   
Finally there was the matter that her sleep talking "Oh Rory, baby!" cry from that summer night in Washington still echoed through my brain 24/7. At the very least, she's had a sexual dream about me at minimum. That left figuring out if my body was her wonderland in slumber.  
   
Uggh, John Mayer, out of my head, now! Why does Mom have to play that CD in the Jeep all the time?  
   
Those doubts I had would have to remain, for now I had to build my case to show I wanted her, not just trying to clue her in. After finishing up refreshing on my notes, I stacked all my textbooks in one pile on top of my computer, and then spread the notebooks throughout the coffee table. She wouldn't look at the texts; Paris usually goes right for the notes. I put the notes she was going for first right in front, then her more dreaded subjects along the back, making sure that the Russian Novels book, and in turn my confessions, had a wide berth towards the right back corner. So she wouldn't miss that last hint, I slid the clip of a pen cap I had broken off between the first page in the back and the spiral, an unnoticeable bookmark that with her tired and groggy condition, she wouldn't think of seeing among the morass of metal wire and loose-leaf. I was smart enough to figure her frustration with the class, along with the lack of notes I made in the first place would probably keep her perturbed. When she gets frustrated she throws things sometimes, and a notebook wouldn't be an exception. So if she didn't look at the entire notebook the first time and find out that way, when she threw the book back down, it would open to the pro and con list.  
   
The next step was to try to make her feel even more at home and comfortable here, and like a true guest. I thought back to a few weeks ago in my bed, when she had explained what she usually did when she awoke on a Sunday morning.  
   
"I usually have Fran call out to this little sub place on Main that delivers," she explained to me. "I order the turkey; it's healthy enough and the way this place makes it, a very good sandwich, especially with those Sun Chips they sell along with it. The butler usually brings in the papers and I try to read them cover to cover, the _Times_ and the _Courant_ and if I'm in a good mood, add on the _Boston Globe_ and the _Herald_ for the 'cah-menahs' view, and the _Providence Journal_ if it's one of those weeks when news breaks seemingly hourly. After I finish lunch, I get to work and study until my eyes blur."  
   
"Heart through her stomach and reading habits," I told myself, counting through the remaining $20 of mad money Mom left me for the trip and comparing the prices on Joe's menu to make sure I had enough. My food and hers would come to $10 with a coupon from out of the _Gazette_ that took $5 off a $15 order, and the papers were $6 together. Add $4 for the delivery driver's tip, I just had enough for everything.  
   
"Anything will help right now," I said as I found the phone (how did it end up near the TV cabinet? I swear I hooked it on the charger before I left yesterday!) and dialed the #4 in memory, Joe's. Since it was mid third quarter for the Pats game, Joe was appreciative that someone would order something besides a Grande pizza or nine-foot Red October sandwich for a game party. I gave him my usual order of a medium works pizza and some cheese bread, then Paris' sub and chips choice, finishing out the order with a bottle of Coke and a cup of wintergreen tea (he uses the same supplier as Luke's so he gets the same kind of teas and other beverages).  
   
"That's going to be $10.57 Rory, anything else?"  
   
"Joe, could you do me a favor and have Brian stop at the newsstand and pick up the _New York Times_ and the _Courant_ please? I promise I'll pay him back and more when he gets here."  
   
"Sure, anything for one of my favorite customers," he said to me. "Do you know when your ma is getting back, the guys here miss her orders and they're getting a little worried."  
   
"Lorelai's getting back from Nashville tonight," I let him know. "I'll make sure to let her know you miss her buddy." We chatted a little bit more, and then he let me know it would be thirty minutes before they'd deliver.  
   
I hung up with Joe shortly after that, and I spent the thirty minutes waiting for the food quietly doing the few dishes I used since Wednesday and remaking Mom's bed with the comforter and blankets I used to practice my dancing above in the living room. My mind was still completely on Paris, and I was wondering when she'd finally wake up and come out of my bedroom, along with what would be on her mind. Would she even realize that she spooned into me while she slept, and call me on all these signals I was sending her way? I was hoping for the best-case scenario; that she wouldn't wake up and I could sneak up to Mom's room and get the surprise ready, hopeful she'd stumble onto my pro and con list and find her curiosity piqued from it.  
   
Half an hour later, Brian the delivery driver knocked on the door, indeed holding my pizza, Paris' sandwich and side of chips, and those two large Sunday papers in his hands. I gave him the twenty Mom left, along with a five that I planned to use for marathon refreshments but never had a chance to since Luke offered free coffee and Andrew free cold bottles of water. That, and Paris paid for most of the food for me, sort of chivalrous in retrospect but really not that much of a big deal.  
   
After I ate a little bit of pizza and bread as I checked in on the football game's score and highlights, then put the leftovers in the fridge, it took me five minutes to set Paris up a place at the kitchen table. I piled the newspapers to her right on the edge, and then set out a plate with the sub unwrapped, chips opened up on the plate, in the bag, and the tea to her right. I wanted to make Paris at home and cozy as possible before things started going down, and remaining neutral seemed to be a good course of action.  
   
I know in the end I'll score points with her though; showing I know her Sunday habit, even late, is an important step in letting her know I will pay attention, no matter how dreary and routine the item might be. That's what got me into trouble with Dean; I thought he was into books and music like I was at the beginning of the relationship, but it only took one viewing of _Battlebots_ and the location of an extensive _FHM_ collection in his bedroom when he wasn't looking that nosiree, that boy wasn't having a naughty dream of Clara Barton personally dressing his wounds.  
   
But that was young and stupid Rory who was with Dean, for I'm now older and wiser, stewing in my mind over the last few months about how to approach the moment I let Paris know how I think of her. I took one last look at the kitchen table, and then out into the living room, where that blue spiral held the secret no one ever thought I, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore would ever have. The butterflies took effect in my stomach, and as I walked past the couch and onto the stairs, I knew the next time I hit that lower landing, Paris would never look at me the same way again.  
   
I had finished dropping my hints; now every gesture and hint that was floating around the first floor of my house was ready to spring upon Paris to let her know that someone out there did love her. _Please God_ , I prayed to myself silently, _make this work. I'm not sure if you'd ever accept us, but if you make me feel these things for Paris, how can this be wrong?_ Those small doubts were setting in, and as I slipped into Mom's bedroom, shut the door, slid onto her bed and fell asleep for a short nap before I could make everything clear for her, I could only hope that Paris wouldn't turn her feelings around on me after finding out I was orientated towards her.  
   
I did know one thing before I closed my eyes and let light sleep overtake me. It might not be the best decision, but it would in the end, be better to tell Paris everything, than keep my feelings for her hushed until death. That was the coward's way out, to not hurt or arouse a feeling in their subject. Our friendship was formed on conflict, and to not challenge one another was to say 'I don't care for you anymore, for I can spar better with someone else'.  
   
There's never going to be another Paris Gellar though. This meant that for today, whether I liked it or not, it was up to me to prove without reasonable doubt that I felt we were meant to be more than friends.  
   
"Zero hour," I made it clear to myself as I fell asleep atop my mom's bed. I was going to either lose the best friend I had made in more in a decade, or else find myself with one of the most loyal and hard-driven girls in all of the Tri-State as my new lover.

That friends line was going to be crossed and blurred out, even if it took tears and raw and untamed emotions to erase it forever from our collective memories.  


* * *

I awoke again about 3:40pm, the hour long nap helping pass otherwise idle time that would have found me struggling to find something to do if I didn't decide to catch a few more Z's. I stretched my body out on the bed, feeling quite hot and wound up from these uncertain feelings and my nervousness at hoping Paris' finding out was more utter shock than disgusted revulsion. A part of me thought that Paris found the list, did not share those feelings, and was preparing to make my life hell again. I heard her voice in my mind, talking about me. "What a bookish dyke Gilmore is," she says in her voice, in my mind, to Louise. "Seriously Grant, are you surprised with the way she talked about Plath and Parker that she wished they were alive today? No wonder she never took to DuGrey, she wanted to munch on that oven-cooked mistress of prose!" Even in my worst nightmares, Paris' sarcasm is always sharp and on-target, which makes me fear what vile she has stored up if she wouldn't take well to the news.  
   
 _Maybe she still doesn't know_ , my mind nagged. Impossible, because Paris would eventually wake, eat, and soak in my notes even harder than SpongeBob at a fraternity kegger with a beer-filled swimming pool. Routine was her companion and eventually nag her up, the less time she has for it, the worse she feels about it.

I grabbed a bottle of cherry Tums sitting on my mother's vanity and shook two out, dissolving them in my mouth to kill the patch of acid that was settling in my throat. I wasn't even downstairs and my heart felt like it was beating at sextet speed, my entire blood supply flowing through my entire system in less than a minute. I pushed my tank top down a little, feeling cold and a little more exposed than usual from the peek of my belly below the hemline.  
   
 _You don't have to do this_ , my conscience reminded me one more time. _There's still time to take back your preference for girls over boys and meet all of your expectations for life. Paris will always be there, as a friend, and nothing has to change.  
_    
I looked down at my hands, shaky as I shut the bedroom door and prepared for anything she has to say. I could take back everything, no questions asked. Paris still had no clear picture of what I felt with her, so there would be no risk in **not** telling her.  
   
One more thought in my head before I went downstairs though, and it was about exactly that, no risk. It was also about expectations. The expected; the dictionary definition meaning the planned in advance, what would happen in probability. I was expected to be Chilton's valedictorian, the girl with a perfect 4.000 grade point average, with a few extra credit tenths thrown in for good measure. I expected to attend Harvard, the school I lust for like I do Paris. I expected to be the big-time journalist, the next Amanpour. That someday when I hit 50 and tired of traveling, I expected to be anchoring the evening news, like Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather before me, every weekday evening at 6:30pm from that building on West 57th. I was expected to bring glamour to Stars Hollow, make everyone I ever knew proud to associate to me, expected to work hard and never follow a second opinion my heart tried to use to overrule how I really felt.  
   
I had many expectations of me. My whole life seemed to already be planned out for me, the Day-Timers up to October of 2084 lurking somewhere in a closet somewhere and already filled out with events, probably up to my death.  
   
And that was the problem; I've expected myself into a corner where happiness is an extra-curricular activity. I fell for Dean when I was sixteen, right on schedule for a Hollywood movie. Found myself in a nutty love triangle a year later, again, Amy Heckerling couldn't have written a better time for that to happen. My life was planned, scheduled out and already in front of me, and already I was exceeding all my goals, but I was also dreading expectations.  
   
Where would expectations ever get me? Where I wanted, of course, but if I kept following them to the letter, probably to a life with no excitement, or a thrill of what's coming up next. I don't want the expected, I just want to live my life the way I like.  
   
Paris is a risk. A huge risk to my being, my façade, the way people look at my life. They've always seen the happy daughter and friend to all and the community, I'm living a fucking Norman Rockwell painting! No one could ever imagine that I, the brunette and blue-eyed wonder of their village, would ever think this way, of liking a girl like I do.  
   
You know what though? I couldn't care less what anyone thought of what I was about to do. So I'm gay, big deal! It doesn't change my grades, or anyone's perception of me before I started having these feelings. Paris, no matter how many times in the past two years I wanted to think otherwise, is one of the most important people in my life.  
   
"And I've fallen for her," I mouthed silently as to myself, with a smile on my face. I didn't let myself become bogged down in negative thoughts as I slowly made my way down the stairs, my fingers crossed and my heart swooning, hoping that the end result of the day wouldn't be an outright rejection, and not only that, a disassociation away from me because of how I felt for her.  
   
I took in the surroundings of the living room, seeing that she wasn't there. The textbooks remained in place, but the notebooks had been moved somewhat. I headed towards the table and tried to find if she had taken the Russian Novels notes, or read them.  
   
I pointed my finger and counted to myself how many notebooks were left behind. _One, two, three, four, five, six...should be seven, let's count again. Seven, six, five, four, three, two...  
_    
No seven or one, and no Paris in the room. My eyes widened, trying to find the blue book, but it wasn't there on the table, it was gone. I started to get a little excited and hopeful that things were going according to my plans.  
   
Just in case though, I checked the front door and out the window to make sure Paris was still in Stars Hollow, not running away from what was in that notebook. The door was still locked, and her car was still sitting on the gravel drive in front of the house. Since she hadn't called out my name when I came downstairs from the kitchen, that left one place in the house where she and the notebook could possibly be.  
   
She had to be in my bedroom, no question. I steeled myself to any inquisition she might have about my feelings, and headed towards the kitchen, calling out her name to see if she was still up. I walked into the room, and at her place at the table, the plate was full of crumbs, the bags thrown out and the papers looking like they had been read. _At least she wolfed her food down_ , I thought to myself, _after eggless egg sandwiches anything seems like a four-course Thanksgiving dinner_.  
   
I heard silence from my bedroom, so again I called out her name. A little bit of non-response, but before I thought she left through the back door, she came out of my bedroom, looking just as adorable as she did before we went to bed. Her hair was a bit messy and eyes a little dimmed, but she was up and alert.  
   
Although, she seemed to look as if she was a little bit in shock.  
   
"Uhh, hello Gilmore." She looked down at the floor and at her feet, and I noticed the blue RN notebook being held loosely in her right hand by the spiral. She wasn't pale-faced shocked, but just in shock. If she found out anything, she wasn't saying anything about it because her face seemed unreadable. A cool tension was in the air, but it wasn't a tight tension, more easygoing and dull.  
   
Her voice wavered as she handed me back the notebook and tried to spark up a conversation after I greeted her in return. "I suppose you'd want this back, these being your notes and all."  
   
"Did you get what you wanted out of them?"  
   
Paris seemed silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to answer. I used my finger to run down the spine where the pen cap had been stuck in to mark the pro/con list place. She gave me this funny smile, one I had never noticed before. "They helped."  
   
 _She had to have read_ , I thought, since she was giving me this solid stare that was seemed like a rake of my form. She kind of seemed to flush, telling me she liked my notes, but not saying much besides that. I tried to read her emotions like a book, which wasn't helping; she was a clean slate, even face, even eyes, and an even non-signaling smile.  
   
"I don't mind helping you out Par," I said, trying to keep her from monosyllabic speaking, "after all, important to keep us 1-2 gradewise, right?"  
   
Paris nodded back, all the while knuckling a fist together nervously and using her fingernails to scrape dead skin from her palm. "You know it. Thanks a lot for lunch, I don't know how you remembered my routine so well."  
   
"You're a guest, I'm here to serve." I smiled at her, trying to keep her at ease, but nothing seemed to work, Paris was speaking cautiously and slowly, not trying to arouse any suspicion. "As for the food, I was once the town _Chutes and Ladders_ champion, I'd kick everyone's butt. Don't need that knowledge anymore, so I replaced it with your Sunday lunch choice." Yeah, my humor was tip-top today. I then told her about what I did when I got up and then called for the food, then after eating headed upstairs for another nap.  
   
"I was starving and ready to raid the cupboards once I woke up, good perception Ror." She yawned and grabbed the half-full bag of chips off the table, munching on them as we sat down across from each other, and after prodding a bit to get her out of a three-words-a-sentence slump, engaged her in what turned out to be a fine conversation about the dance.  
   
"My back still hurts from all that standing, I can't feel my feet, and I swear I don't remember the lyrics to any song unless it was from before 1949," she let me know. "I mean I woke up with a constant loop of _Company B_ pounding in my head. That won't be good if I keep waking up with it pounding my head tomorrow morning." I thought she was doing a little bitching about the dance, but a signal, where she held up her hand before I could speak, gave me some relief. "Still, I haven't had that much fun since Spelling Bee week down in DC in '98, in competition that is."  
   
"In competition?" I was confused a little by what seemed like a clarification, but she smiled back at me.  
   
"Tell me you didn't forget the Bangles at the Pastorelli," Her memory was still clear about that night even a little less than two years later. "Remember, I really liked that band, Madeline and Louise caught at that beer bash, your drill sergeant mom embarrassing them in front of those not-so-hot guys? I still mean it when I say that was the most fun I ever had in one night, before last night of course."  
   
"I'm shocked you still remember that, didn't we drag you there kicking and screaming?" I joked, laughing at the remembrance of Paris as we all tried to talk her into it.  
   
She rolled her eyes up a little, munching on a chip and talking with her mouth somewhat full. "You're just lucky we still scored an A on that project. But I'm glad you did invite me to come, I'd love to do that again one of these days."  
   
"Yeah, once we both can stand for more than three minutes without feeling like our shins are spears digging into our feet. I can't even keep myself up for two minutes before I feel fatigued from the pain. Thank God you're driving home and not walking." We both laughed as she recalled some more of the day before.  
   
"I swear, that clock had to be so slow, like at about two when Lane came by to talk to us, I already thought it was 5:30, and then I looked at the readout, and just cringed because it was only two." She shook her head. "I didn't want to say anything and embarrass you, but it felt like hours upon hours since that gym lets in no daylight at all."  
   
"It's just a whole other world when you dance," I said wistfully. "Time is infinite, you're one of a few participating and you're always fighting for your marathoning life out there."  
   
"Or with Kirk and Carrie," she reminded.  
   
"Think she's filing a lawsuit against the poor guy? Carrie thought she had a slam dunk, and crap, she got beat by two girls you're more likely to see at quiz bowl than Red Carpet Bowl." I asked her a question with honesty. "If they had pulled off that move Par, you think we would've taken the contest with more time?"  
   
She seriously pondered the question for a moment, and while she did, her eyes seemed to wander down a bit. The table was high enough to go just above my belly, and the tank I wore was pretty obvious. Her foot brushed up against my ankle, bringing me out of my thoughts for just a moment as those bare toes hovered against the lower portion of my leg. I felt myself flush a little, but didn't feel very aroused from it because of the in-depth examination of the marathon.  
   
"Honestly?" She brought her eyes up. "I think by 5:55 one of us would've found their energy supply at the F-line and fainted, either you or I. We really got a lucky break from Kirk's slip, because my feet were hurting, you were taking longer to keep up with me, and you saw me when the trophy was presented, I was right at the cusp of sleeping."  
   
"You're not regretting staying now?" I nagged, deciding again to get some sweet revenge, and stretch my right foot against her shin. I saw an obvious dirty look directed my way, but I played coy and innocent as I took the offending extremity back.  
   
"No Aunt Rory, I'm glad you forced me to stay behind," she said with a voice laced with sarcasm. "I got a victory and a nice brush up for my brain when we get back on Monday. Just one thing."  
   
"What's that?"  
   
"You feed me a fake egg salad sandwich again and I'll throttle ya into the next week, got it?" She laughed, and I again brushed me toes against her shin, this time she didn't notice.  
   
"I'll remind Mrs. Kim that to not use to fruit of the earth and replacing it with a ConAgra chemically-created product could be a possible original sin." We just kept talking for awhile, her seemingly in a wonderful mood from her long sleep, and I was still on top of the world from so many highs, not to mention the blatant looks I was directing her way. Paris really did look quite fetching in that shirt, and with the slumber fog long gone from six in the morning, I could take her in through the natural daylight, what little there was left, of how she looked. Her tanned skin contrasted with the blue plaid, with two buttons down undone, leaving my mouth watering with all those possibilities of seeing much more of her.  
   
Even not having the view of those legs I coveted so because of the table, the whole outfit was enchanting. It was something that wasn't her, but yet, it was my own private fantasy to get her into these bedclothes; she made herself look cute, and dare I say it, a little butch-ish? Not that I would outright ever call her the 'b' word; she was still girly (she might deny it but she still likes those Care Bears I'm sure) and loathed sports and drinking unless it was a fine wine or well mixed bar drink. Her music tastes wavers between classical and modern, and she watches very little television unless it's something like _Cosmos_ or _Jazz_ or anything that was a limited PBS series/Ken Burns production once.  
   
I don't feel like giving both of us a 'man/woman in the relationship' label so fast anyways since we're two smart girls, it doesn't matter. In the first place, my mental bed picture of her through the girls locker room and my staring is of her wearing fine lingerie, I doubt I'd ever find her in a JogBra and boring briefs. From talking to Mads and Louise in the past, their descriptions had always been of Par being girly herself. Plus the crush on Tristan? She was definitely trying to use every damned feminine wile she could to convince him 'Hey, hello? Yoo-hoo, I have big boobs, long hair and sexy legs too if you'd look under this potato sack of a blazer, just what you're looking for DuGrey, not to mention an IQ and WPM rate through the roof! I'm a woman too, what do I have to do, go Britney here?!' It still makes me mad at the guy; I was really trying to help her come out of her shell with the setup, and he didn't bite. In hindsight though, it helped things a lot; I got to know the real Paris while he fruitlessly tried to get into more than my good graces, and now he's scrubbing the concrete floor of a dorm in Tarheel country with a worn-out Oral-B.  
   
I felt good, and Paris did too as we kept talking on and on for the next half-hour at the kitchen table. The notebook holding my secret was in-between the both of us like Jim Lehrer, keeping our conversation even and not as emotional as it had been lately. I continued to play innocent tease with her all throughout as she went on about peppermint tea (I tell you, Luke hooks more people on certain drinks than any multi-national cola company could ever do), and would look at me as her eyes appraised my breasts, sitting braless and sort of peeking against the white cotton. I'd fake a non-chalant look, yet on the inside I was really wishing she could make me come telepathically from her hovering stare; it was taking all I had to not notice, not slip a hand beneath the waist of my jeans, and not to blatantly dip down, stretch across the table and give her doey browns a downshot of that small cleavage I had, along with some nipple teasing. Tempted yes, but it was about the tease, not having her throw the chair off to the side, tip the table over, rush across and envelope me in a torrid kiss of passion and heavy lust, as she immediately goes for the ass...  
   
What, you think my dreamworld is all fluffy Paris moments and sensual lovemaking here? I read the occasional bodice-busting erotic romance and have sort of a thing for 'take me now'-style sex. The occasional rough play keeps things heated up, I'm sure of it.  
   
Back to where I was though. We talked for a little bit more at the table, and I really could feel things start to tighten up between us. We were both uneasy, wanting to bring up more, but both afraid. The distance, though not overwhelming, made me feel faraway and distant, unable to gauge or bring up the notebook. We both would look at it; I could tell she did see something within. The tension was palpable, and I wanted to tell her just how I felt.  
   
Thing is, it was Paris' decision, not mine. It would be too easy, and then too jarring to bring up the confession myself, she had to say something about it.  
   
We had to both be comfortable; the kitchen wasn't the place to do it at all. After she finished her last Sun Chip, we packed up and moved to the living room to talk more. I couldn't help but notice though that she had brought the notebook along with her. Again I didn't say anything, and after a bit of settling in, me on the couch and her sitting in the chair, we were right back in our talking groove.

Right away, she was looking at me with that mooning stare, making me nervous in my laying position. I was looking towards her in a position where she could easily seduce me.  
   
Leave it to her to give me a nice jar though, back into the reality of what my life was before the sprinklers, the massage, and all that's happened this week.  
   
"You know, Winter Formal's coming up next month. Biggest event of the semester, it's going to be interesting getting everything all ready to go," she mused.  
   
"Is it already a month? Time sure is flying by this year," I told her. "One minute I'm sharing a dorm with you in Washington, the next it's November and the first snow is approaching."  
   
"I was just curious Rory," she asked with a smirk, "anyone in mind for a date December 7th yet?"  
   
That certainly brought me out of the girl-crush funk I was in. I told her I wasn't even thinking of anyone besides her, much less a guy seeing as I was five days removed from ending what I had with Dean. She kept pressing, and I let her know in no uncertain terms was any Chiltonian male getting the time of day from me. What I didn't add to that sentence; _Not that I'm looking for a man of course, or anyone else except for you_.  
   
Still, Paris pushed on, mentioning Brad. Not my perfect ideal for a boyfriend, heh, which I let her know, while at the same time giving her the hint that Madeline has a hidden thing for the meek boy.  
   
I got another hint of her interest in me when she said she didn't notice Madeline and Brad having a thing going on. The only time they associated closely was at lunch hour, and Paris, the perceptive girl she is, would have definitely noticed. Trouble was, she had a big case of amnesia when it came to that, not even knowing about those two. _Looks like the lunch hour hinting is working well_ , I thought to myself, declaring victory on that front. I was distracting enough to take her out of the lunch gossip circle, that counts for something, doesn't it?  
   
Next, she mentioned Dave, who I had been talking to her about for the last two weeks whenever I mentioned Lane. She thought I might have good chemistry with him just from my description of how he was and that I seemed to match better with him than Dean or Jess. It was an easy call to make, since I didn't see Dave anytime except for when the band practiced in the garage, plus I wasn't about to interfere with his wooing of Lane. He's doing very well with that, and once again, I'm not interested.  
   
 _Damn it Paris, tell me something already!!_ She was driving me nuts with all this talk of boys and dates and dances; maybe it might go well if I just busted the conversation wide open and yelled out that I had homosexual tendencies towards her! It was infuriating to have to hear her talk about guys because really, I've only ever noticed two boys as more than friends. One is history, one is just a boy-friend. I didn't care about guys, I cared about her.  
   
"You're sure?" she asked again, as if my long answer the first time didn't bring the point across. I nodded my head no again, taking time to eye up the dark and exposed skin along the line of the opened collar of the flannel shirt to try to send more signals her way.  
   
Damn, she looked so good. If only she wasn't trying to push my buttons then, the way she sat in that chair brought out the animal in me. More denials though of what I felt for guys, and trying to keep my confession silent so that awkwardness wouldn't ensue. I kept my thoughts even and non-sexual, trying to keep the conversation warm.  
   
This wasn't me anymore, Rory the girl who thought of guys. I wanted to tell her how I felt about her, that no boy made my mind spin like she could, that her challenging demeanor, which would be taken as intimidation by others, instead was a turn-on and another reason to be more than her friend. I just sat there, wondering if the clock would strike seven and I'd still be there as she gathers her things and leaves, still holding in that eight word sentence I'd rehearsed since Wednesday afternoon. 'I'm a lesbian Paris, and I like you.' Blunt, and to the point.  
   
But it was still the wrong place and the wrong time to say that. I knew it, so I had to hold out and wait to bring those words to the forefront.  
   
Thankfully the opportunity came sooner than later.  
   
After joking about Dave's wooing of Lane via religion to satisfy Mrs. Kim, she turned serious, and brought up that topic I thought ended last night. Tristan was back in the picture, but this time as an example of what happens when you fall out of love. I nodded as I told her I remembered that part of the night.  
   
She then brought up Jamie, the date in Washington that turned out to be a dud. She asked me if I remembered that. _Of course I did, I was in the closet thinking of you as you came back to the dorm and relieved the stress of going out with that bore, in turn turned on from that and relieving my own stress.  
_    
Paris interrupted my real answer to that question, telling me she was about to explain why it didn't work out with Jamie. My ears piqued up, and my eyes were focused on her 100%.  
   
"Please, move over, I want to be next to you." Her voice was firm and unwavering. I couldn't turn down the opportunity to comfort a friend because she was also sounding grave and serious at the same time. I got out of my reclining position, and gave her a bit of blanket as she huddled close to me on the sofa.  
   
"There's sort of a reason those things didn't end up working out in the end," she said, and that brought my mind to so many situations far away from her admitting her liking of me. It could be anything, bad or good. Disease names, excuses, academic fraud, they all spun around in my head as she seemed to pause for a bit.  
   
Then the dreaded 'P' word came up in my mind, the word that brought me into the world, my mother into Stars Hollow, and a 16 year strain between her, Emily and Richard. She had never been specific about saying if she slept with Jamie before she got back; that self session might not have been about me after all.  
   
 _Paris, pregnant?_ My mind spun with the possibility she might be confiding in me about that. It would make sense, she's Hartford society and tops in her class, just like Lorelai was at Hillside in 1984. It was also almost three months since the trip, perfect timing for her to detect a change in her body and eating habits and then use an EPT stick to confirm if everything's been shifting because of that. I don't know her cycle, nor do I care to, but with her privacy, she'd probably kept a good front hiding the fact she wasn't having her period.  
   
She let me know to keep things in complete confidence, not a good sign with her. She seemed scared and timid, and my mind was now losing hope that she shared an interest in me. Her eyes seemed sad, and that brought the pregnant/gay/diseased reasoning ratio I built in my head to even 33% figures. _She can't have a baby with that boring guy!_ I cried out in my mind. _Worse, Sharon's gonna fucking kill her before she can even have it, and all that talk about disappointment this and that! Grandma would accept **one day** , but Sharon? She wouldn't even give Paris a defense before she ruined her own daughter's life forever.  
_   
Her stare was dead serious. "What's wrong hon?" I told her, shaky with my voice. I never called her hon before, and it seemed to be something reassuring at the moment.  
   
She told me that only Fran knew; this was definitely something that was about to be earth-shattering. She thought it might be a repulsive enough confide that I might reel back and ask her to leave.  
   
I prayed silently that it wasn't a baby, because the girl in front of me had a very bright future ahead of her that could be ruined by a lame one-night stand. I did immediately put anything aside that I'd think bad of her for it. She's my friend despite, I'd support her if anything awful ever befell her, and it would be Judas-like to turn my back on a young mother when I was the product of one myself.  
   
She tried to get it out, but words seem to fail Paris. I wasn't going to let her get out of this without telling me, and I made a move that could either be taken as flirty or concerned. Hovering over her in an almost-hug, trying to calm her down and help her form the words, I was her friend. She was scared, I knew that, because her body felt tight against mine. I wanted her to just say the words.  
   
Again, she relented, trying to shy out. I had to get serious with her.  
   
"Paris," I took her hand in mine; my sexual feelings were the last thing on my mind. "I won't tell anyone, cross my heart, now say something to me. What's wrong?"  
   
"I, I can't, it's nothing," she mumbled shakily. I told her again it was OK, just spit it out.  
   
"Really, it's nothing." Paris was now on the cusp of some serious breaking down. "Just something small, I can take care of it myself, just don't worry about it."  
   
I had to, it was my job as her best friend. Knowing damned well that I could be opening up a huge can of worms, angst, and friendship strain, I went with my gut. I told her I didn't care, and about how I thought she was three months into pregnancy.  
   
She stilled beneath me, and widened her eyes so much I saw more white than dark brown showing in her sockets. Her mouth opened in shock, and before I knew it...  
   
...my theory was thank God, **dead** wrong.  
   
"WHAT?!" She was seriously incensed by my accusation, and almost made me deaf in the process. "Rory, fuck no, I'm not pregnant, and Jamie doesn't have my virginity, I'm still safety-sealed, the most he got at the end of the night was a blown kiss, that's it! Why the hell would I bed that bore of a guy, I dated him your encouragement and because he thought it was a date when I didn't want to date him! I wouldn't have fucked him even if he offered me a million dollars in a suitcase and I can say with 100% certainty he's not making a love connection with me ever again!"  
   
I breathed a **huge** sigh of relief! Now it was 50/50 she was either gay or had a form of cancer. "Sorry, sorry," I quickly begged for her forgiveness. "You said it was serious and I just think the first thing that comes to mind and it seemed like baby, three months, perfect timing--"  
   
"Rory, calm down," she soothed sternly. "I'm on the pill, and I'm of the 'love before the first time' mindset, I'm not going to pop into bed with the first warm hard cock pointed my way, I promise you. I'm sexless, but I'm safe, you can relax. I understand it may have come off like I was about to say I'm knocked up, and I'm sorry about that."  
   
"It's OK," I told her, and then thanked God aloud that Paris wasn't carrying a love child. I again asked what she was hiding, calming her down with a soothing rub of her hand, thinking with the baby rumor out of the way, she might just tell me without complications.  
   
She shut her eyes, and breathed in deep, trying to find those reserves to tell. She was still too scared, too hidden, going back into the iron bitchiness that kept me out before.  
   
"Never mind," she said. "Please, just back off, you really wouldn't understand. Once you hear what I have to say you're going to stop being benevolent and finally hate me just like I wish you did the first time we met. I just can't, it's too close to my heart and nothing you'd ever understand."  
   
Just as I thought, she was falling back into her shell, the one her mother custom made in order to keep her from feeling or confiding in anyone. It made me not only sad, but pissed at Paris, despite what I felt for her. _She sees me as sheltered from real life_ , was what I was thinking. I was basically being told that the way I thought of things was unlike her way of thinking. She was bitter poor little rich girl, and I was happy small town girl with nothing ever bad befalling my being. She looked at Lorelai and I, and saw nothing but happiness, that my life is sunshine.  
   
I hated to make a scene, hated to give her a reality check on my past and why exactly I ever lightened her doorstep with my presence (reverse of darkness). But I had to shake some sense into her and let her know that whatever problem she faced here, it was probably very light compared to what I had gone through in my short time living.  
   
I had never gone off on someone like I had before; I usually was a happy person, content with everything and brushing off anything bad. But things got to me over the years, things I was too afraid to vent out with Lane or even my mom. Certainly not Grandma or Grandpa. I don't know what led up to it, if it was the stress of holding in my coming out, that we were in the house with Lorelai nowhere to be found, that I found enough trust with Paris to just go off on her and tell her that yes, I understood her one small wrenching confession perfectly.  
   
Try finding your first house to be an 8x8 cube on the campus of the town's inn as your mother prays her meager salary will keep you alive and that you don't catch the measles or head lice from that one dirty kid in class and kill the monthly budget for the next three months. Think about yourself trying to explain to your good friend Sandra, who you befriended in ballet class that you didn't live in a house, but a building downtown above the bookstore in cramped quarters, and that your room used to be a food pantry. Then imagine the month you lose eight of the friends, which include Sandra you've kept since kindergarten and except for loyal Lane, because some uppity Republican bitch of a sex ed teacher tells you that your 27 year-old mother, whom the town admires as a role model for all the citizens, was a fucking whore for not doing the right thing and aborting you or putting you on the adoption market when she was sweet sixteen, and that you're not to be admired for having a great brain that you sweep seventh grade with all A's. You end up with a table alone at lunch after that point, a CD walkman your only companion. "Just ignore them," the principal tells you, as you have to hear the tasteless jokes about how you should be knocked up even earlier by an 8th grader, 'just to keep that family consistent'. You can't ignore it, because it's your past, something you have to live with for the rest of your life, and the school won't stop it because they're too nice or stupid to do anything about this sick teasing!  
   
Then bring yourself into the bitter and competitive high school environment, where those same misinformed hicks get right back to work through your freshman year. They come up with worse names, and you find yourself still getting all A+ grades, but after your mother goes upstairs to bed, looking at that Chilton application, crying your eyes out and hoping the Headmaster accepts you, and soon. You already know you'll hit the same teasing once you get into Chilton, but at least they have zero tolerance for that behavior. You wish, and wish, and wish, and then when you finally get in, your mother doesn't have enough to pay for the tuition, so she has to rebuild her relationship, a strained one, with your grandparents to get that money.  
   
That was me, telling Paris my life wasn't all rosy and perfect. She thinks 'you'll never catch up, you'll never beat me' or 'I'll make this school a living hell for you' made me quake? I've heard so much worse than that, and even on the first day with her, she was still nicer than any other girl I met in the last five years. I basically was letting seven years of anger, piss and vitriol out at her, hoping she wouldn't find me less attractive with my confession.  
   
"I don't have paternal grandparents Paris; they regard me as nothing but a 'humiliation'." I air-quoted that slur with bitterness. "A hu-mill-i-a-tion! Yes, imagine that, I'm an embarrassment to every fucking Hayden in Hartford except my own father, they don't care about me. You think I love that? It makes me just makes me want to...you know, God, I can't say it, but you know it's not pretty. Some groups in Chilton still hate me, no matter what, and the girls are no exception, they think I steal their thunder when I'm just being quiet and studying, and keeping the passed notes to myself so that their notice they'll be blowing some guy in the closet during free period won't ever see the light of day."  
   
Paris stayed silent, listening to me, not commenting; I would've slugged myself by now for my candidness. But I saw it in her face; she understood that in the end I'm frustrated myself with life sometimes. I have things go wrong, and though my mom might be my best friend, I still have to bottle up at times, that not everything will be taken with that 'there, there, it's OK' kind of talking. This being gay will certainly be far from an exception.  
   
I talked more about the rejection I felt with the Puffs and their placing the blame on me dissolving their group, and then I got to the woman of the moment. By then I was at tears, but I wasn't going to rip her as much as I did everyone else.  
   
"Then there's you." I calmed down, and took her hand as I sat back down next to her, sending the signal that she wasn't one of those people who tried to rip apart my life. "The most vexing girl I've ever had the honor to know. The first time we met in that hallway, I knew from that moment I was going to be stuck with you for the rest of my life. I just had this small inkling, and not four hours later were we already having our first fight. I tumbled into you, and ruined a project, and boy were you stubborn about me not giving you assistance. But look who was at my doorstep a mere six months later fretting about how she'd dress for her dream guy."  
   
I was making her squirm; the intended effect, because I was going to wriggle this confession out of her. "Par, face it, you've had more opportunities than Wile E. Coyote catching the Road Runner to disassociate with me, but no matter what, you always come crawling back. One moment you're calling me Farm Girl and telling the gossip mill the gory details of my mom and Medina doing more than meeting in the classroom, and then the next there I am, the only girl you see in all of Chilton that would even out your student body presidential ticket. You get all wound up and panicked about something, and there I am, ready to keep you grounded and down to earth."  
   
She tried to apologize for her past behavior. "I apologize if I came off as too combative Rory--"  
   
I stopped her, before she could try to say something in her defense. "Look, I'm not mad at you, at all, I never have been. Frustrated, yes. Annoyed? Oh, the times I made jokes about your robot-like demeanor to my mom after a tough day where you pestered the dickens out of me. Angered? Only when you've gotten personal, but you know how to keep it on the line and back off once you touch it. But really, in some odd manner, you are the most sane girl in that damned school. You're not obsessed with beauty, nor do you care about impressing any guys unless they're teachers. You're there to learn, and so am I, and both of us haven't let us get our heads too clouded with that crap."  
   
She tried to counter with logic. "You're right though, at times I'm insane, a little too much. I get a jealous streak against you and take it overboard, thus alienating you and in turn, making me feel much more guilt for putting you through all this. Sometimes, honestly, I marvel that we haven't ended up throttling one another from our competition, you just have to take a look at the long transcripts I have with my therapist over my doubts with education."  
   
"But at least you realize that insecurity, most others would bottle it up and work through it Par, when it would be revealed in a quad meltdown next year first semester." I smiled. "I respect and revere your ethic, and your mood swings make me only realize one thing." I tightened up the grip on her hand, and looked right down at the clasp it was in. "I'd rather have you than the most popular girl in the school. I can talk to you and never feel stupid, and I don't have to reduce concepts to such simplicity it loses a lot in the translation from smart to imbecile. You'll ask a question just to keep me on my toes, and I can't wait for what you have to say next after I answer. In the end, I know you can't bear to hurt me in any way. I'm not Louise, not Madeline, but the best friend you've always looked for, the one you wished you had for so long, and finally came along a couple years ago. One day I might get you as the Iron Bitch, and the next, you're back to being my secret Par-Bear."  
   
She gave me an annoyed smirk when I used the new name on her again. "Rory, I swear you tell anyone that name--"  
   
"Yeah, yeah, eternal damnation, fiery pits of hell, my lips are sealed." I smiled at her. "But you like it, don't you?"  
   
"I do." She was hesitative, but despite her reservations didn't mind my new pet name for her.  
   
"See, two years ago you were take-no-prisoners and never letting someone explain their motives, I couldn't find a reason to think 'yeah, I should be her friend'. But you want I want, just acceptance and respect. I will do that for you Gellar, taking you as you are, and then respecting that we're friends with a strong rivalry going. I can never hate you, because without you, I don't feel whole anymore. That dark sarcasm, the hovering presence, the yearning to compete with you, along with your beauty, it's unique, you can't find it anywhere else. If you aren't here, I crumble, just look at both of us three weeks ago in that bedroom; you used to hold a grudge until it made you physically sick, and I used to never care about your opinion. Now, I can't live without you."  
   
Paris continued to look at me, focused in on me as I went on to tell her that things with Dean had taken a long, slow decline since last year, when a troublesome Tristan, who had zero shot at me, kept trying to make my eyes wander, but failed. The jealousy Dean had became a wall in our relationship, something I could never overcome and refused to deal with after a long period of time. It made me realize that dependable wasn't the way I wanted to live, with him not focused on keeping the flame strong, and instead depending on the fact I was loyal to him only. That one-sided thinking was dangerous, and now he's on the outside looking in.  
   
My eyes wandered off, and they did find someone else I liked; Paris. Not anyone the studio audience on _Love Connection_ would ever choose, but this is how I feel, that I want to love her. I feel challenged and respected around her, and hopefully more than that.  
   
That is, if she could ever get to the point. Instead of the hoped for response and breakdown, she gave me the kind of comfort I expect from Lorelai.  
   
"I don't know when you'll find that next one Rory," she told me, in a reassuring manner. "But I know that Mr. Right is out there somewhere, waiting for you when you're ready to fall back into a relationship."  
   
 _I just poured my heart to her, and she gives me fortune cookie advice!_ One more time with the brush-off, and no resolution of what she had to confess. It was driving me crazy, and either she was getting off on seeing me all wound up, she never read the notebook, or she actually thought those notes in the back were for an actual Russian Novels assignment! This was getting beyond ridiculous, now it was just infuriating!  
   
 _Fuck subtlety_ , I told myself with firm and stiff confidence, _it's time to go in guns blazing. I've flirted with her for the last few months, and I'm done. It's time for action._ The Mr. Right mention was just perfect for numbing this over-neurotic side interfering with her revelation.  
   
I held her tight, looked dead in her pupils, and gave her the simplest explanation of my orientation ever, that I was after a Ms. Right. She gave me this numb look, and I could feel her shake when she tried to make sure her ears weren't clogged with wax and she was mishearing things.  
   
Nope, was the gist of what I told her next. Dean was one of only two guys I ever noticed, and I gave her a slight hint that there was a female romantic lead in my dreams very often, many more than he ever appeared in. I gave her an idea that from my sexual awakening in sixth grade on until that day I met Dean, I barely thought about boys at all. I knew they were the key to keep life on Earth and I was supposed to be attracted to them, but I never built it up to that abnormal level you see with any foursome from one of those hot tub dating shows. I always associated more with girls than I really did boys, and would look at men as father figures rather than objects of lust.  
   
She tried to fruitlessly bring up my skip day to Brooklyn to see Jess, and how I felt unbalanced around him. Easy enough to disprove my hormones were on the fritz that day and that I still have a 'what the hell I was thinking' mindset for what happened that made me miss Mom graduating from B-school. I admitted my fantasies with him, all three of them. _So he's hot_ , was my thinking. That shouldn't be the only rationale for starting a new relationship, a deep sense of longing and want for the other person should be the mitigating factor.  
   
Paris seemed in a tailspin of emotions, wanting to reel back, but something wasn't letting her. I could tell I just threw her a Clemens curveball with the admission of my feelings, and she was trying to balance her mind between making sure it was a real confession or it was just an attempt to shock her and get full attention.  
   
"Y-y-you, you like women?" She said, her voice in a high register. "But you're Mary, Farmgirl, and the most innocent girl in school, uncorrupted. This is true, you feel nothing but friendship from men, but girls, you want more than friendship?" She looked down at her hands, and seemed ready to need an inhaler in mere moments. "You're saying to me, right now, that you are, your sexual tendencies are double-X?  
   
Leave it to Paris, even in this most raw of moments to be academic. I laughed, keeping her calm. "Yup, that's what I'm saying here, I'm gay, here, queer and you'll have to get used to it, because I'm absolutely sure about this. I've been ignoring these feelings for a year, but I can't pretend anymore, because I feel more passionate about a girl when I think of her than I do a guy."  
   
"You're not bisexual," she tried to clarify. "because I think you are--"  
   
"Paris," I stated firmly, "I am a lesbian, no doubt about it. I'm not bi, nor do I have any current sexual attractions to any men besides usual shallow celebrity lust. I'm not going back."  
   
She let the confession sink in for a bit, and I tried gauging her reaction, my fingers crossed she wouldn't run away. She was staying calm and neutral, holding back what she might have to say about how she felt about her closest friend feeling this way. It took two minutes of silence and some 'are you OK's to find out her opinion.  
   
"God Gilmore, you know how to make it really rough for the Chiltonites to like you," she finally let out, thankfully more as jest than a statement of the general consensus of the student body. She uncharacteristically started to nervously play with her hair, curling it around her finger unsteadily. "This is...it's definitely a surprise I never expected to hear from you, not in a million years, that you're gay. You're Rory Gilmore for the love of Pete, the sluts in school would give their left breast to have the chasteness and Disney princess glow that surrounds you. I think of you and see 'most likely to succeed' in the yearbook, not...this."

"Paris," I questioned nervously. "I don't want you to think anything less of me just because of this. Please," I sniffled up a little, starting to become a little scared that this mini-rant would develop into a hate screed. "Say you don't hate me, that you won't stop being my friend."

The blonde sensed how uncomfortable and exposed I felt, and immediately brought me towards her, into a hug, her hand on my back as she tried to keep me calm. "I'm certainly not thinking that at all," she made clear to me. "Yes, it's jarring, I'll admit as much, but it's far from revolting. No matter how much I might seem to have some prejudices, I'm always going to be on the right side of causes, and this is no different."

She released me, and made it damned clear that she was far from turning her back on me. "I'm going to make this clear right now Rory, the only thing that has changed in your mind is that you're a skirt-chaser, that's all. You're still my competitive equal, the ying to my yang, and most of all, my best friend. That's never going to change, I swear on my father's life."  
   
I still wasn't clear on how she felt for me; though I was relieved we were good, her secret was still out there, unknown. "That's all I needed to know, and I'm sorry I suddenly sprung it on you."  
   
"It's fine." She got inquisitive right about this point. "So who's the object of these affections?"  
   
"I can't say," I lied, wanting to keep the evasiveness up. "I don't know if she even knows, or would return them."  
   
"So even though you're unsure if who you want is willing to like you, you still think you're gay?"  
   
Paris looked at me as my mind wrapped around that, and just like that, without any rhyme or reason, I became unglued at the prospect, a little scared myself of what she would think. She was holding back on things as I told her I wasn't sure if 'this girl' would like me, the reactions of others since she was the first to know, then finally admitting that my dreams with 'this girl' were far from angelic.  
   
I thought I was in control, but the pull of Paris so close to me was taking me out of this confident track I was gliding by on, and back into the meek and shaky girl I prayed I wouldn't become when I let her know my feelings for her. I can't even remember what I said to her after that point all these hours later, it's all a blur, feeling like my chances with her were slipping away. I'd have to be content with her being my friend and nothing else, was how I was starting to feel.  
   
And then, without any provocation, I let loose the waterworks. My speech became unintelligible, and I found myself crying like I never had before, because I was driving right by Paris' confession, seemingly more concerned with mine. I felt miserable, like I was putting so much weight on her shoulders that she didn't deserve. I started thinking that maybe I should've told Mom first and had her talk me out of it, or stayed with Dean despite his accusations. The last few months were starting to feel like a waste of time, a blur that never should have been or even ever happened.  
   
Still, Paris showed humanity in it all. Her eyes conveyed that she really felt for me, the decision I had made to make clear I liked girls. It wasn't a joke anymore, something that I could imagine as tawdry or fluffy as I liked; it was now a real, human tangible feeling that was out there. She felt the constriction of my heart, and though I didn't think it at the time, the tightness in my heart and my nervous energy as I looked downcast, shamed, awful for what I had done to her.  
   
She didn't hug me, or say anything caring. All she could do is hand me the Puffs box and try to keep me sane.  
   
That's what I thought at least she probably would've done in that situation. She looked at me, with this stare I never noticed before, a mix between her enigmatic smile and inquisitiveness. She moved towards me on the couch a little.  
   
"Rory?"  
   
I looked back up towards her, expecting her to bring me into a hug, or for her to offer to make some grilled cheese and chicken soup.

"Yeah?" I sniffed back tears, all of them remembrance that she had a secret she was still holding back currently on my mind's backburner.  
   
She brought herself back into the conversation point blank with a simple inquiry; was she 'the other woman'? I couldn't tell if she knew beforehand, and didn't know if the pro/con list was known to her.  
   
What I did see, was that her hand was still on the notebook, a fingernail slid right into the spot the list started. She had to know, she just had to, was no doubt about it. It was that abrupt questioning style that brought me out of my sadness, and at the very least I had to mention that notebook, so that if she truly did not know about the list, she could take a look and I could go over each one personally with her.  
   
That's what I did, tell her that if she was smart enough, she'd know the list was about her, and her perception could have told her that. I confessed everything about the list, and how I was really feeling so much for her since we shared the dorm. It was all I could tell her for now; she'd have to push the rest out of me. I finished by telling her that my life is rough as anyone else's and I hope what I said before drove that home. I needed to know what she had to say in her reaction, even if it was 'I'm out of here you stupid dyke!'.  
   
She took her time trying to form a reply, I could tell that the ending part of my confession was really affecting her, much more than a Chilton F or -0- grade would ever cause. She felt devastated, like her well-formed world, with the cute little small town sidekick and her own two lifelong friends was coming apart, and there was nothing she could do to stop the boulder's roll. She just sat next to me, breathing, not saying a word, keeping me on the tip of my toes with what she was about to tell me.  
   
It seemed like forever, yet it was only three minutes before she said a word. What was she thinking in her own mind? Did my view of her immediately change in the aftermath of my words? Why was she just staring at me with a stilled jaw, reading my face like a book?  
   
I was starting to feel like I was making the biggest mistake of my life, seducing Paris Gellar. I was brazen--no, downright predatory trying to pursue her, almost jealous of a boy she may have felt something for in Washington and trying to wish the date was an unqualified bomb. I didn't deserve her at all; I was like the Prairie View A&M of gay girls, trying to pursue someone that had Duke-quality skills and riches, what the fuck was I thinking?  
   
Again, I started to bawl uncontrollably, thinking that she was about to hate me for the rest of my life.  
   
She finally said my name, breaking the curtain of silence separating us from each other. I awaited my sentence like a prisoner, ready for her to fire and brimstone me away from her for the rest of my life. The worst fear was she was about to not only slur my orientation, but she was going to make sure and spread this new fact like wildfire through the halls of Chilton tomorrow morning.  
   
Paris took her cup of wintergreen tea into her hand, with one of her hands brushing up against the side of my left arm. I gave her a hopeful look, and despite all the despair flowing through me, found myself a little light-headed from her touch against the small hairs on the extremity.  
   
 _God, if you hear me now, please, make it short, blunt, and as easy as possible_. I prayed to a deity everyone says is benevolent, but according to a few homophobes, probably hates my guts.  
   
It was then I heard her speak those words, between sips of the foam cup of tea.  
   
"I've felt the same way for you. Rory, I like you, in a romantic sense."  
   
I was ready to sulk off to my room in shame, when the word 'like' hit my brain like the metaphorical anvil she described in the sentence before. "Like...like...like...like..."  
   
 _No way!_ I couldn't believe it; she was just admitting she liked me. This had to be a practical joke, or as the cool kids call it, a 'punk' of some kind. My feelings were being returned? By Paris, the girl I liked. This couldn't have been true.  
   
I looked up at the girl I liked, and saw her smile, a real honest-to-goodness smile, the kind she usually reserves for an 'Eureka!' moment during _Franklin_ work. A smile that was telling me 'what I just said to you is the plain truth'.  
   
I had to confirm it, just in case I missed a couple 'don'ts' in her saying she liked me. So again I asked, tense and wound up like a stretched belt.  
   
"Ror," her voice was softer and kinder, and dare I say it, more soothing than it ever had been before. "Just a half-hour before, I was plopped down on your bed, reading the notes out of this notebook and thinking you were crazy as hell, because those notes, they didn't correspond to _Anna Karenina_ at all. I read through what you wrote in the back, very confused, but then I turned to that first page, where you started the entire thing." She brought her hand back down into mine, while opening up the book to that first page. "As I saw each reason, my stomach did these handstands and I didn't know if I was reading something private, or what. All I knew was, these notes, they were far from friendly. I went back to page three, and looked again at those notes from Tuesday, where you felt this rush from going braless in my presence. It was then I remembered, Anna Karenina never wore a bra! I keep looking down, at the stuff about the fountain, how you felt in my shirt, the ride home from school that afternoon."  
   
She turned to the fourth page, the start of the beginning, and read it to me. "Pro - She is now the only one who has a pull on my heart. Pro - He's history; I can finally ease up, and get a little daring." Damn, I loved how she says the word pro, so spiced up. "Pro - She cared enough to ask what happened to him. Pro - She cut off the bracelet for me, I'm finally free of the jealous bastard!"  
   
"Two more things to mention, one on this page, one on the first." She looked down at the next reason on page four. "Pro - She's talented, beautiful, a great dancer, and she said yes to me. We're going to win this thing!!" She then turned back to page one, the topmost pro on the paper, one changed to fit the whims of my lust and love for her. "Pro - I want her, corrected six or seven times, followed by an asterisk which points to the fact you want me, and more." She looked me straight in the eye, and stated what she felt, candidly.  
   
"I never thought you'd notice my subtle signs at all, but somehow, you did." She sighed. "Every one of those pros in that notebook, they are correct; I've been baiting you for the last few months, and hopeful you'd notice anything and respond in kind. I never expected to find this out in such a dry and academic form of sorting your feelings out, and I would've definitely written a few more things down on the con side, but Rory..." she played with my fingers, her voice slow and wanting. "I do want you. I have wanted you for at least the last five months, and even before that, I felt like I wanted to know you as more than a friend."  
   
She looked down a little, and finally said those confirming words I was looking for. "I've only thought of one boy in my life, and that was Tristan, there was never anyone else. After he left, the thoughts started turning towards you, and before I knew it, there you were, in my mind all the time, in my daydreams, my sleep, and in spirit, pushing me to do more. Eventually those dreams became a little more risqué, until I found myself starting to flirt with you subtlety, and hoping against hope you'd notice." She looked back up, to my nervous smile.  
   
"What does this mean then?" I asked her.  
   
Let me just tell you now, Paris could make the ingredients listing of a shampoo bottle sound sexy, because when she said this, my mind got some nice hot flashes of her doing these things. "Considering I did some experimentation in my younger years with other girls at Jewish summer camp and enjoyed it despite it being merely clothed touching, the fact the sight of a man nude in a magazine repulses me, and the washboard look does nothing for me, I look at women with a lot more interest; not to mention that I find erotic stories on the internet and in books with two women much more intelligent and sexy than the guy/girl combo usually associated with romance. This, along with the overwhelming longing and want that I have for you, brings me to the final conclusion that yes, I have very strong lesbianic tendencies, and barely any heterosexuality to be found within my system."  
   
I then smiled at her, and shook my head. "You know Par, 'I'm gay' would've sufficed." I then laughed as she rolled her eyes.  
   
"Fine, I'm gay, there's the Cliff Notes version, you happy now?" Her voice was very light and not bitter at all.  
   
"Oh, I'm more than happy," I told her honestly, feeling a large weight come off my shoulders. "Relieved, thankful, exhausted, I have a million terms I could use to tell you how I feel right now."  
   
"All I feel right now is just good," she whispered. "Really, I've been feeling this way about you ever since I had to sub in as Romeo after Tristan ditched us. Back then I thought it would be just plain fleeting lust, my hormones adjusting to a love departing. It never went away, it stayed through the entire year, no matter how much I willed it to disappear. I figured out something was wrong when I reacted so violently to you not taking my invitation to celebrate the Hillside victory because you had to meet Sherrie; seriously, I had this 'spurned lover' thing in my head, even though you were far from being my lover."  
   
"Thinking back, I thought it might be that," I mused. "But go on, I want to hear your side."  
   
"There was me stopping by to have you tutor me, just an excuse to see you, and I guess you know now that the 'I want Jess so bad' excuse I made up in front of Dean was a big lie in itself." I nodded. "Once May hit and I was in that panic about a VP, I could only think of you, and hope that the summer went well enough in Washington. Which it did, we both still have our heads, and ten toes and fingers each and ran into nothing but the usual bed by the window fight, we tolerated each other well enough."  
   
Paris went into detail about the summer, Jamie and the date she hated, so much that she tuned him out halfway through and couldn't wait to get home because he was such a dead guy to begin with. Then the start of the school year, and then letting me know that my begging for the hemlines turned out to be a good thing; she did ogle me, a good thing to hear from her. A little more on Tuesday morning and how she went crazy trying to accommodate me on such short notice and how nervous I was asking her to dance with me.  
   
She then turned serious on me. "Still, nothing told me I had to go for this more than the field hockey match. If ever there was a sign that you saw me as more than a friend, it was that, you planned it out well Gilmore, pat yourself on the back. Just the way you carried yourself, the way you challenged me, and got me into the game, which is such a hard thing to do, it could've backfired. But you made it work, and I never had as much fun in school as I did that day. Or as much depression, right after I ran out on you in the shower and almost single-handedly killed everything with my silent treatment." Paris huffed out a breath, and came to a conclusion. "If I learned anything from those three nights without you and the awful argument we had, it was that I'm infallible and about as co-dependent on you being there for me as Barney Gumble is to the bottle. I was lost without you, and I couldn't focus. I had to make things up, and I'm glad I did, because it just proved that our friendship might be on shakier ground than Pisa at times, but it's still solid despite."

I completely agreed with what she had to say. "It was needed, that last conflict, call it a dress rehearsal," I rationalized. "And it helped you get some frustration out with your mother which I thought you really needed to get out. You don't need to blame yourself at all; it was floating in the air and someone would ask it eventually."  
   
"Which meant it had to be you," she smiled a little. "I know she's going to be pissed when she finds out about all this, but I'm tired of not being my own person, it just gets to you after awhile. I feel so closed up around her, like I'm a Chinese dissident under her Mao-like rule." She frowned for a little bit. "I better not dwell on her right now, this is a good thing, right?"  
   
I nodded back at her, and she gave that smile that makes me weak.  
   
"I have one more thing to ask about the past before we start the future though."  
   
"Go ahead, I'm an open book."  
   
She seemed nervous a little. "Dean...uh, I know how much you loved him in the past. Did you decide that the overreaction to him finding out about Jess with you helping fix Dwight's sprinklers was the perfect break to dump him, and did you...you know, see it as the right time to bring things into motion? I mean, did you break up so you could have me, free and clear?"  
   
I gave her a small little smile, and then gave her a quick rundown that said things fell into place, she danced with me yesterday, and here we were...  
   
As her body moved closer to mine, and invisible boundary that was in the middle before that point, had disappeared with our confessions, since she was easing into my body, moving her hand up my arm and appraising my clothing choice. I'm thinking she took to it very well because her last question was about the sprinklers, and how they came into play. Was it accidental? It sure was, and I let her know that.  
   
Her smile was getting closer to mine, and then she latched on to my calling her 'my friend' in that last sentence. Suddenly, she got all coy and flirty, a personality I had never seen in her before. Her nail scraped against the column of my neck, next to my pulse, and just as I thought this day couldn't get any more heated, Paris decides to 'I before E except after C' her way into my heart, by correcting one word for another.  
   
Her voice was husky with want, and the humor was disappearing, as I realized her fingers below were curled around one of the belt loops of my jeans. Then, she whispered the correction, replacing 'friend' with that term of endearment I always wanted her to mention.  
   
"Don't you mean girlfriend?"  
   
My mind didn't spin into panic at all upon hearing this, since it was concentrating on the fact I felt a tightness below at her sudden dominance over the situation. I had control over the seduction, but the carrying out was about to become all hers. I tried to warn her that this was it, the point of no return. If she was about to do what I thought she was going to do, there was no going back from here. We would share a kiss and have been lovers once upon a time.  
   
My body certainly was hoping she wouldn't take it back...her face hovered above mine, those brown eyes looking deeply into mine, and her hand rested possessively on my side, inching along the waistline of my jeans. She wasn't even aware she was playing with fire, and though she tried to distract with a brush of some stray hair from across my face as she gazed at me, I was all far gone. Already, this innocent, yet sexy positioning was beyond all my dreams.  
   
Which she mentioned as she answered whether she was ready to take the first step. That my dreams were giving her overloads, it gave me a nice pink tint to know that I was warming her up on cold nights from a half-hour away. I could only wish to imagine what I was like in her imagination, and hoped the real me would live up to the marquee billing. Her orchid scent was getting to me, and her shirt, still undone in those two places, was hanging in front of my vision. I wanted to look in and have a peek of those breasts I've dreamed of kissing and nipping and cuddling up against, but my mind was more on her lips at the moment.  
   
I gave her a little preview of how her dream self was. I made sure to note the dominance she displayed, and how commanding she would be, yet I noted how soft she was, and concerned with how her actions in bed were. I made sure to tell her she was cute in my dreams, then brought the compliment out into her real world self.  
   
"Cute?" she gasped out. "I am far from cute, I'm downright homely, you don't have to say it."  
   
She was turning as pink as a medium rare fillet, so I was going to insist as I looked Paris up and down, my mouth watering with the taste of a mix of wintergreen liquid and vanilla mints. Fucking lord, she was more than cute with that hair spread throughout the throw pillow, her eyes far gone and a hand brushing up against the side of her shirt. She seemed to flinch when my hair brushed up against her reddened cheeks, and I wanted to give her a kiss that would make that pithy one Tristan made seem like a crappy spin-the-bottle buss. I tell her again she's been cute for days upon days, and made her melt.  
   
I must've hit the right spot, because just as I thought I couldn't see her as my new lover, she told me I looked both cute _and_ hot.  
   
Now Dean had always called me cute, but in that boring guy way that's like 'you're handsome' to them. The way Paris told me she thought the same, and then paused to catch her breath to give me the compliment that I was hot, it was something alien to me, Dean never thought of me as hot. My mom was hot to most young males, Sookie was hot to Jackson, Dave found Lane hot, and Madeline and Louise, to those two the word was almost used as much as 'hello' to them.  
   
But lil' ol' me, hot? The way Par said it, with that monotonal husk, her lip bitten down to tease the hell out of me, and a hand up against my back, it did something to me. Oh my God, I just wanted to drag her into my bedroom and make her feel how fucking hot I was. And her eyes...her eyes, they took on this light, wanting shade of brown that screamed out 'these are my fuck me eyes'. They were usually studious and focused on one topic at a time, never wavering off track. Too feel them on me, appraising my form, aroused with want...I could feel my legs spread just from that one syllable. I felt my heart pound, and my modesty start to break down.  
   
I just wanted her, right then and there. In a reduced form so I didn't scare the daylights out of her of course, but a kiss was still enough for me. I'm willing to wait as long as possible for her; she'll know when it's time to take the plunge.  
   
I gave Par this sexy smile, and a slight hint as to what I wanted. I bent down closer and closer, telling her I was flattered by her use of the word hot, but that I was tired of playing games with her. I wanted her lips on mine, her hands in my hair, and to give her that knee-dropping kiss she had never, ever experienced before.  
   
With the freedom of a lesbian relationship, I feel more daring. Much more is open to me, and I don't have to hold back as much. I made sure to show Paris this, that she wasn't falling for the old, boring, prudish Rory, who usually spent a couple minutes gargling Cool Mint Listerine once she got home to get the gross taste of Dean's too demanding tongue out of her mouth from his after-school 'kiss'. I took her face by each side, her giving her consent for the kiss to happen softly. She seemed to countdown silently, eyes closed, awaiting the reward of being loyal and unwavering about keeping me as a friend. Her face is soft, just as I imagine it, the softness of her cheeks soothing in my grasp. She threads her hands through my hair, and I can finally sniff her breath, up close and personal.  
   
I couldn't wait anymore. I noted the time of 4:37 on the VCR's readout, my eyes taking one last look at the world as a Mary, the girl who never took a risk in a relationship and had a romantic life that would be a good cure for an insomniac in book form.  
   
I met her soft lips in the middle, and it took mere milliseconds for jarring shocks to go through my body. My eyes focused on her that first second, both our pupils receding. I heard that first kiss, and the passion between us was so much.  
   
The kiss was soft, not meant to do much more but to blow off a year and possibly plus' worth of steam. Still, it was outpacing any time Dean ever tried to shove his tongue down my esophagus, because I wanted this, truly wanted this so bad. I felt my eyes shut as I felt the suction of the kiss increase, then heard that first release and smacking as she moved away to catch some air.  
   
She kissed me once again, trying to imitate what I did the first time. Sure, she was novice at it, but it didn't lessen the impact of this first kiss any less. I understand going in she's catching up on a lot of lost time, so I'll be more of a guide than her. Whatever the case, her first attempt at kissing was still on the mark, and sending shivers down through my back.  
   
I felt like I was losing my breath, yet I wanted more. To make clear that this was no Mickey Mouse crush, far from a phase, that I was committed to this idea of an us.  
   
I crushed my lips hard against her, my hands moving towards the nape of her neck and making her melt into the cushions of that couch she loathed so much. There was no protocol or template to what I was doing, it was all spur of the moment. She grunted out for breath, and I let her go for just a second so she could intake a little air before I started making out with her anew.  
   
Her mouth felt just right, and her body felt perfect against mine, her short legs coming to an end at her feet, resting against my shins. Her eyes were closed and the only word she could find in her brain was "More..." stretched out, which brought to mind her humming deep and long against the sensitive tissue of my clit. _Mmmmmm..._ I thought as I got a little bold and bit my teeth softly into the skin of her bottom lip. Paris shrieked aloud and just about scraped her fingernails down my back; by Jove, I think she liked it.  
   
I brought her even closer, continuing to kiss her like we were a couple of _young_ teenagers. I brought my hands down towards her bra line, and shifted a little so one of her legs fell in between mine. There wasn't any way I was going to give it up so fast, but bringing her into that position and moving my right leg between hers kind of gave her a hint. Her breathing picked up a heavy rhythm, and in my grasp she started to shake below me.  
   
God, having that picture of her in my head of her eyes closed and body prone, ready and prepared for more as my mouth continued to tangle against hers, it's a first kiss I'll never, ever forget. In my eyes, all that tension had disappeared, though unlike what everyone would hope, I was still wanted her as my lover. Not a chance that anything I felt with her would disappear just because I finally got to have a hot torrid kiss with her.  
   
Just as I felt like I was about to lose control, Paris' brain functions had rewired and she found just enough in her to make her hands push me back a little a separate from the kiss. I looked down at her, and she was smiling as her hands messed up my hair beyond any kind of redemption; apparently she has a habit of doing something else while doing the major thing. That didn't leave me disappointed, and made me wonder what kind of interesting things would happen during projects from now on.  
   
She got up from the position she was in, and inched over a little so I could sit next to her on the couch, face to face. We were both so messed up, faces slick with perspiration and some stray drool, which made me grasp for the tissue box so I could hint she needs to curtail her saliva production a little. Still, it was very nice; I finally got to kiss Paris, the end result being the first time was beyond all my dreams and fantasies. I was just thankful we were both makeup-less; the last thing we needed were lipsticked collars and running mascara.  
   
Both of us had to looked stunned and out of it, because we were only focused on one thing; each other. Her hand kept touching mine as we started to recover from the effects of that kiss. Especially Paris, for it didn't take long for her to start microanalyzing the kiss and everything surrounding the said buss.  
   
Her reaction was stunned, very few words except for a very distracted her telling me it was very nice. Then she went on with her side of things.  
   
"Was I good? Did I make you nervous? Was I sloppy, did I bite too hard on your lips, was it too wet? I have to know these things so I can improve, that was just OK I think." I shook my head as she continued. "I'm just wondering, is there anything I need to do so that I can get this right, I--"  
   
I tightened my grip on her hand and got her to stop before she ever had the chance to Dr. Laura her way out of my good graces, so I sat her down and told her that she was beyond my expectations, everything worked so well. I joked about her first date with Tristan and the index cards, and that seemed to bring her into a sense of much more calm and ease.  
   
What I expected next was for her to take a break from this influx of conversation and to sort her feelings out, to make sure everything would be fine before she left Stars Hollow. I also thought we were about to get down to some dual studying with all those books sitting on the coffee table.  
   
However, it only took her a few more moments to realize that both she and I never got such a great opportunity to spend time all alone, with no one about to interrupt this intimacy that was starting to just form. No matter what, I'd be content.  
   
She gave me this deep and mooning look, those 'kiss me' eyes again on display as this time, she pushed me towards the end of the couch and she used her left hand to brace against the coffee table. She moved up along my body, her hair falling down against the skin exposed from the low cut of my tank top. The fingers of her free right hand brushed against the nape of my neck, just near where days before her touch had almost made me faint from that slow and sensual back massage. Her index finger brushed in the middle of my hairline, and I could feel her stomach pressing against mine as Paris told me she wanted to kiss again, using those big academic words to turn me on.  
   
My humor was lost, with the signals usually running to that portion of my mind detouring to create some of the lamest and dorkiest seduction lines ever. "Closed lab environment of the living room?" I actually told her that! Yet somehow, she found humor within the lame commenting, shaking her head at me with a wry smile.  
   
"We're going to be a very odd gay couple, aren't we Gilmore?" I made the usual bad Oscar/Felix reference that had filled many blanks for the last thirty years, hoping she wouldn't groan at my temporary loss of wittiness.

She was smart though, and instead of letting me go on, shut me up with a very tender and mind-altering kiss, all the while telling me that I was the only one for her. The only thing I could do, and just the only damned thing I wanted was to gasp out that her remark of how she'd never go out with a guy, young or old again was noted, and then fall into what was very far than the kiss of a novice. As her hands slid down my shoulders and she laced a finger around the straps of my top, there was no need for anything else.  
   
When she's not looking, I pinched myself; mainly because the way things with Dean were going, I didn't expect last Tuesday morning that five days later, Paris and I would not only be dance marathon champions, Dean would be a faded memory, and her teeth against my upper lip made me cry in both pain and pleasure at the same time.  
   
I can't even think of how far we might go and that she could be even more caring and domineering than this; but I do anyways, and I shut my eyes and kiss Paris back with equal and hungry passion, it's making me anxious to find out where this thing is going.  
   
I just hope it doesn't require a bigger bed in my room; it's fine for sleeping, but for making out, not so much...  


* * *

We did eventually separate, and with our attractions known, found ourselves talking about the reality of Chilton and this town, and how they'd react. We were both nervous, yet we were calm, since no one had to know for at least awhile.  
   
She told me about the history of homosexuality in Hartford society, which was very blunt and short since only in recent years did the city's upper class start to embrace the fact some of their heirs and heiresses were attracted to their own sex. "Even then though, the family members and staff hired by some rogue members are trying to find ways to disinherit them from any kind of trust. It's discrimination, but since it's a family member, you really can't do anything about it." This made me fear Chilton more, and her family, but she calmed me with a rational explanation of things.  
   
"My mother is going to hate me for sure, but I think my father, he'll understand. Since he took over the reins of the family company after Grandpa Gellar died, he's opened up the lines of communication between the minority community and them, and he forced the board to put in specific language that if a person is found out gay, they cannot be fired unless the termination is justified. It's a very open workplace; everyone's accepting and the office bigots usually get the lonely middle cube if they even try to speak out."  
   
"So you think you're fine?" I asked.  
   
"Daddy loves me, I'm still his little girl; he's only ever wanted me to be happy." She smiled, and sighed. "He's always wanted to meet you one day, says that I should have more friends like you." She rubbed my hand, and asked about Emily and Richard, two people she respected.  
   
"Honestly," I hesitated, "I'm not sure, I mean I was expected to be mom's validator and bring the family back to glory. They never say anything, very old line and centrist, so I don't know. I'm more fearful of my mom though, this is going to weird her out so much."  
   
"Ror, she'll be fine, she's cool mom, remember? You have a close friend-like relationship, and she has enough of a heart to realize you're Rory, not 'her gay daughter'."

"I know, but if we work and we don't come out to her in a short period of time, that'll be the longest lie I've ever held onto in my life. She's going to be disappointed--"  
   
"Hey," she told me, in the commanding tone. "It's justified, we're not ready to outright think we'll work. If she finds out, we'll tell her, but for now, just hold it in and we'll see if this pans out the way we both hope it does. Got it?"  
   
I thought for a moment, and realized I didn't really have much of a choice in the matter.  
   
"You're right, I guess." I settled up against her, and grabbed the remote to check in on the 6 o'clock local news. "I would hate having to ever make a decision between you and my mom however."  
   
She gave me a sad look, and huffed. "I'm already building a defense to keep you if it ever gets that perilous. I refuse to lose you because of stubborn family or homophobia; I promise right now, we'll fight for each other." She turned around and offered her hand. "Do we have a handshake agreement on that?"  
   
I took her hand and didn't take long to seal the deal. "Us against the world." With that firm declaration, we focused on the outside world for the first time in twelve hours, yet still found her cuddling against my shoulder as we watched the Sunday evening news, like clockwork and right on time. Something I hope is a habit we'll repeat many times together in the near future.  


* * *

Eventually, all good things have to come to an end eventually, and my time with Paris was sadly, not an exception. When the reverie of Paris' cell phone in my bedroom rang and she read the caller ID as her nanny, I realized it was time to let go. I wanted her to stay with me so we could chat some more, but with Lorelai just landing up in Windsor, I found myself really missing my mom and wanting to make up for that five days of lost time with her. Paris seemed uneasy about leaving, but I assured her that I'd be fine, she could go home and get back into some comfy jammies and finish out her weekend.  
   
My heart was already tugging with want as she packed up her things in my bedroom, but I know that for awhile it'll have to stay this way, a relationship separated by twenty miles of roads and a commandeering stubborn mule of a mother. Thank God I have her private room and cell phone number, along with her email address and screenname to chat with her whenever I feel lonely, because I'm already getting that sense my keyboard will be worn out by mid-December just chatting with her about anything and everything. This was the afternoon after we broke down and expressed how we felt; the boring talks about school subjects, science news, and inappropriate humor about Mr. Mercurio's never-changing curriculum. It would've put Dean to sleep in a minute, and Lorelai would ask for a translator. I could relate to Paris and never get bored however, and that's all I wanted, someone I could chat and love on my own level.  
   
I struggled to say goodbye to her, and as I kissed her at the front door, wished she could stay. No doing however, and I could only count the hours until 8am, when I would next see her in class after another awful bus ride out to Hartford.  
   
"About that," she told me. "You've expressed nothing but hate for public transportation lately. Now that we're, uh, closer, remember my rides offer from Tuesday?" I nodded in the affirmative. "If you wouldn't mind, I could come down here from now on and take you to school. The Jeep's on its last legs and the odds of you getting another car are pretty slim, and besides Ror, I could use the company."  
   
"You're serious?" I thought she was playing me, that she was willing voluntarily to deal with Hartford traffic not only twice a day, like she did delivering me from Chilton back here, but in the morning.  
   
"It's not a big deal, really. My car burns efficiently and receives excellent gas mileage, and Mother wouldn't notice an increase in the fuel bill. I wouldn't ask for more than the $10 you already give me a month, it's something I've wanted to offer to you for quite awhile."  
   
I thought about the extra time in the morning spent with Paris and tried to play devil's advocate, noting the inconvenience of an earlier wake-up time and the mood swings of the weather, but before I got another word in trying to convince her I didn't want to be an inconvenience, that damned infuriating girl pushed me up against the doorpost and kissed me senseless, shushing my arguments with each kiss. After about another minute of a tangled embrace, she released me, and went on like nothing happened.  
   
"If it snows, I have a Rover in the garage, it could get through the Ice Age if it decided to create a sequel. As for my sleep, I'm done with studying by nine and bored by ten, so it's not going to radically change my sked. Promise." Another knee-weakening smile; damn it, she's trying to use it to gain the upper hand.  
   
Again, I refused, until finally, she told me I'd be there waiting for her at seven, or else she'd chase down the bus on the highway, screech in front of it and pull me off by the backpack strap.  
   
For a moment I considered letting her do that because of her hotness in anger, but in the end a pissed-off Paris wasn't exactly an animal I was ready to deal with in a lover's sense quite yet. So I sighed and told her she could be my ride, which made her about as giddy as something like that could do.  
   
I went outside to see her out, and walk her to her car, where she thanked me for the wonderful weekend and the dance marathon invitation. I was chilly, but just seeing her off in a chivalrous way warmed me up, along with her stare since I was smart enough to know that cold meant stiffened erectile tissue. Yeah, no jacket was good for once as I put my arms right below my chest, keeping the part where the front of my breasts could be seen. I gave her a knowing look as she said goodbye and rolled up the window, then she blew me a kiss (to keep the gossip mill down and make it look like friendly intentions), and I watched her pull out in reverse, onto Cherry Lane, and out of town back towards the Manor.  
   
I watched her for that small minute as she drove down the road, until her vehicle made the Peach Street turn, leaving me alone for the next hour to clean up my half week-old messes before Mom arrived home at eight.  
   
Despite my overly aroused body, I still mustered the energy for a quick vacuum and dust, and a straightening of my room before I took a shower to rub of the aromatic and visual elements of what Paris and I had done only hours before on the sofa. I kept the focus on a rote Latin quote I was memorizing for that class in sixth period tomorrow afternoon for extra credit, and did not dare focus on expending the energy that built through the day with each touch and brush my blonde classmate caused to keep the domino chain of lust tumbling. I stepped out and changed into a more mother-appropriate wardrobe of those same lamb jammies I turned down in the heat of the moment to give Paris a couple things to think about as she slept and spooned against me.  
   
I rushed around the house, throwing my hair into a ponytail, gathering my books into my backpack and Febrezing the couch to remove any trace of more than innocent sitting from the offending furniture. I ordered out another couple of works pizzas and bread from Joe's from my Fez cash pot, trying to make Mom feel as welcome at home as she possibly could after days upon days of PowerPoint, hard sells, cramped quarters and missing me beyond belief. I checked the answering machine to see if she called while we slept, and she did indeed leave one message around 11:30, where she said "Hey hon, I'm coming home, love you!" before departing from Nashville Metro.

I finished spic n' spanning the house at about 7:58, just in time to sit down, grab a random book from my room shelves and curl up in the chair as I heard the airport shuttle van pull up in front of the house, just in time and another fine bit of timing since the pizza had come three minutes earlier. Despite how much Paris has become more a part of my life this weekend, my mother is still the one who truly needs me, and that I in turn she needs to be in my life.  
   
If I knew something, Mom was going to be very tired and worn out. I heard her luggage hit the porch with a dead thud, pretty much denoting she was struggling to drag even her own body up those three steps. I opened up the door to her and her five bags, and she seemed so relieved to see me, at least that's the sense I got from her whining about what the last seven hours had done to her.  
   
"Fritz, could you speed it up with the carry-on, my arms feel like they're going to unsocket here any second!" Mom looked at the shuttle driver, who was struggling to roll two bags towards the front porch.  
   
"Geeze lady, what the heck you put in here, dead bodies? You went to Nashville miss, not Stonehenge."  
   
"Hey, that's what happened when my only caffeine source for the last five day's been filter bags of that generic Torke crap from Wisconsin from that gross room carafe that was stained more than a cathedral window, and lukewarm Dr. Pepper, someone's gotta pay the price for my denial. You were a savior for at least stopping at a Dunkin' Donuts in Rocky Hill, it helped keep me sane and you alive." I shook my head and smiled, this is what happens when my mother is taken out of her comfort zone, otherwise known as 30 miles from her most frequented diner.  
   
"Glad I could help," the older man responded gruffly. "You have a nice evening ma'am, and get some sleep."  
   
Mom reached into the pocket of her jacket, and pulled out a five dollar bill for him. "Thanks sir. I know the gratuity was charged out already, but for that stop I owe you this at the very least. Keep the change." He took the money, and tipped his cap at my mother.

"Always a pleasure to serve." He dropped the carry-on into my hands, and after we both said goodbye, we both brought the heavy baggage into the front foyer.  
   
My mom yawned aloud as the weight got to her, and started to rant about her trip home. "If I don't have another hotelier's convention to go to, it'll be too soon, and this day was infuriating! Can I ask you why none of the Bradley airlines have a direct flight out to Tennessee, please?"  
   
"Well if you find me a country music scene in Hartford and New Haven, let them know."

My mom shook her head, tired and worn from what the last five days did to her. "I came home having to transfer flights in Detroit. Who, may I ask, had the splendid idea of thinking transferring flights in dreary and rainy Michigan, then to give me a middle seat since they decided to overbook the flight and give my original one to an uppity snob girl from LA. I tell you Rory, next time Mia begs me to head to the hotelier's convention, I'm thumbing my way out to Denver or Topeka or Timbuktu, whatever boring town the NIHA wants to send me out to next year. Anything not to repeat these days that were so boring I actually considered order a pay-per-view not meant for young eyes from the hotel--"  
   
OK, had to stop her now. "And you complete that sentence Mom, you'll be paying therapy and Paxil bills on my behalf until your dying day." I smiled, and couldn't help but launch into her arms to feel the caring presence of the woman who borne me for the first time since Wednesday morning. "God, I missed you."

"Missed you too kiddo, Nashville couldn't be painted red without you to help me." Lorelai kissed my forehead softly, and dropped the three bags she was holding onto the foyer's floor, walking out into the living room and taking in our familiar surroundings. "I see you disappointed me; didn't I tell you that you could wreck the house and hold a beer bash while I was gone here? Sure, I'd ground you up until your fifth reincarnation as a bear cub, but what a way it would be to go."  
   
"I sent out the invitations and no one came," I cried out with dramatic inflection and playing into her weird mindset. "Guess I shouldn't have mentioned the kegs were filled with Coors Cutter and I had non-alcoholic gelatin shots in the ad." She collapsed onto the couch, slipping off her high heels and grabbing the top pizza box from table to open it up and grab a slice.  
   
"You may not know how to throw a party but you know how to keep your mom happy." She bit into the loaded slice and moaned at the taste with her mouth full. "See, this is why I can't leave the little box of a state we live in, the food here is digestible and delicious. Hotel room food, especially in the hovel those people put me in, is barely edible, space food would get a Emeril 'BAM!' much sooner than the Center City Wyndam's entire idea of a menu." She looked towards me expectantly. "I'm guessing since you still seem healthy and stout Luke's and Joe's treated you quite well." I nodded back in the affirmative that indeed I was spoiled rotten from their contributions.  
   
Mom got up from the couch and took off her jacket, with the slice of pizza still in her hand. "How was your weekend anyways? Had to beat my exciting sales slides and marketing mantras I had to repeat with other members of the hotelier's association all weekend like a cult meeting."  
   
"It was good, really, really good." I started putting my plans in motion to show just how good a weekend I have. "You know what would be even better though?"  
   
"Hmm?"  
   
"Comfy pajamas, some girl gab and two spoons inside a pint of cookie dough ice cream with a dark coffee chaser."  
   
Her eyes lit up like headlights, and before I knew it, she was starting to make the beeline to her room. "Actual coffee that doesn't come in a small red bag, sugar-rushing food and gossip?"  
   
I gave her the signal that said I was game. "Nashville was fun, right?" I gave Lorelai an evil grin.

She held up her hand in a stop gesture. "Lobotomies are fun, hearing at least five tone-deaf 'next Garth Brook/Faith Hills' a day between the hotel, the convention center and then the reverse makes me want to consider deafness as a new career option. We can talk tomorrow about the trip, right now we both need to reacquaint ourselves with each other." She rolled her eyes up and imitated a Valley Girl. "Like, you're Rorwenda, riggght? Didn't I so totally give birth to you, omigod, that gave me killer pounds to burn off--"  
   
I pushed her towards the stairs, shooting a dirty look in her direction. "You, bedroom, now, no jokes."  
   
"Yes dear." She faked a pout and slowly climbed the stairs up towards her bedroom, as I sat back in my chair awaiting her revelation of my dancing title. It took a little longer than I thought, but within sixty seconds I heard my name being called loudly from upstairs.  
   
"Rory?!"  
   
I played innocent and unknowing. "Mom, get your butt down here, I don't have all night to stay up." Then I turned around towards the stairwell to see her leaning over the railing of the second floor.  
   
"You might not know anything about this, but what is a five foot trophy doing, sleeping in my bed?"  
   
I smiled at her, choking laughter back from her reaction. "Well, if you must know..." I went upstairs and proceeded to give her all the details about the dance marathon she had missed from not being in town for the next seven days. She was shocked to hear that I had paired up with Paris and we had both won the competition as relative novices, but after awhile she started to become excited and happy for what I had done. I reminded her of her alternate title back in '87, and how that inspiration kept me from backing out. Needless to say, she was very proud of me and gave me a hug for finally attaining one of our combined goals. I felt a rush describing all those 24 hours we danced and spun across the floor; feeling the memories rush back through my head and that moment where we attained the victory, it was a tale I definitely wanted to share with everyone I could possibly know.  
   
We kept talking and talking about the dance, until finally I arrived at a good opening to mention that I would be given a ride to school from now on by Paris. I was surprised that Mom didn't like the idea at first; she insisted that taking the bus to school was 'making a statement' about how unique I was rather than something I had to settle for. I tried to make her see that Paris became even closer to a friend this week, and that I now trusted she had no ill will to gag my academic standing at Chilton. Lorelai kept trying to swing me back onto the bus, but with each reminder of a past incident that irked the daylights out of me, I kept wearing down her resistance.  
   
Finally, I had to make a point, so with her opinion seemingly unchanged, I ran downstairs into my room, retrieved my bus pass, and with her watching in the kitchen, tore it up, while making it clear I didn't want to take a bus ever again. I let her know about the pervert who stared at me Tuesday morning, the ass of a bus driver, and how awful I felt not getting to school when I really wanted to. She started to become a little sympathetic, but kept trying to play the 'Paris is a bitch card', no matter what I said. All I kept doing was to try to smash through her resistance.  
   
After a small argument where she tried to compare my getting rides from Paris to Michel falling in love with her, I gave her the puppy dog eyes, trying to swing her towards my argument. She just had to, I was unhappy taking the bus to school anymore. I still remember the first day of school this year after the inaugural meeting of the _Franklin_ staff (which I arrived ten minutes early to, much to Paris' chagrin, she wasn't going to pull that early time-late arrival trick on me again!). The time had fled by and before we knew it, the time was 4:55pm with the meeting just getting out...  
   
 ** _I ran to my locker, in another building on the other side of campus and grabbed my backpack, having just enough time for a count to make sure all my subjects were there. It took me three minutes to get to the front entrance, by which time the bus was making the left turn into the front drive...  
   
Then went right past me as I fruitlessly tried to catch it, going 25 and so disobeying the Chilton and city speed limits in order to rush by the routes. No one on the bus even waved to the driver to stop and wait for me to catch me, and I saw some of them looking dead on towards me. It turned right back onto the busy road it came, and I collapsed on the front drive's sidewalk, exhausted and frustrated that the bus drivers was such a dick.  
   
"God damn it, I was out here, five on the dot! You've gotta be kidding me, fuck!" I growled to whom I thought was an audience of myself. The next bus was at six and God knows the first day of school took everything out of me. "Now what the hell can I do?"_**

**_Leave it to Paris to happen by the scene right as I cursed out our lord and savior for the concept of public transportation. She heard everything and tapped me on the shoulder, startling me right out of my skin.  
   
"AHHHH!" I jerked up to find her staring down at me.  
   
"Going nowhere Gilmore?" she deadpanned, sending a chill up my spine.  
   
"I'm sorry I swore," I blurted out, "It's just that the bus didn't see me and--"  
   
"They're fucking jerks protected by that mob they call a union to make themselves seem more sunny and friendly to the outside world, so you have the right to take missing their bus personally. As for how I feel about profanity, this might be a private school but after school hours, go ahead and give me the George Carlin Seven monologue for all I care." She shook her head at me and held out her hand to take my backpack. "Come on Gilmore, you can hitch a ride with me."_ **

**_"No, I couldn't do that, I'll just call my mom," I told her, trying to beg off her charity.  
   
"And wait until 5:30 for her to pull up?" We walked toward a bench next to the parking lot's entrance gate to the grounds, and sat down. "Look, you're second in command this year Gilmore in two respects at this institution, and I refuse to see you fret much more about whether that loser of a bus driver has a vendetta against you rather than the school's agenda, I'm not going to let you get distracted by it just so you can make an unorganized beeline out here, then pray the idiot knows enough that you're wanting his bus."  
   
"I've taken the bus for two years Par, it's not that much of a problem--" I tried to excuse my commuting habits, but she was having none of it.  
   
"You're still winded from running the equivalent of two football fields to catch a stupid bus! Last year you were just a reporter, which was fine; this year you're my co-editor and my brain trust in trying to stop Jarvis from staging her coup. Besides, that thing can't be conducive to reading from the herky-jerky movement and bumping that thing does on the local roads, does it?"  
   
Oh, I couldn't forget the headaches and how sick I'd get the moment I'd hop off the bus from the diesel fumes and my unfocused eyes unable to read more than three pages on that hunk of junk.  
   
"What are you suggesting then?" I asked.  
   
"I'll ferry you home for $10 a month in my car, no questions asked. All you pay for is gas and I won't use the money for anything besides that. It'll give the Jag some healthy highway mileage that looks good when I eventually sell it, and you get a ride home that doesn't involve jam-covered kids and derelict temp workers while some freak in the side seat next to you eyes up those tighted gams and tries to turn you into the next Chandra Levy."  
   
"Geeze, morbid much?" I responded.  
   
An eyeroll, then her attention shifted back towards me. "Look, do you want the rides or not? The Jag has heated leather bucket seats, and judging from how much you can't wait to get into the library before school to sit on one of the overstuffed chairs you'd love sitting in it. I've been perceptive the plastic benches that pass off as comfortable seating on the bus, they're ruining your back."  
   
She gave me this hovering little look that seemed to show that her intentions were all good, and that she really didn't want me to suffer any more indignity of chasing that damned thing throughout south Hartford. $10 was a very small price for an average of 22 rides home a month; I was paying $1.81 a trip by my calculations for the 22 times I month I used the $40 pass. Plus I couldn't beat the company of a girl my dreams were starting to think of as more than my competition and superior.  
   
"Fine," I sighed and sealed the new agreement with a handshake. "You're sure you can do this? I'm not going to--"  
   
"The only thing you're doing is keeping Mother out of my sight for an extra hour a day, so trust me, we both win in this arrangement." We started walking towards her car, and I gave her this look that was telling her she was the best for helping me out when she really didn't have to.  
   
_**We all know what the rides led up to, right?  
   
I gave her one last look, and though she hesitated, she didn't seem repulsed by the idea of the rides.  
   
"Fine, Paris can be your new ride to school," she told me. "Just, keep the $40 for now, in case you fall into a bump again, I'm still getting used to this idea of Paris not your mortal enemy anymore."  
   
I ignored her apprehension and hugged her. "Thanks so much Mom. I promise, this won't be something to regret."  
   
After talking about the bus a little more, we moved the conversation into the living room and I caught her up with what little gossip had circulated through town since she was last here Wednesday morning. Not much to tell, except for Taylor getting another weird idea, opening up a whole foods corner in his market, but to kill any nutritional value that display in, there was a hot dog/sausage roller up in the front, making you salivate the moment you get in for a hot Italian sausage or three Vienna Beef franks. There was also the small argument between Mrs. Kim where the man wore a long coat into the store that tripped him, and as he went past a shelf with porcelain dolls, accidentally took down the entire unit. Mrs. Kim's 'you break, you buy' policy had been multiplies 70 times the usual rate and the man would end up paying at least $10,000 for the damage, leading to Miss Patty having to mediate the dispute between the two until Mrs. Kim eventually settled with him for $3,500 and ten hours of community service.  
   
It was about nine before we both stopped talking about the dance and everything around all she missed. She also asked about how Dean was, which was the first time in five days I had really thought about him at all. She was shocked that I hadn't seen him, but to keep her in a cherry mood so she wouldn't cancel the trip just to protect my being, I left out details about the breakup fight. Now with her back, I went into detail about his problems with Jess and I in the same place, his jealous streak, and how pissed he was I asked for Jess' closer help than his that would make me miss the bus.  
   
It was when I told her he called me a whore and tried one last time to beg my forgiveness that she felt sticking one of her high heels in a certain tailpipe position of his.  
   
"You're not a whore kiddo, far from it. You kept your loyalty to him for as long as you could, but you couldn't take it anymore." She smiled and then gave me a compliment I had been yearning for having the longest time.  
   
"You could've called and told me, but you were so mature about everything babe, not needing my help and taking charge of the situation. I am so proud of you for what you've done this entire week, building your friendship with Paris, asserting your destiny, and telling Dean you were sick of dealing with his crap." She gave me this look, and almost seemed on the verge of tears. "This is one of the reasons I went to Nashville; we have to learn how to be alone once in awhile, because face it, you're eighteen, and next year that room downstairs is going to be filled with echoes, not you. These next few months are the last that we're going to be this mother-daughter team, and I don't want to see you leaving for Cambridge next year calling me every night with worry."  
   
I thought about how much in the last week, and in turn the last few months, I had gone from being content to the way I left my life, to finding out that I felt something for Paris. I could've ignored it and gone back to how I was, but I gripped the reins, held on and never let go of them, steering towards sparking a relationship with her.  
   
 _Something I wouldn't trade for anything_ , I thought to myself, realizing how I was going from passive to active. For the first time, I feel free and unafraid of the future. Nothing's going to stop me from this, no matter how wrong society could view it.  
   
I hugged Mom, getting emotional with her as she told me how proud she was of this odd, but fulfilling week. "Thank you," was my simple acknowledgement of her words, and after some more of that moment, we both realized that the time was flying by quickly. Friday night I talked to her before I went to bed, and we planned a movie-junk food fest for the moment she came home.

She went downstairs so she could change into more casual clothes so she could head out to the video store to pick up a movie. I wanted a quiet little love story, but she felt that after a few days in Nashville another movie might be more appropriate.  
   
" _Urban Cowboy_? That's a good movie, and I can show you all the people I made fun of in Nashville. I counted more cowboy boots than Skechers, honest to Pete."  
   
"No you didn't," I argued, "Nashville's like Hartford with accents, they have a river, we have a river. They have a beltway, we have a beltway. They're the state capital, and guess what, we also have a shiny dome where the governor and legislature meet!"  
   
"OK, fine, there weren't that many cowboy boots," she conceded, "more on my fellow convention-goers than any actual residents." She went over the keyrack and retrieved her keys, looking towards me. "You want to come with the video store and the market, I could use some help."  
   
I would've normally gone with, but there was something that after an hour and a half that I really needed to do. "You go on Mom, I still have a few assignments to do."  
   
"Alright dear." She walked towards me and kissed me on the cheek. "No schoolwork after I come back though, you're mine until bedtime after that." I laughed, and we said goodbye, leaving me alone for about another half-hour.  
   
In that hour and a half, I already felt myself missing Paris, and thinking I left a few questions open even after she left. I thought of calling her just to hear her voice, but she might be catching her mind up on schoolwork; disturbing her during a study session has been known to be lethal to that person who interrupted. IM would be annoying and I still had never gotten used to the concept of talking to a person that way except when trading Harvard notes and study advice, it was more an academic tool than fun to me.  
   
That left me to plug in my Ethernet cable into the iBook and open up my mail program to sort out those unsaid things I wanted to tell her. I closed the bedroom door, hovered my fingers over the keyboard, and though it took a bit to gather my reserve, started to write an email to her. With the time to think like a real letter sent with postage, I had time to edit myself out and just state how I felt. I didn't try to go into the sexual parts, keeping that to a minimum as I kept in mine how hard it was for her to say she felt the same way. Going with how great the first kiss was compared to the sudden ones with Dean and Jess, and that we were on the same page for it all, that was a good way to start the letter.  
   
I got to a point where I started describing her anger as a turn-on, and I started thinking about just that. Over the years, seeing her face redden and all of her energy towards putting me in my place, what would have been scary ended up turning sexy after a year or so. After that, I basically told her to get ready, because I was going to sweep her off her feet and make her never regret what she felt for me. The charades were over, the facades had crumbled. It was down to just us; two girls, who like each other. I wasn't going to lose her. We were always in touch and onto each other, and that bond would become stronger in each other's arms.  
   
I felt like I wanted to share more than that, maybe get deeper into detail about things, but then I heard the door open and a loud "YEEEEEHAAAAAWWWWHHHH!!!" emanate from the front entrance.  
   
Do you know another 34 year-old woman who would make that noise and then yell "Hey there cowgirl, I rounded me up a mechanical bull movie with my 10-foot licorice vine, and I got some sweet kettle corn for some delicious vittles! I suggest you get that hinder out here now so we can watch some hot John Travolta on bull action!"  
   
I just shook my head and laughed as I started to close out the letter.  My mom might be nuts and could use a couple Ritalins at times, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is good, just very good. It's even better because I get to tell Paris in a postscript that my habit of kissing and running is mercifully dead, a wonderful sign that things are going to be much different with this relationship than what I had with both Dean, Jess, and of course that kiss with Tristan at the piano. Thank God she didn't keep it and burned the tape immediately after she got it; I don't need that on a hidden video show because frankly, that was one of my worst kisses.  
   
I sent the email, and headed out to the couch to join Mom in watching _Urban Cowboy_ and filling myself silly with sugar and coffee, all the while finding myself more drawn to the female lead than Travolta, like I had for most movies lately. A lot of actresses have a freaky resemblance to Paris, and I find myself at times daydreaming of us acting out those scenes together. The movie was good, and Mom seemed happy to spill her own gossip, so we talked and talked through the entire movie until the credits started to roll at midnight, and we both came to an agreement we were both up too long. After watching _Siskel and Ebert_ to make fun of the bad films they reviewed, we both headed off to bed, exhausted from our individual weekends and looking forward to the week ahead.

I crawled into bed, and that's where I am now, looking over the stories filed over the weekend by the _Franklin_ writers and uploaded to the newspaper's intranet. Most of them are good; a few of them could use a red pencil. I turned to the sports section and felt bad for not supporting the Blue Demons Friday night because of their tough last-second loss to Seth Thomas. I don't usually care about football, but Paris was going to be down that she wouldn't be able to plan a state championship edition in order to wow the high school journalism association. I saw her plans Thursday afternoon and they looked amazing. Now they'll just stay in a dusty folder somewhere on the server, hoping that a future editor can dig them out the next time the football team goes to state.  
   
I finish checking the stories, marking those I feel need revisions in the 'corrections box' next to each one so Paris can give them a once-over herself. I'm about to close out the computer for the night...  
   
Where as I'm about to click on the shutdown command, the email icon on my Dock shows one message unread in my DSL email account. I've only given that out to those I trust, which means Mom, Lane, Grandma and Grandpa, Madeline and Louise, and of course, you-know-who. I never see a message at midnight, so I'm curious. I open up AppleMail to retrieve the message, hoping it could wait to be read until later today.  
   
The blue bar comes up to tell me that it's ready to be read, and I look at my table of contents window.  
   
 **Paris (Comcast Acct.)             RE: Goodnight               Sent at 10:27pm, Sunday November 10  
 _  
_** I didn't expect a reply so fast, or none at all, but this makes me curious to what she has to say. Oh God, I hope she's not taking everything back. Nervously I click on the line and let the message open up in a new window, and look over what she has to say. My stomach is nervous and I'm seriously smiling huge as I look over her reply...  
   
 ** _From: paris.gellar@comcast.net (Paris E. Gellar)  
To: llgilmoreiii@snet.net (Rory's DSL)  
Subject: RE: Goodnight  
   
Rory,  
   
I didn't expect to hear from you so soon after I left, but it's definitely a welcome surprise to see that you took the time and effort to write to me before you left the computer for the night. Usually I don't expect email so late, but this was certainly nice to read this before I fell asleep. I'll stay up a little longer because I don't want to leave this unanswered. For future reference however, you can call my cell; I made a custom ring to know if it was you or not, and no one will be the wiser. Then again, writing is the most romantic form of communication; I'm thinking about how this would look in my longhand rather than the default Apple font, and was substituting your writing in for the words in your letter.  
   
I'm getting off-point, aren't I? Enough about my graphology analysis, it's time to get a few things off my chest about the day that has just passed. Really, what we just shared, it's beyond words, I had a hell of a time mulling it all over with Nanny and what this all meant, but she was very supportive of it all and she's thankful I finally got what I felt for you out. That's why she was so accommodating of you when stopped by Tuesday, she knew how I felt about you. I had to tell someone, and I hope you don't feel bad about it.  
   
First point, about how you thought our fighting eventually turned from combative to Tracy/Hepburnish banter over the last two years. I would try to deny your hypothesis, but would have a hard time arguing about the facts. When we use those words, things do heat up. We tighten, get combative, and our bodies start to react to our stances as passion rather than wanting to assault each other physically. Your word play is second-to-none Ror, and I'm just amazed at how top shelf your wit is. When we have a conversation, I already start to tense up, knowing seeing you angry and ready to defend your cause, it's going to weaken me, no matter what I do to dull the effects.  
   
I also will admit here to looking at you both in the heat of the matter, and instead of striving to back you into a corner to make my point, instead I want to push you towards there, to just tell you how hot you look and God, I just want to kiss you. Would you believe that's what I was thinking once you said a couple weeks ago in the conference room that with my attitude, you wouldn't have your way with me? Sorry if I'm being too forward, but the way I was thinking when we were talking about 'fuck this and fuck that', let's say for argument's sake that our proximity to each other, how close we were. I wanted you on that table. I'm not afraid to admit it; you know as much as anyone how blunt I am. Of course I'll hold back for you, but I will be truthful right now, my dream image of you isn't of you being Strawberry Shortcake by any means, it's very raw and passionate. I know that as we get into this I'll start toning down what I think of you in my head and assimilate the real you as my lover. Expectations are dangerous, so I will turn down my fantasies to a manageable level now that I know for sure you like me, as more than a friend, and much more than an enemy.  
   
This last year has been the toughest for me, seeing you so close, yet so far from my grasp, from what I wanted. The many times I made a move to try to be close, be it with the little things or just being in the right place at the right time (Bracebridge Dinner, the study sleepover, that damned night you had to meet Sherrie when I just wanted to celebrate with you after the debate), I took every opportunity to try to get closer to you. I've felt more for girls more than I ever did men; honestly, Tristan was the right boy at the right time for me. But I have no actor I idolize, who I dream about having a sexual relationship with. Even in my younger years, I was more curious of those like me more than I was with the boys. Then as I grew up I disassociated from the regular female peer groups because of my advanced brain; Barbies were an image to be loathed, jewelry is decoration, a waste, that music telling me I'd be Jordan Knight's or All 4 One's only lover was bullshit. They didn't want me, they just wanted my $16 and the profits from the ancillary merchandise, so they could smoke a few joints with that cash. See where the cynic I am today came from? My idol was Marie Curie, my bookshelves loaded with so many experiences of men and women in love. I read more of the women and how they felt, and found them more fascinating than men. Eventually, Tristan fell out of the way, leaving you to project that idea towards me of the perfect girl I wanted, and I knew it from that point; I wanted you, and you only.  
   
You should know by now that when I write down a goal, I intend to not only fulfill it, but then exceed the expected. You have been number one for months, from the day I asked you to be my VP. God willing, I'm not going to keep being the nervous girl you saw me as tonight. I hate coming off unprepared, so be ready for me to assert more control tomorrow. I wish I could just close the distance between us right now and be together, in that bed again. That was the best sleep I've had in years, and it's all thanks to you.  
   
I'm still amazed we won the marathon too, that proved we were an unstoppable combo. I felt great guiding you, like I was needed, and I'm looking for a story idea in there somewhere (Of course; you think I'm letting this journalistic gold slip out of my pan hon? I already see the article and maybe even a book deal out of this!), and I did feel like I proved so much out there. I've fallen for dancing all over again, and though I'm too old and uncoordinated to get back into it professionally without giving up Harvard, it's something that I have in mind as something fun we can do together.  
   
With a time limit of course. No more dances longer than three hours, my feet beg of you! Although if you want to sway me as close as you did yesterday, I certainly wouldn't have an issue with that.  
   
I'm glad to see you're over Dean too, and that you left him before you pursued me at a 100%. The opportunity was sudden, but you didn't love him anymore, better to end it now than to have waited longer when you felt strongly for someone else. With certainty, I would have told you if you came up to me and asked me to spark a relationship, yet still was the girlfriend of Dean, I would have said no and rejected those advances, for I refuse to be a side dish, something to be ashamed of. I need a loyal love, not an uncertain one. No matter what I think of him, the least he deserved was to know you didn't feel for him like you did a couple years ago. Thank you for that, it gives me confidence this will work out.  
   
OK, I'm seeing on my clock that a half hour has passed since I started writing, and I've cut and added so much to this letter that any more editing and I'll lose the original point of what I wanted to say in response. Besides, I'm getting near to my new bedtime, so I suppose I should click send before I end up sending a line of non-sensical text from my nose hitting the keyboard, too exhausted to stay up and write more. So I will end this letter to you Rory, pleased that I'll be able to be your morning ride from this point now (and the $10 will still suffice, really, you forget how I live?). Do you think it would be too much to fake the bus driver out at the stop and wait like you used to, then the moment he opens the door, run across the street towards my car, jump in, and flip up a middle digit toward that jackass?  
   
The idea is open, but I doubt you'd take to it. Still, fun to imagine.  
   
I better wrap this up before I ramble on all night then. I'll see you tomorrow morning; maybe I'll come into town early and stop in at the diner, I'll decide when I get in there. I like that Luke guy a little more but I'm still a little wary of his health code compliance, but I'm sure he's fine now. Go back to your cowgirl of a mom, you miss each other and I don't want to be in the way of that. I'll talk to you later, you sleep well now.  
   
Sincerely,  
Par  
   
P.S. - So I was a good kisser, hmm, far from a 'Georgia' Porgie? Not that I had a lot of practice, I just used your guiding me on that couch and hoped and prayed all those sappy movies and books with kissing in them I trained on worked out well, my fingers were crossed the entire damned time! Thank goodness I also had experience from summer camp a few years back, and that you didn't cry. I'd feel awful otherwise.  
   
P.S. to the P.S. - Damn it, I promised myself I'd never ever do this in a romantic letter of any kind, but it just feels incomplete without these marks, I'm trying to make you smile before you go to bed, and 'Sincerely' is something you say to your college advisor, not your lover! You should know what they mean already, so just know that I mean each and every one of them.  
   
-XOXOXOX Rory-  
   
I like how that looks; that's how I'll sign off my letters to you from now on. Unless it's serious, then I have to go with basic letter-writing protocol...Alright, hitting send before I start an entirely new letter! Good night.  
   
_**I finish reading the letter, basking in the length of what Paris has said in response. I swear she puts her hearts into a subject and never lets go, since my scroll bar along the right side was so thin I could barely see it. Not that I mind of course, Paris' wordplay is an attraction that pulls me closer to her, especially if it takes a few pages to all print out. I sit here, read it and react as her words fill my brain.  
   
Her point about changing text to handwriting is well taken, as I've said in the past I think hers is beautiful, so I think about her instead of sitting at her desk typing and retyping, writing out her note with an expensive Mont Blanc pen, making no mistakes and just receiving the response after a week where it was stuck in the mail system.  
   
I look over what she's said about her past opportunities to woo me failing. Now I'm under the state of mind that fate happens for a reason, and for Paris, it had to happen over and over before she could finally receive the end result. I would never know what might have happened if Sherrie would have waited another day to meet me, freeing Paris and I up to celebrate the debate. Neither can I predict the outcome of that February sleepover had the boys never stopped by. What those delays that got in her way did give me, was more time to decide whether this infatuation was for real, or a simple phase of girl-lust that would melt away eventually. If those opportunities had opened up, who knows what may have happened?  
   
I grin as I read that my being pissed off turns her on. I've always had a feeling that was the case; she tries to move closer and counterpoint whenever things get vicious. I would be right to probably say that if our arguments weren't being done while she wore the Chilton uniform or her usual turtleneck/cords combo, that I would see that she was far from angry, that in theory, her breath would pick up, her heartbeat would speed up, and her body would be in such a state of disillusionment that I can't help but notice that her sexual self is torn between the good little girl guise, and the rebel that lurks deep within. I still think of that argument from time to time, and imagine her after I flee stomping off to her car, driving off to some desolate parking spot far from anyone (or a police officer for that matter), and then just blowing off that stress with a fervent session of getting herself off...  
   
How can she make me think of her like that at a time like this? God, I never did this with Dean, thinking about how he thought of me! Again, this is where my thoughts usually drift off towards the more sane habits of girls. We're elegant and I can get more into the romantic image of Paris in her seat, moaning my name as she nears her climax. With Dean, I just couldn't, I don't know. I get the sense he probably dreamed of me sexually and got off just fine, but I never did to him because I felt guilty. Not to mention with my mother just a floor above, it killed any thoughts of that happening. Add to that how males get sexually aroused and what happens when that arousal ends, it doesn't paint a very pretty picture with his...stuff all over me. We need not get into details here.  
   
I read towards the end of her letter, happy she thought well of the entire day and the events we shared. Somehow, her first postscript is just very girlish and shy. She feels odd that she kisses well, yet it gives her a thrill that I crumbled in her arms, which I truly did do.  
   
Her second one shows off that side I'm trying to bring out, the Paris who's in love and doesn't care she's a sap showering me with virtual kisses and hugs. I grin as I finish reading the letter, then I save it out to a file, putting it in a password protected folder no one can access unless they know the phrase that pays.  
   
Geeze, it's already 12:15 in the morning? I've had a lot to take in today, so I close my laptop and put it off to the side as I prepare to go to sleep, ready for the first full day that Paris and I are a couple, albeit one hidden from the general public. I feel my heart swell and my body heat as I bring the blankets close to me, realizing that Paris' scent is still all over these bedcovers, especially on the pillow she rested her head on.  
   
She smells so good, and I wish that she was here, sleeping next to me, her fingers along my waist like how I woke up at 11:00am. I think of those feelings her cuddling elicited inside, along with how just about naked I was in that tight tank combined with those pants so thin, I felt like I wasn't wearing them at all.  
   
I'm breathing heavily right now, recalling her words and uneasiness about the situation, along with when she called me hot, her weight bearing against mine as she brought me in for that second kiss. My heart is speeding up, and suddenly, all these uneasy thoughts of giving myself pleasure thinking of Paris, thoughts I had gagged all two years with Dean, they're stronger than they ever had been. I've felt her up close, memorized each and every crevice, curve and dip along her back, felt her breasts against mine, over these last 44 hours with her.  
   
I look up at the tiling of my ceiling, trying to distract myself from what my inner vixen is suggesting. _You know you want to_ , it implores, heightening Paris' fragrance inside of my nostrils, and reminding me of the sweet taste of her mouth as her lips locked against mine. I try to toss towards one side, which makes the fantasy roll along even more. There's nothing separating me from touching my breast except the purple flannel cloth, which rubs against the erectile tissue of my areole. My eyes tighten closed and I hold back a moan as the sensation runs through my body.  
   
 _OK, you're going to stop right now. Don't forget you have to be up at six_ , I remind myself to bring myself back into reality. Yeah, 5½ hours of sleep, I can still get that, just settle down...  
   
"You look hot right now Rory." There's that voice again from earlier this afternoon, that sentence that made me wet, telling me the words that confirmed she thinks of me as more than a friend. OK, stop again, Dean, Dean, Dean, let's think of Dean making out with that guy who plays Clark Kent on _Smallville_ , hell, let's make it a three-way with Lex Luthor and watch as both of them would rather eat Brussels sprouts than have an orgy with my ex-boyfriend, that'll work...  
   
Or not, crap! My hand is moving between the hem of my pajama shirt and the waistband, thinking of Paris' slender fingers playing with the flat skin between the two clothing articles, that secret smile in my gaze as she plays with the tie and starts to undo the knot of the pants, a sort of sweet revenge for my little knot torture with the tomato dress. That sexual buildup from the last two days seems to have reached a zenith, and I think no matter how I try to ignore it and go to sleep, it's not going to be satisfied until I take care of it.  
   
I sigh, Paris' aroma and voice overtaking me as I give into my vixen, shirk the covers off to the side, and I spread my legs, giving in no matter how much I want to say no. Suddenly these pajamas feel like too much on my person, so now I'm undoing the shirt to expose myself, my voice whispered as a hand brushes against my breast, and I look down my body in the darkness, that exposed inch of blue floral patterned waistband from below my pants making me moan as I start slowly teasing myself into thinking Paris is sharing the bed and doing these things to me.  
   
I'm smiling to myself, my mind taking off towards her bedroom and wondering if she partook in herself and one of those dreams where I'm the star before she went to bed. Or even better, a sleep-talking dream, which would normally be a psychological anomaly, but with those old eighty year-old walls covering up whom she was thinking about, warming me even further.  
   
Tomorrow's going to be an interesting day, seeing if the flirting we've done in class backs off, or becomes even hotter, yet hidden in school, because I know I'll be moving my massage strokes towards her bra line tomorrow, no question. I wonder if we'll kiss before school, if she'll brush her thigh against mine during life sciences, if she spends the day with her mind focused on how to rile me up in Latin.  
   
For now though, there's only one thing I want to focus on, and that's dreaming of myself unbuttoning her shirt as she pushes down mine, and then after awhile, asking my permission to move lower. God, she's so beautiful, so untamed, very sexual. This relationship is going to be interesting, and as I brush a couple fingers against the fringe of my waistband, I think of how I got to this point in time, with her finally my girl. The tease has been a hell of a lot of fun, but there's nothing that compares to launching into the relationship. Things can only get hotter, and much more interesting from here. I only can hope I won't get burned too badly from this...  


* * *

**_To be continued..._ **   



	10. Paris and Rory, Leaping Out of the Gate!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paris and Rory start their new relationship off beneath the noses of the Chiltonians and the Hollowites, and find ways throughout the school and at home to keep their flame strong.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Ten | Paris and Rory, Leaping Out of the Gate!   
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, alternating POVs between Paris and Rory throughout the chapter. Also, the beginnings of allusions towards Madeline/Brad.  
 **Spoilers:** Nothing as far as actual show plot, but this would be the _Longing_ version of _Let the Games Begin_ , without the start of the Jess/Rory relationship or Luke's fretting over everything.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, tame sexual actions and dreams, innuendo, indirect homophobia, and light alcohol usage)  
 **Disclaimer:** Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions and Hofflund-Polone run the show and Warner Bros. Television profits from that. Even if Rory's character is ruined and Tristan II...er, I mean Logan ruins the image of our two favorite girls together. Did I mention that Liza Weil is still a regular cast member, not supposed to be playing the second coming of Laverne DeFazio and have wacky antics and pratfalls like getting drunk off punch? Seriously people, use her better next season, even if she does sing an adorable _I'm Walking on Sunshine_.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first **.  
Summary: **Paris and Rory start their new relationship off beneath the noses of the Chiltonians and the Hollowites, and find ways throughout the school and at home to keep their flame strong.  
 **Author's Notes:** Another three months, another 40,000 words, hopefully I did a great job because this chapter was very improv. I have the ideas for everything else in the story, but Raven wanted me to add something in-between the realization _And Then She Kissed Me..._ chapters and their first movements deeper into their love, thus this is what ended up happening. I ended up dealing with at least two aborted plotlines, a dead computer in March, the new computer that replaced it crashing after just five weeks of use, and some of the worst episodes of GG ever while I wrote this chapter. Really people, is there anyone demanding more scenes of Taylor out there?  
   
My usual betas Raven and Cinn were unable to read for this chapter because of things happening in their real lives, so please keep them in your thoughts. They did still receive the chapter in advance however because of their help over the last months in making my story the best that it could be. Hopefully things return to normal for the both of them soon and they'll be able to beta for me again in the very near future.  
   
In their place, Erin Griffin was my beta, and I thank her for taking over the daunting duties on such short notice. Thanks so much for the once-over!  
   
Thanks to Brian and The Raven for their encouragement, and Amy on GGSlash for the nice chats, which I really enjoy when my plots get stuck. I recommend you read her _Coalescence_ series currently on the site, the picture she sets up of a disabled Paris being nursed back to health by Rory is truly wonderful.  
   
I'd also like to wish Liza a happy 28th birthday on Sunday, June 5th! Thanks for another great year of Paris' trials and tribulations, and my fingers are really crossed that you'll be back on the show next year, it certainly wouldn't be the same without you or Paris :)!  
   
Finally, thanks to Lexar for their USB flash JumpDrive Sport that keeps this story backed up almost everyday; without it I may have lost everything I wrote between March 28th and May 7th. Fanfic writers, USB drives are the best thing ever, and having the almost-latest copy of _Longing_ on one after a hard drive failure really saved my butt here. Throw out your floppies and buy one today, they really come in handy!  
   
And to those reading on ff.net, the 10th time should be a charm in telling you that Paris and Rory will be getting more physical in this chapter, so if you don't like, don't read. Please also keep in mind that I accept any criticism, and if you have a question, let me know in a review please.  


* * *

 **Paris' POV, Monday, 7:00pm  
**    
"OK Par, you can do this, just stay calm. Day after, first day of the rest of your life, this is going to be easy. She doesn't regret this, so don't think she does."  
   
That was what I was telling myself this morning as I passed the white sign welcoming me back into the village of Stars Hollow, home of the 2002 state champion Minutemen in Division 4 hockey. I was tightly belted into my seat, looking at the clock reading 6:55; I still had five minutes to go before I pulled up in front of that diner that was the favorite haunt of my classmate and vice president.  
   
Not to mention my new girlfriend. I remember getting up this morning and going through my normal routine, all the time thinking about the small things I could do to tell Rory that what I said in that email to her last night before bedtime (and uh, my 'thinking' about her) was true; that I was going to do my damndest to keep her interest in me piqued. I took a couple extra minutes brushing my hair, making sure it was totally smooth and had a golden sheen to it. Another couple minutes spent in the shower and at the vanity, putting on a slight shade of lipcolor, and then one more stop inside the closet. Again, I tried to make myself feel a little more sexy by putting on a bra and panty set that was thinner than usual, along with a bra that lifted instead of flattened for once; a nice lacy light pink set that would feel very nice beneath my clothes. I smiled as I looked myself over, content in my appearance. I couldn't look any better in the uniform, and as I buttoned up the school sweater over the oxford blouse, for the first time it seemed in years, I felt the shirt give tight against my bosom.  
   
 _Now that, that is the look of a girl in love!_ My inner vixen projected inside. Finally, thanks to Rory's help and her heated flirting the day before, I felt both confident and sexy. I already noticed a change in my mannerisms this morning as I went through my morning routine. I had always been excited to go to school before that, but kept it bottled up under the guise of being stone cold serious about my education. Other than the academic side of school however, I always loathed the socializing part of Chilton. Having to play babysitter to those in the _Franklin_ of lower IQ, and help those same simpletons get out of high school without having to study a word, it wasn't fun for me. Hell, I'd probably rather be home-schooled, that way I get 100% of my education without all the empty calories of Chilton cliques and classes, or the broom closet interludes.  
   
But then, I wouldn't have Rory at all, and that's a thought I don't want to have to think ever again.  
   
6:25am I left my bedroom, and snuck downstairs, hoping to dodge Mother's line of questioning about my choice of bra for the day. I didn't let her know about my new schedule, so I hoped the 'stranger in your own house' routine would continue strong.  
   
"Miss Gellar, Paris..." I heard some whispering from a corner of the great room as I hit the bottom landing of the grand staircase. I walked towards the sound of the voice, and found our newest night maid, Roberta, dusting some shelves and looking both ways warily. I went over towards her and asked why she called out my name.  
   
"It's safe, she never came home last night."  She may have been new, but Roberta knew going in from the fellow housekeepers from her service that Sharon was a bitch to all the help, and that I usually tried to avoid her as best as I could.  
   
"Not home? Where is she?" I asked, and then rolled my eyes because I already knew the answer. "Mohegan Man's arms?"  
   
She nodded her head. "Called at two in the morning to have me let you know she's staying in San Diego until tomorrow afternoon, apparently the airline refused to board her and her boyfriend because they were drunk and belligerent towards the staff at the Lindbergh United counter, and she really sounded smashed."  
   
I sighed, thankful that I wouldn't have to reface Mother for another day. "Thanks, tell her the usual if she calls, I miss her and Boston was great..."  
   
"Got it, you have a great day Miss Gellar." I thought about giving Rory two rides to and from school, and Mother stuck in California, and already felt like Monday the 11th would be just as good a day in my life as Sunday the 10th. I smiled wide at Roberta, and thanked her.  
   
"It's off to a great start." I headed towards the garage, dumped my messenger bag in the backseat, and pulled out the Manor gate at 6:30am. Right on schedule; life was good.  
   
I found traffic going southbound on the Cross relatively light since most everyone heads inbound into Hartford, and with the radio tuned to a light classical station, found the ride, though slow because of how much I was anticipating picking up Rory and taking her to school, seemed to pass by. Probably had more to do with the guiding speed of 73 everyone else was doing, though truthfully, my speedometer display read 81 for most of the last portion of the trip.  
   
I pulled off the route 26 exit around 6:50, and found myself at the familiar rooster statue a few minutes later, winding around the square's traffic circle a couple times before I found a nice place near the bus stop to pick up Rory across from Luke's diner. I slid into the parking spot lines gracefully, idled the car to park, and then looked across the street towards the former hardware store building on the corner with the wide picture windows painted with the establishment's name in yellow paint.  
   
I wondered to myself if I should go into the diner, but decided against it because I wouldn't purchase anything inside. I was too nervous anyways; I thought I was still regarded as 'that crazy schoolgirl from Hartford' because of the Oppenheimer story, and somehow I doubt that opinion changed even with my zero negative words about the town all Saturday and Sunday when I was here. I also feel guilty if I go into a store and not buy an item; I didn't need anything at Luke's except Rory, thus I didn't have to go in.  
   
Still, I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel, looking into the diner's windows and finding Rory and Lorelai kibitzing with Luke about something. Even from that far away she looked nice; her hair was in a braided ponytail and she seemed to be in a nice mood, as was I. She smiled up at Luke, as she stacked her empty dishes and her orange juice glass atop each other. Luke then handed her a couple of foam cups. _Probably both filled with coffee, she's crazy for the stuff_ , I assumed. I stared at her for two minutes through the window, unnoticed by everyone who happened by my spot. She moved towards the counter, put those cups down, reaching into her backpack to pull out her purse, and in turn some paper currency and handed it to him. He nodded, seemed to thank her, and just after, she was leaving the diner, looking both ways right out to probably locate my car.  
   
My car might blend in a little because of its maroon color, but not so much that Rory didn't find it. She found me just by looking in my direction, and just her blue eyes from afar staring right back at me made my heart palpitate out of rhythm. She ran across the street when there was a break in the traffic, and came around to the passenger's side door as I clicked open the lock to let her in.  
   
Effortlessly, she opened the door and slid into her seat, which after about 55-60 rides was set up to her own specifications. She smiled at me as she threw her backpack into the backseat, and gave me a look that told me she was excited about this new arrangement that we were sharing.  
   
She greeted me with a good morning, and I told her the same as she set the foam cups in the cupholders on the console.  
   
"I bought you some tea, I figured that you might want some as a perk-up to wake you up," she then told me. To say the least, I felt flattered that she was thinking about me. "Wintergreen, of course."  
   
I smiled funny at her. "You didn't have to Gilmore, but thanks." I wasn't looking directly at her, trying to keep my gaze on the road in front of me as I shifted into drive, sure that the town's eyes were all directed towards me. So much for my email declaration that I wouldn't be nervous.  
   
I pulled slowly onto the road, and could feel Rory's hand on the armrest console between us, brushing against the side of my skirt. I turned on the road out of town and took a sip of the tea, the ride so far seeming a bit more silent than I thought it would be. When we reached the guidance sign for the exit onto the Cross, I finally looked at Rory for the first time since we left town.  
   
Whether to bring up the fact we were now secretly betrothed to each other was going through my mind, as I tried to think up a way to broach up conversation. This is one of the things I hate about relationships, you lose that natural bond the two of you had before you became involved. Though it was only officially our fourteenth hour, I analyzed the situation. Just the very idea of a relationship was alien to me, I had never been through it with a boy before, not counting a boy in sixth-grade Jewish summer camp, but back then I didn't know all that much about love. Now here I was in the same car with Rory, I didn't know what to do.  
   
Thankfully my mouth decided to think for my head for at least once in my life, saving me from the awkward first morning kiss I wanted to get just right.  
   
"Do we want to lead with the football loss, or go positive with the volleyball win? I was looking at Davidson's article last night and Jenna Smith's commentary, along with the pics of the field goal attempt, I think we can get a good page one out of it." I was happy to be back to talking to one of the things that bonded Rory and I comfortably together, _The Franklin_.

She turned and looked at me, arguing her side. "I took a look at Davidson's article too, it's a strong piece," she told me. "I made a few notations for editing, and I saw the front page in my mind. What I think we could do is have an inset of the team within two columns, and on the bottom, show the Chilton stands reaction to the field goal passing through the uprights."  
   
"Agony might not sell Gilmore," I argued back. "I think we need to go look-ahead on this one instead of showing the pain of the student body. The Demons were one game away from the playoffs with a second-year coach, if we did a sub below the headline saying something like 'Coach Staley proud of progress, already looking towards '03', that would make the student stop, look at the article, and think that our writers felt the pain just as bad as they did, but they know the team is progressing. They look at Davidson's piece and think that he's a true insider, with an ear to the team. That sells more copies, makes Davidson strive to work harder during basketball and baseball seasons to impress, and in turn, solidifies us as having a strong stable of storytellers."  
   
I felt Rory focusing her thoughts for a bit, trying to come up with a reply. Her gut instinct is something I really like, because although she might seem mousy, she wants to see the paper succeed in the end. "That's a good idea, but don't forget that people are going to save this in their attics years from now." _There she goes with her small-town nostalgia bent_ , was what I was thinking as she went on about how it might be better to show the crowd reaction, while mixing in the optimist's view of the next season on that front page. "We're seniors; in the end 2003-04's team doesn't represent our class."  
   
"Yeah, but they will represent the frosh, sophs and juniors of this year, along with the Eighthers at Country Day, I don't want to leave them out."  
   
"Darn it, I hate it when you're right." She pouted for a bit and thought a little more, looking ever so adorable while she remembered that one of the points of the paper's mission statement was to remain neutral and represent the entire student body, not just the seniors. "Uhhh, hmmm...What if we put the crowd shot on top right, wrapped around Davidson's story with your headline-subline combo to instill that hope, then we put a horizontal line in the middle of the page? Below that, we tell Jenna to rewrite her commentary to focus on the Blue Demon's progress this year, we go back to the upset at Hillside and in the photo space, show Wes Albertson's reaction to throwing that touchdown in with a second left to win the game?" She scribbles a dummy layout on a page in her notebook representing the front page, and I glance at it out of the corner of my eye, thankful the traffic merging onto the Cross is light. "That way, in the end, on the same page the senior class will be able to look back on this page for years to come, while at the same time it makes everyone hope for greater things next season. You see where I'm going with this, a mix of nostalgia and a look towards a better season for the underclassmen--"  
   
"Which might help this edition circ as well as the regional spotlight of last week." I could see it in my head, Rory's idea was perfect. She might not have the official title of co-editor, but she might as well be with these brainstorming sessions we have in the car after school. I smiled, and decided I would take our mixed idea seriously. "First thing this afternoon I'll plug it into PageMaker and see if it looks well; I'll stop Jenna in Philosophy in second and tell her to do a quick rewrite, and we'll see what we got. It's obvious we have to do the front page on the game. We'll move Erica's former cover on society Thanksgivings to the left tease and keep it as the middle foldout, and we'll be all set." I didn't even need PageMaker to see the results, because the layout in my mind looked perfect.  
   
"I like that Par," she told me. "Erica's gonna be a little mad she didn't get more than a cover mention, but she'll recover."  
   
I smiled, and relaxed into my seat a bit as now the cover layout was clear. Only 21 other pages to go. "She'll be fine."  
   
Then just before I could react, Rory thanked me, stretched over the seat, and kissed me lightly on the cheek, surprising the Dickens out of me. I wasn't up to highway speeds yet, but felt my grip loosen on the steering wheel just a little bit and the car waver.  
   
It wasn't much of a kiss, a lot less deep than the first one we shared last evening. Despite that though, it still had that emotional wallop that hearing Rory come out stirred within me. My heart thudded against my chest, and it took me a couple of puffs to recover my breath as I pulled off the road and onto the emergency shoulder.  
   
Damn, I knew I should've kissed her when she got in the car, I have privacy windows for crissakes! But the windshield is still clear; someone might have seen. Blood rushed to my face, and there was a bit of me who was pissed off at her for interfering with my driving. Everyone knows for instance my phone is off when I'm in the car, don't dare try to call me.  
   
I couldn't help but smile though. Rory was giving me that smile she had just after our first kiss, silly and carefree. In the end too, I really liked the kiss.  
   
"I forgot to wish you a good morning. God, I wanted to do that since before we left town." She's giddy at surprising me, and I felt like to admonish her for her sly move for thinking up a front page as an excuse to kiss me wasn't anything I wanted to do. The momentum of the car stopped, and I could finally look at her without the threat of a drift into the median and certain death.  
   
I was still hyperventilating a little, and controlled my first reaction to yell at her about it. "Don't ever do that again, you know how fast I drive." I kept myself calm as I looked at her sternly, and somewhat lovelorn. "Why didn't you just say you wanted to kiss me in the first place?"

"I didn't know when to bring it up," she admitted. "I couldn't do it in town, and since you didn't come in the diner this morning where I was planning on directing myself into the restroom so you would follow and we could have a good morning kiss, I just thought I'd take the first opportunity that came along, and God, I was stupid." She looked down at herself, cursing her timing. "This is tougher than I thought, I mean there you are looking all cute right in front of me, and I don't know when to make the first move."  
   
"In the diner?" I questioned aloud. I didn't even know the diner had a bathroom.  
   
She nodded back. "Yeah, I was waiting in there for you to come in. I don't know how many times I looked out the window this morning."  
   
"I guess I should stop being so stubborn then," I admitted, feeling sort of down for disappointing my girl. "I just feel like I have to buy something when I go into a place, call it Emily Post syndrome."  
   
"When I buy you the tea Paris," she told me, smiling and moving her hand into mine, "that's the signal that you can go in. It's an extra $1.50, nothing that's sending me to debtor's prison. I like you, and that means you can come into my world whenever you feel."

"But your mom--" I just have the feeling that Lorelai is thinking my offer of a morning ride as leading Rory down that evil path into the world of the entitled. Rory moved in to assure me.  
   
"She's fine with it. I want you to be more Annie Hall and less Woody Allen here, please."  
   
I rolled my eyes at the mention of my mental state, and then realized something out loud. Remember here, I have an IQ figure in the higher echelon of the 160's. "I missed a chance to kiss you in Luke's?" I felt like I had a hot pink shirt with an upturned arrow pointing up from the sentence reading 'I'm with stupid' on.  
   
"Luke's girls room, but nonetheless, Luke's." I shook my head, feeling pretty dumb as she reassured me that it wasn't an emotional wallop that would bring her down for the rest of her life. "If you're worried about how sanitary it is, it's cleaned three times a day."  
   
I smiled funnily, this twist of fate irking me to no end. "Yes, but at least it would've been private. I don't understand your madness, but next time you have something planned like that, I have text messaging in my phone, a simple ':-* me in Luke's bathroom' missive (and yes, I actually spoke the words 'kiss symbol colon-dash-asterisk' in that sentence; don't look at me like that!) would've sufficed in getting me in there." I caressed her hand, looking at her with all the love for her I had. "If I promised you that I'll actually come in tomorrow morning, uhh, could I kiss you here, now? Please?" Oh yeah, I'm not about to ghostwrite the next #1 Harlequin bodice-ripper here. I felt again like a nervous little Jewish girl.  
   
That is, until Rory parted her lips open and ran her hand up my side slowly until it was against my warmed and probably red right cheek. She moved in closer and I could sense the mix of cinnamon toast, cool mint Scope and Eight O'Clock on her breath. "Cross your heart you'll come in tomorrow?" Her voice hushed, and I couldn't help but think that overnight she seemed even more alluring to me.  
   
"I'll be there." I nodded back at her, looking at the morning rush passing by us northbound. I caressed her palm with my pointer, noticing that she hadn't put on her tie yet, leaving one button open and bare freckled skin leading into her oxford shirt. I squinted my eyes, trying to think of something dry and academic, something that wouldn't lead to me trying to replicate the work of Alfred Kinsey in those two bucket seats.  
   
"Good." She gave me her shy smirk, and then broached the last of the distance between us to give me that good morning kiss floating around our collective brains since the moment we awoke. The spark hadn't faded at all like I expected; our connection was just as strong as our lips met and I moved my free hand up to massage her neck. I felt like I was high on something as I decided to take the lead and deepen it a little, unbuckling my safety belt and bringing myself closer towards her side, so much I felt myself shift onto the console piece separating us.  
   
My body hummed, and I already felt like all my senses were picking up. I flitted the tip of my tongue against her lower lip, pulling it back in because I wasn't ready to go that deep. It was much more of a teasing buss than the kisses from the last evening. It seemed like we were kissing for such a long time, when in reality it was only thirty seconds here, a separation for breath, and then another thirty seconds.  
   
Her hands moved down towards my sweater and fisted material on each side; no iron could've prevented the shirt below from wrinkling. We kept back and forthing nothings about each other and how the emails and sweet dreams were much appreciated and how well we both kissed.  
   
We separated only when a loud semi, obviously breaking the 'no truck' rule on the Cross, honked its horn and shocked the fuck out of both of us. We broke the kiss, but not the contact, figuring the traffic wasn't looking at two girls making out in a car off to the side of the road. I slid back into my seat, slowly easing Rory out of my grasp, finding it hard to bring my attention back to scholastic matters.  
   
"Mile 67," she said to herself. I didn't know why she said that so I asked her the reasoning to repeat the portion of road we were on.  
   
"It's a good mile." She smiled at me, trying to straighten her sweater. "Mile 67 is a good mile because we had our first good morning kiss here. I like this mile."  
   
I gave her an odd look, but had to find it endearing. After all, this is the same girl who along with her mother names small household appliances, like her pencil sharpener Anais. I couldn't help but agree with her, because if the road we were on was a small country lane, with the trees along the sides of the road in the last stages of shedding their leaves for the season, it would be a beautiful scene. I nodded back, and recovered to gather my bearings back to accelerate the car back onto the road, rebuckling up my belt.  
   
Before I did though, Rory had to make me swoon just one more time.  
   
"I like that you ditched the flak jacket by the way." She laughed nervously, and I knew exactly what she was talking about. "You look much more beautiful, more...feminine. Not that you weren't before, but now, even more nice. Yeah." She ran a hand through her hair, giving me this funny smile. "God, I must sound like a perv, I didn't mean to."  
   
"Rory, it's OK," I reassured. "You don't. I sort of did it for you, something subtle only you'd clue in on. Everyone else doesn't care, you know?"

"Oh, right." She looked at the clock, and then smiled. "7:15, we better get going before we end up in trouble." Our comfortable banter remained even after I pulled back on the road, and I spent the rest of the commute up north trying to help Rory get past Mr. Mercurio's pop quiz that was sure to befall us fourth period. It wasn't a good challenging test day, so it was going to end up just a general school day.  
   
When we arrived in the lot and pulled into my space, I immediately noticed that Madeline and Louise were awaiting me at the front door, most likely to confront why my cell phone wasn't on until eight last evening. I had turned it off and not let them know my weekend plans so I could go either way with how I wanted to say I spent my weekend; up in Boston if things didn't go very well at all, or mentioning the dance marathon with a very explicit warning to keep everything down low because the less I was the gossip subject, the better.  
   
I noticed their surprised looks when Rory opened up the passenger's side door, backpack in tow and ready to go.  
   
"Oh...good morning Rory." My dark-haired friend was surprised to see her so early and not coming off the bus.  
   
"Morning," Rory greeted her with a smile. "Did you and Louise have a good weekend?"  
   
Louise interjected her way into the conversation. "Good as in the middle linebacker drowned his sorrows for losing the game within my walls, or good as in general?" Rory soured her lips, and Madeline nervously laughed as both mine and Rory's eyes drifted her way.  
   
"Hey, I studied this weekend, honest. My stepmom's going to take away my Rover privileges if I don't score at least an 1,250 on the SAT's." She looked nervously around the crowd. "You know how much I love my car, I don't want to have to drive around in my dad's old Catera."  
   
The four of us walked into the building, blue spirit posters and a 'GO BLUE DEMONS!' banner in the gymnasium foyer, reminding us of what everyone had been looking forward to only three days ago. "Good weekend, but where were you Gel?" Louise asked me. "I had a tough quotient to figure out, and the homework helpline seemed to be shut down."

I thought for a moment about lying, but I wanted to tell someone outside of Stars Hollow about what Rory and I had done Saturday.  
   
So I spilled, telling Louise the reason I wasn't on the phone was because I was dancing all day and all night.  
   
"Dance marathon?" Louise was astonished by the very concept of this idea, and that six years after my prime, I agreed to go with Rory. "What did your mom have to say about it?"  
   
"Nothing, and if you and you," I pointed at Madeline and Louise, "value your individual lives, you won't say anything to her either."  
   
"Lips are sealed," Madeline told me, making a zipping motion. "Hey, did you know that your mom's new beau was on the World Series of Poker? He was tenth last year--"  
   
"I don't think Paris really cares about that, right?" Rory surprised me by butting into one of Madeline's off-kilter observations and trying to defend me. I nodded and just shrugged. "So about this dance marathon you two, please don't say anything to anyone, but both of us did win the whole enchilada. Don't ask us how, and please don't ask how we came into school without sore feet."  
   
"Won?" Louise questioned. "How long was it, like eight or nine hours?"  
   
"Your time frame is currently in Antarctica and chilly, add some more time." I just wanted to move on from the topic, but as we walked down the hallway, it was hard to admit, but it's nicer to talk to friends when you have more to say about your weekend than you studied all through it.  
   
"Eighteen hours. That's the time limit on your bra, right?"  
   
I was taking a sip of my tea just then, and almost choked upon hearing Madeline's guess. I tried to hold back my first impulse to blush and then admit that breast support wasn't in play for the entirety of my weekend. I found my voice again after gasping out the liquid from my lungs, where it wasn't supposed to go.  
   
"It was 6-6, Saturday morning to Sunday morning, give or take 11 minutes." Thank goodness for Rory noticing my discomfort and trying to veer the topic away from where it was. They were astonished that both of us stuck together for that long.  
   
"Still, you two together, dancing, voluntarily for **any** amount of time," Louise gestured at both of us. "Never in a million years."  
   
 _A million years pass by quickly when it's just two days_ , I thought to myself, feeling that this achievement's afterglow was still warm a day after the event took place. My two lifelong friends were amazed as we both went into an edited account of how well everything went, not mentioning that Rory now knew she was being watched by the camera when she kissed Tristan. I pretty much let Rory tell the story since she knew more about the history of the event than I did, along with the rivalries.  
   
After stopping at our bank of lockers to get our schoolbooks, Louise left when she saw her guy of the week in the hallway moping around, still down about losing to Seth Thomas. Madeline hung with both of us, and asked why I was ferrying Rory to school. It took us a few moments to struggle for an answer, but we finally came up with Rory losing her bus pass and since she paid cash, she couldn't get CT Transit to give her a new one since they didn't have proof of a cancelled check or card transaction. A good way to shrug off any questioning about the arrangement until at least December 1st.

"That's cool, the bus is icky and filled with creepazoids anyways." Her attention seemed to shift somewhere else, and before I could figure out why Mads had to run, she told us she had to leave. "Sorry guys, I uh, have to go." She left us behind, and I just had to wonder if Rory's theory that she was flirting with Brad in secret was correct.  
   
Both of us continued conversating about academics as we came into Advanced Economics, trying to get back into our catatonic states of mind about school where nothing else was a distraction but the instructor's words and the props they used to teach us the lesson. Rory sat in front while I sat in back.  
   
"So, we're here. In class. Our first class." She looked at the familiar surroundings, which now after this close weekend, seemed alien to her. She seemed a little nervous as she sat down at her seat and I stood near her desk. We were both going to be distracted with each other, that was a foregone conclusion; however the seating chart Mr. Silvestri created was sort of a help to my hormones, since we were on a slant where a misdirection towards looking at Rory would be noticed and I would be asked to pay attention.  
   
I smiled at her, finding my voice uncharacteristically shaky. "I'll be back, behind you. Still in the same room."  
   
"Mm-hmm. Hopefully Silvestri's explanation of economic indicators keeps us distracted."  
   
"Yeah." I held out my hand, and with few students in class, touched Rory's palm lightly as I separated from her, a sly way to state how I felt about her without anyone catching on. We said our goodbyes, and I moved to my seat in the back, watching the students walk in and getting out my texts and instruments to lay them out in the order I always did. _Text at left, notebook at right, pencil up above, bag draped over the chair_. My routine of sitting had never changed, and that comfortable feeling, despite the presence of my new love to my diagonal right five rows down, eased me back into the world of learning as my watch and the bell intersected at 8:05:00am to bring me back into my comfortable world.  
   
Strangely, though I thought about Rory for those forty-five minutes and what she was thinking, in Mr. Silvestri's field of vision, my eyes never directed away from the front blackboard as my left hand gripped my Dixon and decoded Mr. Silvestri's words into my form of note-taking.  
   
Still, my mind wasn't 100% on the class. When he'd turn around to write on the board, my gaze would drift northeast towards Rory's seat in the front, and watch her, taking notes studiously and without distraction. Her focus was on school, and I couldn't help but stare as her eyes drifted left-right as Silvestri moved towards the center, and then the right board, the chalk he held revealing formulas that I had to memorize over and over in my head.  
   
This is why I respect Rory, because she's at Chilton to soak in everything like it's new and exciting. So much was revealed to me last night when she broke down in front of me and told me that she felt unchallenged in Stars Hollow, and scarleted because the students only saw her as the kid of that teenaged mother, not as their future valedictorian. She's quiet and shy, and because of last night, I now know why.  
   
I'm glad that Rory and I went through the path we did in order to come to what we have now. Without her in my life, I might be complacent right now, acting lazy with my grades and just coasting through the year without much to stop me. Both of us give each other speed bumps, and in turn, we also challenge to strive to be better, for our sakes. It was months ago I stopped working for my grades to please Mother, now it's to prove to myself I can be the best.  
   
If it proves to be Rory atop the mountain however, I will be gracious in defeat, no matter how much it might pain me.  


* * *

Rory and I went our separate directions for our second period classes, leaving me undistracted and at attention through that class. I felt my usual persona of cool, calm and collected come back, and it passed by quickly.  
   
However, spending all that time up in the clouds Saturday, Sunday and this morning blinded my brain, because I had forgotten that this week was another phy ed week for third period. That 45 minutes at 10 in the morning on alternating weeks, was the bane of my existence. Not that I'm saying I don't get exercise at all. Living in the Manor, with a room Daddy converted from an upstairs den into a room filled with all the latest equipment, I try to work out at least once a week, and summer tennis and golf at my country club helps keep me fit as I easily beat Madeline and Louise in those games.  
   
It's just I don't play well with a group. And boy do I hate having to change clothes. As I've said before I usually find the most private place to change and hope that no one in the locker room sees me. Today's game was volleyball though, and though our feet were still a bit sore, Rory and I sucked it up and on the same team, tried our best to help them win.  
   
Unlike the field hockey match she used to lure me in a few weeks ago however, we didn't do so well this time. Most everytime the ball didn't make it past the net when I or she served, and during one try, Rory missed the ball entirely. Everyone laughed, and well, even though she's my girl...I kind of chuckled too. She gave me a dirty look, but since we share a hate for sports, somehow she understood it was more of a 'I'm sorry you suck and I feel miserable for you, but you still look cute trying' laugh than one belittling her.  
   
Rory did try her best to win though, and looked pretty nice doing it. I still remember clearly how hot she looked as she came at me in competition trying to dislodge the ball from my hockey stick, and though she's not an athlete, she looks damned good in her gym shorts and t-shirt. The shirt she wears is tight against her, and when she was going in for a volley or a spike, I couldn't help but feel sidetracked by her body. If the heat of competition is good for one thing it's that everyone's too distracted trying to pay attention to the game, leaving me with plenty of time to give heated looks towards my girlfriend. During one point, she jumped up in the air to try a spike, and oh dear...her shirt would become untucked and I'd get a nice look at that flat stomach my hands caressed last night as we cuddled during the news. Needless to say, I was finding myself flushed red from something besides physical activity.  
   
Somehow, we both got through the game, and after having to take ribbing from all the girls about how awful we were, I headed back into the girl's locker room to shower and change. This time I managed to time myself so that I ended up in the shower first, got my quick sprtiz and shampoo in, then ducked out before Rory could see me in just a towel, or less.  
   
I changed back into my uniform and thought I would be able to get out of there scot-free, without having to see Rory after she came out of the shower. _She's changed by now,_ I thought to myself, confidently. _She hates gym like I do, Rory can't wait to get outta this class.  
_    
I took my messenger bag out of my locker and put the combination lock back on the hasp. I was ready to leave, trying to dodge out before I'd get stuck with my new girlfriend in a less-than-fully-clothed situation...  
   
"Paris." I felt a finger tap the back of my shoulder, and that familiar light tone in my ears. My breath stilled as I confirmed who it was with a calling out of her name.  
   
She responded that it was her, and for a moment, I seemed to temporarily lose that important information in my mind to remind me that I was now romantically involved with her. I also went on the assumption she was trying to get my attention fully clothed.  
   
I need to really learn that all that assumptions do is get me in trouble. For when I turned around, Rory wasn't clothed.  
   
 _Oh shit, look away, look away!_ I felt myself firm up, a bit thankful she was in bra and panties, but nonetheless it triggered the effect of dragging my mind, then focused on the 'surprise' Russian Novels pop quiz, right down into the gutter.  
   
I didn't look away like my mind scolded me to, instead my gaze remained firm. She was mismatched, wearing a white cotton bra and a pair of floral print panties colored purple, reminding me of her station in life as a small town girl who could care less if she was matching Victoria's Secret with Hanes Her Way. I felt my breath quicken because I was startled at the sudden picture presented in front of me, and struggled to hold back several reactions; one to lash out at Rory for startling me in this state of undress, and the other to push her against the lockers and ravish her senseless.  
   
I asked her what she wanted, all the while holding my gaze with her and holding back the temptation to note her Dover-shaded skin looked particularly alluring from the skylights above us that were installed to lessen the dungeon-like feel of the eighty year-old room.  
   
"Ms. Stuart stopped me before I left because she wanted to ask who was covering girl's basketball for the _Franklin_ this year. I told her I didn't know, and she gave me this list to give to you of suggested candidates she'd like to cover their beat." She handed me that list, and looked down. "She delayed me a little, so could you let Mr. Mercurio know that I'll be a little late getting into class?"  
   
I pocketed the list in the side pocket of my messenger bag without a glance, and frowned. "She does this every year Gilmore, and thinks that we have a bias for covering the men's varsity, so she wants someone who won't criticize her coaching style. If you see her, let her know it's going to be Ella Walsh, same as last year. If she doesn't like her, tell her we can just as easily ignore the lady Demon beat this year. We only have six pages for sports and only so many sports to cover, so if Ms. Stuart wants better coverage, she needs to whip those girls into shape. Otherwise they're going below hockey, plain and simple."  
   
She looked at me as I made my Tony Kornheiser-like point, and understood where I was coming from. "I won't see her again today, but I'll slip a note into her mailbox about it." Rory looked up at me, and smiled nervously. "I should probably get dressed before you rebuke me for wasting your time with this and being late for class, sorry about that." About then she covered up her chest, seeming to remember her modesty finally. "I'll uh, be going now."  
   
I looked around the locker alcove to see if there was anyone watching us in this odd conversation. I felt like I was going to burst and Rory shifted her bare feet on the cool tile floor, her nervous energy obvious. Somehow I had to let her know that this wasn't something I didn't exactly hate.  
   
I was getting used to exchanging those conspirital smiles between us, previously used to belittle those who tried and failed to rise to our GPAs, but now to denote this relationship we were somehow keeping away from the always busy social circle of Hartford.  
   
"This wasn't a waste of time, rest assured. It's fine that you came to me with this." I let her know, coding my words. "Just try to match next time, uniformity with everything and anything, you know better." I was trying to keep the surface tension that's defined us for the last three years going in the eyes of our fellow peers if they happened upon us. "Please be on time." One odd look on Rory's face later, I left her behind to puzzle that tension-filled talk, all the while wishing that we shared a study hall instead of a mind-draining class like Russian Novels the next period.

A few minutes later I was at my seat, after telling Mr. Mercurio that Rory might be late. Just as predicted, under a bunch of paperwork that 115 question 'pop quiz' sat, ready to startle absolutely no one. After Rory came in and he sprung the test on all of us, the curses of exams became known to what both of us shared. We had to keep our eyes on the paper at all times, and the instructor walked the aisles, precluding her from being able to flirt with me from behind. "No talking, no moving, no sharing anything with a seat mate," Mercurio bellowed, as the cursed curriculum kept us from in-class reading because some of my classmates, dumbasses they are and rightfully so in that crap class, struggled through the quiz throughout the whole period, precluding Rory from doing much more than an occasional brush of her finger against my back.  
   
This had been the period I had been looking forward to since I awoke this morning. Now it was turning into a soul-sucking and pressure building period of time. Since I finished off the quiz within twenty minutes, I was left twenty-five minutes alone to myself without anything to do since this idiot has a rule that we cannot do schoolwork or organize if we had free time in the class. About the only thing Mercurio lets us do is catch up on reading, and since I didn't have a modicum of interest in reliving more of Tolstoy's dragging _Peace_ , I was left alone with my mind, sensing that Rory was having an actual struggle with the quiz and trying to remember what I had told her in the car that morning.  
   
The time dragged, my mind agonized because the girl behind me thought of me as more than a friend and to all the world I still had to remain an iron bitch towards her inside Chilton. Somehow I started to feel as if this was a bad idea, this loving for Rory, because we had so much to go against us. _You have thirty miles, two communities, an entire school, and two families with the most austere reputation in all of Connecticut's capital between you_ , I thought to myself. _Have you even thought about how everyone else is going to react to you two involved?  
_    
No doubt that was myself being analytical about everything. I stared towards the state flag hanging in the corner, my mind needing a non-blank focal point to look at so I wouldn't be driven insane, per the advice of Dr. Birnbaum. For the first time since my breakdown in the Stars Hollow High bathroom, I thought about the reactions of Mother and my father, and of my extended family, not to mention those of the Chilton faculty and those at Harvard I had known for at years.  
   
Somehow within all this mess in my brain, I started getting this feeling that I was acting selfish. Here I was, falling for Rory Gilmore head over heels, and I wasn't giving one thought to how anyone else would think about it. Doubts started to overtake me, as I thought about the impact of this relationship. Harvard was going to be definitely affected, my interactions with other girls would end up having to change to pre-empt a jealousy streak from Rory just in case I started to unknowingly flirt, and I would feel an extreme amount of guilt if I had to date a boy on Mother's behest to keep up appearances.  
   
I started to sweat in my seat, my stomach rumbling and acid starting to rise up my esophagus. I was being someone I was not, passionate and willing to put aside anything and everything just for the love of a girl. My mind was supposed to have a Terminator focus on Cambridge, not a girl from the sticks. I felt scared for how I was thinking, but I couldn't help it, because once one doubt set in, and then another, and then another. Madeline and Louise laughing at both of us, telling us we were both so desperate we could only find solace in each other. Charleston finding it 'a troubling development in your high school career Miss Gellar. The reputation of this school will take a hit if we send a gay valedictorian to Harvard, wouldn't Vassar suit you instead?'  
                                                                                                                                            
Then I thought about my baby; my paper. _The Franklin_ has 74 years and 10 months of tradition, and in one move, it could all be taken away from me. Those rumblings at the country club about my evasiveness with the guys and my disinterest in dating, that I was a 'butch bitch in a plaid skirt'. But my mind stayed on _The Franklin_ , and what would happen if Rory and I came out. No doubt a rival undergrounder would be formed right away, bite into circ and my writers and workers would be discredited, or worse. The image came to my mind of that homophobic hate-mongering Dr. Falwell, finding his ire with the harmless Teletubbies gone, focusing all his hate and vitriol on an innocent school newspaper editor, accusing me of advancing a gay agenda when the only agenda I had was to produce a damned good read every week from September to June.  
   
I was starting to panic, my mouth drying out and my breath quickening with doubt. I felt like crying, and here I was in front of Rory, doubting my love for her, feeling guilty for my feelings. I remembered feeling this way only once in my life, when I was in fifth grade and bombed a simple math test. I dreaded bringing home the paper, marked with a C-, and so I didn't, for three days. After all that guilt built up for keeping the result from Mother, I became physically sick and ended up in the hospital for two days (over a weekend of course, so I kept my perfect attendance streak going) from exhaustion. When she found out, despite what I went through, she grounded me for a week.  
   
That was how I felt this morning, though to a much lesser extent. My stomach lurched, and a wave of dizzying nausea overcame me. I hyperventilated in my seat, and without Rory's hand in my hair or along my neck, I never felt the sense of calm I usually did in Russian Novels. Maybe it was the mix of a wrong food in there somewhere, or else my body wasn't feeling all in the subject matter. Before I knew it though, I was rising up in my seat, raising my hand, crying out aloud in anguish to Mr. Mercurio for what was a rare mid-class pass to the restroom.  
   
"Miss Gellar," he called, his high academic tone grating me like scraping fingernails on bare sheetrock, "You have ten minutes until the bell, and surely you can wait--"  
   
I held back a shocked breath as I made an excuse on the fly. "I forgot to take some medication before this class, for my lactose intolerance." I acted panicked. "I always have to take it at maximum a half hour before, otherwise I cannot have dairy. I apologize sir, but I want to partake of the special whipped pumpkin pie today."  
   
"Fine." He barely acknowledged me as he scratched the pertinent details on the yellow slip of paper, and without looking back, I fled out of the classroom, and then the few hundred feet to the nearest ladies room, which I was thankful was empty as I threw up in the handicapped toilet, my stomach emptying its contents of the morning and releasing a tight knot of unease. I hated having to flee from that classroom, but at least the quiz was finished, and since everyone knew my imposition to dairy, my dignity remained intact.  
   
I didn't want to go back into that classroom though, with all these thoughts spinning around in my mind. I thought it was right, that I was putting everything below Rory and fucking up the rest of my life. I sat down on the seat after flushing and cleaning my face up, wishing the world would just go away and leave me in peace. I was convinced I could never be happy, that I wasn't supposed to be that way. The goal in my life was to continue the Gellar legacy until I gave birth myself and then just step aside, nothing else.  
   
I wasn't feeling feverish, just stressed, and I spent those last seven minutes of the period thinking about what happened the night before, and that I may be giving Rory the dishonor of an awful relationship to come, her being the long-suffering Alice to my Ralph, even though I had never gotten into a physical fight in my life. _I'm but a burden_ , were the words of wisdom floating around my head, _a chaotic and disorderly island in a sea of calm_. A life spent following my Palm, instead of my heart was the intended path for me to go, and my mother was going to stubbornly make me realize that, gay or not.  
   
Minutes later, I heard the bell ring. I get ready to duck out of the building and towards my car for an off-campus lunch, hoping that the time away from it might give me some clarity.  
   
However, within seconds, I heard the bathroom door open and a clattering of saddle shoes rushing into the room, along with a quickened shutting of the pneumatic unit that closes the door.  
   
Immediately I knew it was Rory, since she was asking from near the sinks if I was in the bathroom. I call her out in response, shirking down in the stall.  
   
"You rushed out of there awfully fast," Rory told me, calm and collected.  
   
I peeked through the slit in the stall door, the familiar 5"7' form and intense blue eyes clear in the 3cm space between the door and the partition. "I'm OK Rory, just go to lunch," I called out. "I guess the tea didn't agree with the toast."  
   
She didn't laugh at my humor, instead, calling for me to come out again. "No one's going to come in here, just, you're never sick, and I could tell. Please come out of there."  
   
I couldn't avoid her, nor keep her from lunch, forever, so with hesitation I unlatched the stall lock and opened the door slowly.  
   
Once I came out, Rory's concern with my welfare was quite obvious, and she seemed to hate seeing me in this condition. I tried to explain I just had a bad food reaction as she handed me my messenger bag, but she wasn't budging.  
   
" _Franklin_ office, right now, we need to talk." She was starting to take charge; making it known that in this relationship we were on even footing.  
   
"But lunch--" I tried to argue, but she came back in that unique Gilmore way of hers.  
   
"Obviously it's not an issue right now, come on." Her simple eloquence stunned me silent, and I could only follow her down the hallway towards the newspaper office.  
   
Once in there, she had me sit down in my chair at the editor's desk, and sat down on the edge, looking at me with all she had. She seemed pained, and sad for me as I looked up at her like I was caught with a hand in the cookie jar. My mind was still spinning with that negativity, and I was afraid of bringing my gaze up.  
   
"Are you alright Par?" Rory asked me, her voice trying to soothe me. "I tried to go after you just after you left, but Mercurio bitched at me about bathroom breaks being one at a time, so I had to stay in my seat until class ended."  
   
"It's alright, I'm good," I lied. "My stomach just had a lurch, nothing awful happened."  
   
"Your posture looked tight and still, there is something going on in your mind." She sighed, and slid off the desk, bringing a chair from the layout table over so that she could sit at my eye level. She sat down and began anew. "I know your brain, sometimes it gets overwhelmed, things happen where you get stressed and it shows on the outside." She lowered her lashes and took my right hand into her left. "You're starting to have second thoughts, aren't you?"  
   
I reeled back a little, freaked that despite not looking back at her all period, she could see transparently into how I was feeling. "Of course not, no, I'm good. That's me, cool as a cucumber." My voice was betraying the inflection I wanted in my head, and I could tell that I was starting to show that yes, I was worried as hell about everything.  
   
"You like me right? In the way that I do you?"  
   
"No question that I do Gilmore," I said with 100% honesty.  
   
"Good." She smiled, and slid a finger into the cuff of my blouse and against my wrist. "Then stop worrying about the little things that might get in your way. I could tell that was stress that was making you puke, and you were getting into overanalyization mode, realizing the reality is more daunting than the fantasy." I felt stiff, and she placed another finger on the wrist, using both fingers to rub it in circles. "That's what you were thinking, right?"  
   
I couldn't lie to Rory, because with her my face is an open book. I just didn't realize that my body language was either. "Maybe a little. Just a smidge." Trying to minimize the trauma wasn't doing any good at all, so I went full tilt after a bit of thought. "It's fanatical to think of Jerry Falwell finding out about us, and trying to force me out of the paper because I'm gay, right? I mean I earned my place as editor, so how could he throw me out?"  
   
Rory shook her head at me, letting out a little laugh. "Maybe a little crazy, and besides, he has bigger fish to fry."  
   
"Probably," I admitted.  
   
I looked down at my shoes for a bit, before Rory put her hand against my chin and had me look back up at her.  
   
"You're not the only one, so don't feel like you're alone here." She heaved a breath, and then told me what her train of thought was for all of fourth period, what was unpictured in my line of vision.  
   
What Rory told me sobered me a little; she had been struggling with the test not for a lack of knowledge about the material, but because she thought everyone could see that her and I were no longer enemies, and more than friends. She went on about feeling Kenneth the Russian Novel nut behind her, like he was watching her every move since being the class suckup he was done in five minutes.  
   
"My mind, it just drifted towards this other place, where I was picturing everyone in my life starting to despise me for this. It's like my mind is trying to overrule my gut, and trying to reassert that I need to be attracted to a guy, like Dean." She frowned at this revelation. "But I'm sick of Dean, I don't want him anymore. It's like, he was safe and unexciting, did all the right things and made the right remark at the right time. I was just in this world where everyone is looking at both of us with heightened awareness, our every move and action. They weren't being kind about our relationship either, they wanted to tear us apart."  
   
She looked down at her free left hand, still bared from the bracelet and replaced with that watch she wore during the dance marathon. "I think about all the months it took to get to this point, and it's just getting into me that where we are, it's not a dream anymore. We're together. And frankly, I'm scared to death that we're going to be so insecure and shifty, we're not going to be into it."  
   
I admitted some of those same doubts to her, like the thought of us losing Harvard, the possible shunning by high society and our own families, and the doubt I feel when I think about how sometimes I don't deserve her. I didn't mince or edit like I usually did to sound cultured and above it all, I felt raw spilling all this out to her. It's strange that I'm doing this in the only place in this entire school where I feel safe, private, and secure, in the office. No one else besides the relevant faculty members and Rory has a key for this room, where we usually spend hours and hours devoted to our publishing craft. The one thing that really bonded us, those long nights spent in this room, watching each other scrutinize pages of loose-leaf for grammar and spelling errors, draft layouts reconfiguring headlines and text...looking at Rory as she tries to scrutinize the red marks on an article I proofread for her, her scowl at decoding why exactly I corrected her and wasn't giving any hints as to what was wrong. It's these little things that turned the little spark of attraction I had for her into a full flame of want.  
   
We both admitted that we thought about much more than those lovey-dovey girl in love items we noted last night as we solidified our attraction. Both of us were nervous and didn't want this to go wrong, and hoping no one found out before we intended them to. The last thing we that we wanted was to be out when we weren't ready to be out.

"We're going to be OK," she told me, confident yet soft. "I'm going to make sure of that, and especially in Stars Hollow, Miss Patty. I didn't mean to forget to tell you this, but I needed to get it out to someone, and when I was out to lunch Friday at the dance studio, she was there, I was bursting, and I needed to know if she thought it was OK to have you be my dance partner. Honestly, we were the first girl-girl unrelated couple in years, and I just wanted to make sure...and well, she got it out of me that I wanted to not only dance with you, but 'dance' with you." She stuck her hands in the air to quote.  
   
For a moment, I was stiff as Rory let me know that indeed, the reason she handed Ms. LaCosta the Bangles CD case before the marathon, was that she did know that Rory was attracted to me. That somehow she got it out of her, and she was able to tell someone.  
   
That meant only one thing; I smiled as I learned about this, wondering why things sometimes end up so fucked up between us, but in these right moments of clarity and total lucidness, everything gets all sitcom-tied-up in the end. I started laughing, upon realizing Ms. LaCosta's view of things above my shoulder.  
   
"What are you laughing at?" Rory's face turned quizzical on me. "Did I say something odd, funny, wrong?"  
   
I shook my head, keeping my smile as I let her know about all those missing ten minutes Saturday night. I honestly didn't see that Ms. LaCosta knew about everything already, but the first sign should have been that she was the only one to enter that bathroom during the break and she was immediately trying to get me back on the floor and back into Rory's arms. It's funny, I couldn't have seen the woman who spread the most gossip in Rory's town to be the only one in that entire municipality to know about us. Though there's a small part of my mind that's afraid she'll blab, I can trust her as much as I do Fran.  
   
"So wait, she's the one that got you back into the dance?" Rory asked. "What would I have done without her, I mean God, we came so close to losing not only the contest, but the entire weekend, and what we had." She started to frown, worrying about what never did happen.  
   
I got up, took her hand into mine, and brought her in for a hug, previously something I would've never done, but was something that was called for here. I shushed her fears, trying to let her know that it was OK to think that way, but not dwell on it. "Sssshhh, don't worry about it Gilmore, everything worked out." The scent of her hair was soothing my own fears that cropped up only minutes before. "We're together, and we're fine, right? You don't have any doubts about the present and the future, just of the past and all those times we just missed out."  
   
Rory looked up at me, and nodded her head, moving her hands lower down my back to tighten the hug. I rested my chin against her shoulder, the hollow of her neck seeming to fit my head perfectly. The moment we were having was soft and intimate, and known to only us, thanks to the drawn shades towards the courtyard window. I didn't want to leave her behind, and she just stayed in my arms for a couple minutes, trying to cut through my firmness by letting me know I felt nice in a hug. She thankfully decided not to broach the Par-Bear nickname, despite how the hug seemed.  
   
We eventually released, kissing on the lips and thankful that we had privacy somewhere in Chilton.  
   
"I apologize if I fled out," I told Rory as we decided that we were ready for lunch, but we'd settle for some yogurt tubes, fruit cocktail cups and some canned Diet Cokes from the office mini-fridge to keep our stomachs settled and our drama out of Chilton's sight. "I just felt those doubts, and they manifested the way they did. When I get nervous my system isn't used to it, and well, I throw up." I didn't laugh, but Rory saw the humor was there.  
   
"When do you see Dr. Birmbaum next?" she then asked, unexpectedly. I gulped a little, because though I tell my psychiatrist everything, the lesbian subject, I hadn't brought up with her because we were more focused on worry over my schoolwork and future than other portions of my mental health. I said to Rory that my next appointment was in two weeks from Wednesday afternoon.  
   
"I'm sure you won't share everything with me, so at least talk to her about this, maybe she can suggest a technique or some extra meditations to calm your nerves. I just want you to be OK hon." She smiled, and I couldn't refuse a promise to Ror, I never have.  
   
"I'll sit down with her and let her know, from what her theories and politics are she's a left-centrist, and since she's on Daddy's payroll and not Sharon's, she'll keep everything secret, patient-client confidentiality notwithstanding." We spent the rest of lunch proofing stories and plugging in layouts, deciding to go with a somewhat similar one to Rory's original idea, changed around a little to fit in the table of contents in the corner and a late bottom banner ad buy. There was just something about working with her at lunch today that put me more at ease, that this was truly our own time to spend, with no one in Chilton about to find us.  
   
She talked about a new novel she had dug up a few days before at her town's bookstore and tried to gauge how I felt about the writing, while I tried to push the idea of audiobooks, be they on tape or iPod on her. "It's better to just hear the book read on the way to an event, and you don't have to worry about the wrong voice speaking the book," I argued. "I also hate it when I'm in a good read and then I repeat reading a line over and over again from a distracting keeping me stuck on that line."  
   
"But the smell of books, you can't beat that." Rory fought back with her own side of the argument. "Anyone can press a CD or record a tape to shuttle it out to the stores with some general dull-voiced guy reading it. With a book though, it's the author's work completely. The formatting, font type, paper used, the cover, and lastly, the voice you create for the character in your head. It reflects how the author wants you to see this world they're creating."  
   
"I know, but I like it aural." I stopped to make my point, and forgot to remember the other form of the word I just pronounced.  
   
Rory gasped at my answer, shocked and widening her mouth into an O. "You mean aural as in hearing it, I hope."  
   
My mind reprocessed the sentence and realized how it could've sounded in another form. I put my hand up to my mouth, blushing because of what I said.  
   
Being myself though, I dug myself into an even deeper hole. "Of course, aural as in 'to hear' of course. That doesn't mean I don't like...the other thing. Not that I've ever had it or given it to someone else, I'm sure it's fine and very wonderful, and..." I wandered off as I noticed Rory's smile widen and her looking at me like I was crazy. I stared her down and tried to get serious. "Hey, you're the one who latched onto my vocal miscue, don't be putting these words in my mouth, you know what I meant!"  
   
She giggled, drawing closer to me and both of us backing towards a wall along the side near the darkroom. "I knew what you meant." The side of Rory that only Dean had ever saw was coming out, and I felt myself wanting to lose control as my mind thought over those words and brought up those images of myself...well I don't have to spell it out here. Suddenly I felt like I was back in sophomore year, Tristan shamelessly flirting with me to get what he wanted, usually some notes or a paper done. Only Rory knew what she wanted; me.  
   
"Well, why...why run with it if you knew my meaning?" I nervously asked as the space between us became less and less.  
   
Rory's confidence was strong, and I saw the resolve I had in her eyes as she moved her right hand against my cheek, and talked in a hushed tone towards me.  
   
"Because, it's nice seeing you off-guard, and you were asking for it."  
   
I argued back that I didn't ask, but the mini-fight of banter was short-lived once she moved in for a soft kiss. I returned it, and though we only kissed for a bit, the love within it was perfectly expressed.  
   
"I'd like to do more than that, but if someone walks in on us, wouldn't look good." She felt sorry for not bringing it further as we separated, but it wasn't something I was about to argue at all. The big problem with a school like Chilton is privacy has to be earned with anonymity and grades, not assumed. Since we were academic loners our space was respected, but at any moment a wayward underclassman could walk into an intimate moment, and moments later, the illusion of being alone was gone, everyone would look at us. Look at what happened when I spread the gossip about Lorelai and Mr. Medina; I turned a quiet parent's day lunch into a torrent of noise and bluster.  
   
I was just glad to share an intimate moment with her in the school. After a worried talk about someone watching us, both Rory and I decided to self-police ourselves and kill the temptation we'd have to do anything within Chilton. As we looked at the clock and saw the end-of-lunch bell was approaching, we finished the proofing and made a rule for ourselves; no kissing in Chilton, period. Nothing blown, implied or written down on paper that said we were kissing. We had privacy today, but it could always go away in the snap of a finger, both of us afraid of an intimate moment being walked in and intentions being misconstrued by others.  
   
"What about after-school though? If we have a brain-mash session once Ms. Peters leaves?" Rory wanted to create a loophole to the rule within moments of us shaking hands on the agreement. "If there's no one near the office, is it OK?"  
   
I shook my head, thinking _I never would've thought of you as sex-starved Gilmore_. I didn't tell her that, but said we should just take it a little at a time; if it was during a week with an off day, maybe I'd do it, but you never know with the Chilton custodial staff if they'd come in, see us and then blab or not.

We were comfortable, and I left the room a little lighter. The doubts I have still linger a bit, but not as badly as if I kept them in.  
   
The only problem I have with Rory right now is that I want more from her than to kiss her. I want to share her bed, and love her in the way I've seen in my dreams and wandering thoughts of her. I know I can't try anything right now, lest I scare her and myself also. In the baseball analogy I'm not even out of the batter's box yet, since I'm watching the ball drift along the foul line and hoping it stays straight along. _Baby steps Par, don't rush it_ , that's the guiding mantra in my head.  
   
The day finished out swiftly and without much more tension between the both of us, though the Life Sciences class where we shared a table was a fight with my brain and my heart to stay on topic and in focus. I wanted to be more than her table buddy, but for the safety of both of us, I stayed separated from her, thankfully because of lab work that brought Madeline and Louise to us in a group project. They have something called 'gay radar' (at least that's what I think it might be called, I've heard it reduced to the one word 'gaydar' in some media), and sometimes they come off as having stronger signals than Hartford's weather office. No need to take a risk of brushing my ankle against hers with both of them in our sight, and I have to keep the old façade up when I'm dealing with them for an entire class period.  
   
Once we got back into the _Franklin_ afterschool, Rory and I were in work mode, and it showed in how we carried ourselves. We were able to control any mooning we had over each other, and I was completely focused on explaining the front page and story choices to the staff, who were taking everything pretty much like I thought. That is the news staff quarreled with sports and Erica was indeed pissed at Jenna and Davidson for pushing her into a tease. I did my best to calm her down from her 'column stealers' tirade, and compromised with her by pushing the syndicate piece tease atop the right side of the masthead out and giving her a better descrip along the entire masthead. She's not happy with me, but at least I didn't lose her entirely.  
   
The ride back to Stars Hollow was also calm with Rory, probably because we needed time alone to ourselves to gather and think about how we're going to go further with this. The time we're spending is good, but sometimes we don't need to fill the time with conversation because we're comfortable enough not to have to spill silent space with unfocused monologues. We talked, but mostly about the newspaper and more student government business that was put aside for the entire weekend. Our working relationship needed to be recharged, and I had to figure out some way to keep Francie at arms length and away from any important decisions. Her motives are very suspicious lately, and this new sorority that's being allegedly formed with her as the figurehead within the shadows is intriguing to me, though not in a positive way. After that last experience with the Puffs, I'm not ready to join one anytime soon. The forced camaraderie and excitement over something inane like a makeover or some event that's allegedly for a charity but just a front to fund them, that's not my idea of fun. A night at the table doing schoolwork, pondering the unsolvable puzzle some eccentric is offering $10,000 to the one person who can solve it, sticking to the _NewsHour_ no matter how many bloggers think that the evening news is an anachronistic tradition soon to go the way of the hand-cranked car. I'm quite happy to live that way.  
   
Rory understands me so much. On the way home we also had this conversation not about our relationship, but something no one will ever understand as fun. We talked about long Scrabble words and how we could work in the Q, X and Z pieces onto a blue or pink square to score high point totals, for instance. She's always felt like she could beat someone in the game, but the trouble is that most Hollowites would never dare take her on in a challenge because her brain has almost the entirety of both the Webster's New World and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionaries memorized. I tell her I'm willing to play her one day, and she smiles and gets excited over being challenged in that. She almost had an orgasmic squeal over it, I swear!  
   
We stopped at the town line and shared our goodbye kiss, knowing there was no way in hell we'd be able to get away with it in town without someone watching us. I hated to leave her behind, but Mother left a voice mail on the home phone letting me know she was jetting in at nine, so with a lot of apprehension, I said goodbye to Rory at the foot of her home's stoop, but not before I felt this calm I never had before.  
   
I look over my homework now here at my desk, and the day that just passed puts a smile on my face. We both had worst of times, and then best of times, but we came through the day unscarred and unregretful about what we're doing. My mind might be buried in Rory at times, but it still knows I have to go to Harvard, so I can let anything, even my love for her, get in my way.  
   
There's just something in my head nagging at me yet. It's fun darting looks and notes between each other in class, but despite how much I loathe the very idea of dating, I want to go out with Rory, and soon. I mean sure, technically the dance marathon could be considered our first 'date' in a pre-meditated way, a part of the plan Rory used to tell me she wanted me as her girlfriend. Certainly, I'm not datable to begin with; the flat date with Jamie in Washington hammered home that idea. Then of course Tristan, with the damned index cards.  
   
But I want to try and go out with Rory, see how we would work in a public setting. This time each of us knows how we feel about each other, so things will certainly go a lot better than when someone's pining over the other, and that other is looking at their watch waiting for bedtime to finally come because they're so bored. Our conversations so far have to stick to surface issues because of time and school. I want to go deeper with her, get to know the Rory behind those blue eyes, see her for who she is. And in turn, I feel ready for her to know me more, hear my secrets, know my life as I know it.  
   
You might think 'But it's only one day, you need some more time to think about this Paris.' That might be, but I've been denying how I feel about her for a year and a half, shoving that yearning of to the side off to the side and resigned to the fact she'd never see me that way, no matter what I did. I've been ready for Rory for months, preparing myself, steeling myself for the inconceivable, that we’d be together like this.  
   
I know I'm ready for her, completely for a first date. I have the generic dinner and a movie date planned out, several restaurants in the Zagat circled, and hitting up CTNow and Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews, times and ability to sneak a kiss in with your squeeze when things get sort of dull. I have everything planned in my head, from pulling up in her driveway until the last kiss goodnight, with everything else in-between.  
   
The only problem; the performance of the asking her out. I don't know how to do it; my Sadie Hawkins ask-out towards Tristan freshman year pretty much consisted of me looking like an open-mouthed goat trying to get the words 'Will you dance with me, please' out, and failing once he eyed some mousy-looking redhead and fled away from me as fast as he could.  
   
I have to think about this ask-out carefully as possible. Rory wants to go out with me, I know it. She likes me. No denying that.  
   
Trouble is, am I a great dating companion, or the first girl on _Elimidate_ to be dumped because she kept her shirt on and stayed away from the whipped cream orgy? I don't want to bore her to tears, so I better not take her to an extremely uppity restaurant where $100 for a meal is considered value pricing. Nor should _Cosmos_ be considered material to 'get busy' to (my mind, it hurts it to think that in my head!).  
   
This is going to be tougher than I thought; I knew romance would be tough to figure out, but this is challenging.  
   
Then again, I'd rather be planning out how to ask Rory out than still fretting that she likes me or not. It's a good kind of worry to have, that's for sure. Rory, what I do to please you...  


* * *

 **Rory's POV, Wednesday, 6:30pm  
**    
I've always thought of myself of being in control of all the aspects of my life, from the day I started becoming conscious about life when I was four and started to think for myself rather than out of control, weighing the consequences and my actions before I did something. Whether it be with school, life, or socially, my mind didn't wander from task one, no matter what.  
   
It was the same with sleep. Sure I had the occasional nightmare or fairy tale princess dream like all good little girls have, but usually my dreams always involved two subjects, the events of the day, or me living the book I just read. I dreamt I was Alice, Cinderella, Goldilocks, Ramona Quimby, whatever. I even had sexual confusion and dreamed of myself as the title boy in _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ once, and other guys in stories. I fell into the role well though, and no one got freaked out my voice was a little higher than usual or that my hair seemed a little long.  
   
My dreams have advanced in the last few years once I matured into the world of dating. Dean started permeating them, followed by Jess, and the drama I had in the triangle I didn't want to be in with either of them. Usually they'd be me trying to make a choice between them and figuring things out; and then the 'dates' I went on with them seemed right out of the Vaseline-smeared scenes of some 80's guy and gal combo running in a field or kissing, or looking at a lake as the announcer tells us all that ' _The Lovin' 70's_ has all your favorite songs, all sung by the original artists, and it can be yours for $17.95 cassette, or $23.95 for two CDs. Operators are standing by, call now!'  
   
Yeah, I need to stop watching bad late night movies on USA, I know. Thankfully those ads haven't made their way into my current dream repertoire.  
   
Then again, my dreams of Paris and I would be considered too hot for a channel you don't need a descrambler to watch; the kind that are without commercials or FCC restrictions.  
   
The one I had this morning of her was kind of strange. I thought back to the time when we had the picnic basket auction, where Jess bid on my sad attempt at emulating Martha Stewart and I ended up spending the afternoon with him instead of Dean, bonding with him a little.  
   
My mind decided to muck the image up a little, with everything that happened beforehand still going on, up until the point Jess made his eighty dollar bid. Also, I'm continuing the secret romance with Paris I had started with that dream about the night of the Bracebridge Dinner from last week...  
   
 ** _I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'll be spending the afternoon with a guy I'm not really interested in, and will piss off my current boyfriend who has a problem being outwitted by someone else with guts. The boys are fighting and bickering about my bid price like I'm a cow at the slaughter with the choicest cut of beef ever available. I'm rolling my eyes at the entire situation and bored; this wasn't how I wanted to spend my day.  
   
Dean has given up on bidding for me, leaving Jess' bid the high one. I looked at my boyfriend, whose eyes were enraged with anger directed towards my new friend, who was doing this probably as a joke to push all his buttons. No way did he have the $80; if he did, he sure cut some good selling bargains with Andrew for his old volumes at the bookstore.  
   
"Going once," Taylor bellowed out, as I looked down at the ground, ready to be the ref again and stopping Jess and Dean from tearing each other apart limb for limb.  
   
"Going twice..." My feet looked really interesting, maybe I could fake a fainting spell and skip the basket lunch for at least a day...  
   
"STOP!!" I heard a voice scream out from the back of the crowd, attention was drawn towards it by everyone in the square.  
   
"I'm offering $750 for her basket!" My eyes drew up, and I craned my neck towards the back to see who was giving out this ridiculous bid for me.  
   
My eyes took in the back of the square, and buried towards the deep, deep back of the crowd, a blonde girl stood in front of her car, her mouth formed like a megaphone to shout out her words. The car was a dark red color and the girl's dress was a greenish colored pair of corduroy pants and a tan colored leather jacket.  
   
It couldn't have been her, could it? How would she have known where I was, she didn't really come out all this way, right?  
   
Taylor was too flabbergasted to take this bid as actually real, as the crowd murmured back and forth between each other. "Young lady, if this is your idea of a joke, it's not funny. This is real money going to fix a real bridge, and you must bid seriously. This basket's retail value--"  
   
The girl spoke up, her rich and cultured tone cutting through Taylor's scold like a knife. "Mr. Doose, I assure you that my bid is a hundred percent real; you can take a counterfeit pen to my seven Benjamins and one Grant and be assured that this is real money." The crowd parted around her, and she made her way to the front. "So again, I'd like to repeat my $750 bid for one Rory Gilmore's basket." She smiled at him deviously. Her resolve was stubborn, and everyone looked towards her shocked. My basket contained but a sandwich in a baggie with a store-bought doughnut; to buy it at that price would more than cover the cost for tools and materials for the bridge at the very least.  
   
Taylor took the money from the girl, and got a marker out from his pocket to confirm the crispness and legality of the cash, as Dean looked on, his mouth stilled and balling his fists up in annoyance. Jess, about ready to win me for the afternoon, could've shown indignation at being outbid by $670, but just watching my boyfriend's face turn red and ready to wring someone's neck was even better than his original plan to mess with Stars Hollow tradition. Taylor examined each bill closely after he marked it, holding it up towards the sun to find the plastic thread embedded in each note.  
   
After a couple minutes, Taylor got the crowd's attention again, clearing his throat.  
   
"Well, I've checked over this girl's money, and it's definitely real...what is your name again, I forgot it from when you were at the Bracebridge Dinner."  
   
"It's Paris; now c'mon Merlin, chop-chop, get this over with. I want to have lunch and I'm sure most of the town here doesn't want this thing to leech into suppertime."_**

**_She directed a steely gaze towards me, those deep eyes of hers bringing me back into how I was feeling about her, torn between these two guys after me, and this uneasy, but passionate alliance the both of us shared when we could find a chance, an empty classroom or an unsupervised cloakroom during some boring parties Grandma made me go to. I felt my heart flutter up, and tried to keep my best 'Sorry Dean but you can't stop a force of nature when it wants to bulldoze through' look on my face as Taylor, feeling embarrassed about being talked down to by a 17 year-old girl, started the 'once, twice' spiel anew.  
   
Jess wasn't about to top Paris' bid, not only because he didn't have the money to do it, but the mere torrent of teasing sure to come Dean's way Monday morning at school for being outbid by a girl was going to be a hell of a lot of fun, and he didn't have to lift a finger either.  
   
Dean could only watch shell-shocked as my secret girl claimed my basket for 3/4 of a grand, and I was relieved to find myself out of another attempt by Jess to flirt me out of my pants. Both of us looked at each other with a smile which no one noticed, and after she made the deal final, she came over towards me, avoiding the hovering stare from Dean that said she might be smart, but he was the one making me happy.  
   
Maybe with his gifts, he was making me happy. But as for my bedroom needs, no contest...  
   
The dream moves forward a little, past some of the car ride up north towards Hartford. Paris has been silent throughout the ride, except to tell me that she bid because she noticed the basket auction was listed in a society newsletter Mrs. Gellar gets, an obvious attempt to sucker some richie out of some money in order to support the bridge building fund. She said she thought about it all night after she got home on Friday, and finally decided to bite the bullet and bid big to have a basket lunch with me. "I knew $750 would be out of reach for anyone," was her theory.  
   
"$200 would have worked too," I corrected. "Dean's check averages $175 every two weeks."  
   
She nodded, seeming uninterested in Dean's cash flow and keeping a hand on my jeaned thigh as the Ridgewood exit towards her house approached. "I honestly wanted to help out with the bridge, everyone in your town tolerated me well enough a few weeks ago, and I feel like I owe you something for the cracks about it being a farm town and out in the middle of nowhere. It's kind of a cute town, I have to admit."  
   
That makes me smile; and in turn, a little flirty to boot. "With a cute girl living in it?" I smiled and try to unnerve Paris a little, maybe rile up her uneven libido.  
   
"It's a possibility," she murmured a bit. "She might not be the next Martha Stewart, but she comes close to toppling Rebecca Kohls."  
   
"The garden lady," I remembered. "I'm more partial to Katie Brown from Lifetime and A&E, she's under the radar and I have a thing for her as she talks about decorating tabletops with grass for a dinner party."  
   
Paris shook her head. "The point is, I missed you because we were too buried in debate prep over the last week." We both were sexually frustrated over the last week because we had to take on one of those tough Greenwich prep schools and really know our stuff, killing all our couple-ly moments for the week that just followed. Somehow we took a narrow victory against them in a fiery argument over affirmative action. Paris said my humanizing some of the article subjects I used through my research won it for us. "I just wanted to make up for being my 'eyes on the prize' self, and..." she started to blush, still feeling shy about getting girly with me. "Putting my bedroom eyes on the back burner."  
   
She slid her hand a little further up my thigh, and I was trying to keep myself under control. My body felt relaxed from her soothing rubbing, my mind far from all things academic and community. "I'm sorry too. All those nights upping my WPM and honing my cards, it took so much out of me. Then Dean getting jealous of Jess, the exams a couple weeks ago, we haven't been able to spend that time together, in the way I'd like to. Sometimes I want to run away from responsibility, from life, and you've been that for me lately..." I wandered off my track as I stiffened with want. Paris had unbuttoned her coat, revealing a dark green sweater that seemed to fit her tight. I felt weakened by my resolve to keep my hands off her. I mean we still had a couple miles to her house, I couldn't just jump her while she was driving.  
   
All of the sudden, she started to laugh to herself, thinking out loud about something. "It's funny Ror, you know. We've been having this clandestine relationship going for two months and we've been able to keep it under wraps. Yet to have you, I just had to pay $750 for an afternoon of your time. If I mentioned my intentions for you to anyone, I'd be in the Stars Hollow hoosegow."  
   
I was having this mixed feeling come over me as she said that. One side of my brain was feeling kind of skittish, since without the basket in the middle, I'd be considered a 'lady of the night'. Funny thought, isn't it, of me bending over into a guy's car window on Sunset and asking how he liked it and how much.  
   
That thought was pushed out by the building arousal within me. Two weeks without so much as a kiss with her, not even a love note snuck through a vent in my locker. She just gave away so much money for an afternoon with me, the girl who put on this innocent façade around everyone she knew. I felt her hand shift again, closing in from the middle of my thigh, and a little closer to the heat I felt at the juncture between my legs.  
   
"Oh God," I said, not holding back. "Paris, if you're talking about what I think you are, you'd better shift this thing into the next gear, quick!"  
   
"Settle down Rory," she teasingly nagged at me, her pointer taking a detour along the bottom of my zipper fly. "No one's home. Mother is in Montreal, something about how she likes guys with French-Canadian accents. Meanwhile against his will, Daddy's stuck trying to talk some Pfizer exec in LA into a partnership in a statin drug." That finger moved up a little again, brushing up against the pull of the zipper. "I can tell you're eager, and that because of the amount I spent, that you might have performance anxiety."  
   
God, she's going into her dark persona, the Paris I know and quiver in fear of, while at the same time, trying to bite down the urge to leave a deep mark on her neck. I say meekly I don't have an issue with how much she spent.  
   
"Just don't want you to get nervous is all." I look at the map screen on the center console, there's one last mile north on Mountain to go. "It seems a little illicit though, I the rich girl claiming your company for the day for such a high price. Looking at you in class, knowing that beneath the oxford shirt and the left strap of your bra, I've marked you as my own. I haven't been able to claim you lately, and now for the right price, I've reclaimed you, knowing I'll always have your love." I feel the pull of my zipper as she brings it down, the privacy windows hiding her actions to the world. The exposed lilac-colored cotton that makes up my panties dampened with want as she scrapes a couple of fingernails against the fabric.  
   
"I've paid good money for this lunch with you, and..." The car comes to a smooth stop at a stop sign, and she stretches over to me, brushing her full lips against the lower lobe of my left ear, then nuzzling her nose against the top of the outer shell. "I hope to eat from your basket shortly." The fingers she has almost inside my pants go deeper in the gap created by the undone zipper, and I cringe my eyes as a warm feeling overtakes me and spreads from my center.  
   
I slowly let out a breath, then a soft moan at her bastardization of wordplay. The basket is all but forgotten in the back seat and my ears are focused on the Jag's robotic voice stating that the turn onto Auer Farm is coming up. "Geeze Par..." is all I can get out as her promise to partake fills my mind. "You must be starved." Yes, even in my dreams, my flirting is sort of dorky.  
   
"I can't serve myself all the time." The sentence is soft, and I'm thankful her garage has a door right into the kitchen, because I don't want anyone to see exactly how hot I am for her. I strip my jacket off in the car, feeling wound up and like every layer I wear is too hot. I want her, and soon. She keeps a hand against my inner thigh as she makes the last turn. I can't wait to see the dark brown limestone front and iron gate of her house. "We're almost there; you can stop gripping the door armrest so tight. I don't want you to rip the leather or break the door." I give her a dirty look as I stop the death grip on the rest, seeing the imprint of my hand within the light leather.  
   
I feel impatient, so I stretch over towards the driver sun visor and depress the remote button that opens the gate, then in tandem the garage door remote so Paris doesn't have to slow down going down the driveway towards her house. My body is hypersensitive, and my heart thuds at a heavy rate. My sweater feels tight, and I fidget to make sure the seatbelt is dead center, not brushing against my breasts and sensitizing them further. She rolls her eyes towards me, but knows that my impatience is just winding me up a little further. I can feel how hot I am, the surprise of such an unexpected taking of me driving me crazy. A boring night of reading, reviewing and fending off Jess or Dean trying to steal my second base had disappeared, turning into another surreptitious encounter with a girlfriend I wanted to shout to the world I was in love with, but would keep appearances up so that our academic rivalry remained strong.  
   
We entered through the gate, my hands jumpy, with my vision seeming to blur and focus on those fingers near my core. The 500 foot drive into the garage passed by quicker than I thought, as I saw the light of the day fade into the mercury lights along the ceiling of the large garage at the right side of the mansion.  
   
My heart hammers as I realize I'm about to go through with another tryst with the girl who swore she'd make my life a living hell the first time we met in the hall. She's right of course; it's hell having your mind flash a glimpse of one of your meetings for less than innocent purposes over the last two months and knowing that the girl who put planted it there is so close, yet so far away.  
   
I breathe in and out as the car stops in line with the back wall. I look at Paris, her eyes drawing away from the view in front of the windshield. She was looking at me with all the lust that she had within her, starting to herself feel the rush of whisking me away from town so unexpectedly. Paris undid her seatbelt, and got out of the car at the same time as I did. I stared her down nervously, trying to anticipate her next move with me.  
   
I felt so exposed, with my jeans pushed down my hips a little and the zipper undone. We both stood still for a moment, my eyes drifting over to the brick wall along the left side of the garage. Old red brick remained on the wall over there, the garage being a post-war addition onto the house and built in the same style as the Manor to blend right in with the eighty year-old structure. My gaze drifted over towards the wooden door, the entrance into the kitchen.  
   
Slowly I made my way towards her, going around the car. She stayed still and silent, looking at my movements like I was the white queen piece trying to capture my black counterpart. "Paris," I uttered quietly. "I guess I should thank you for what you did--"  
   
I was talking as I turned the corner and came into Paris' arms length. Immediately she stretches her hand out and grabs me near the elbow tightly, tugging me towards her. Her small body hides her underlying strength as the physically dominating one in our relationship. She pulls me towards the kitchen door, and then backs me hard into it as I hear a boom in the hard mahogany wood, my ass bumping against the panel divider in the middle.  
   
My throat tightens as Paris moves closer again towards me, brushing her hand against my cheek slow and seductively, a torture that with her naturally shaded full lips within line-of-sight, turned me on so much. I felt the first anticipations of sex coming on, the heightened senses, and my every skin cell tingling with even a quick brush of a wrinkle of clothing against my body.  
   
"Don't thank me for that," are her slow seductive words as she pushes into me, getting a rise on tiptoe so we could be eye-to-eye, mouth-to-mouth. "Thank me for what I'm about to do for you." Her left hand is back near my apex, the index finger sliding in the space between the buttonhole and the metal fly. She moves slowly, then opens her mouth, closing in on my upper lip.  
   
I felt her hot breath against the top of my mouth, her teeth nipping softly at the soft flesh. She wettened it slick, trying to push my buttons. The overly studious side of myself wanted to regain control, but I didn't want anything to replace that feeling.  
   
She unbuttoned my jeans and tried to push them off. It was just then I reminded her of where we were.  
   
"We should...get in the...house." She kept kissing me as I tried to get the words out. "Concrete floor; it's not very sexy."_ **

**_Paris moved back a little and took in her surroundings. Nope, not romantic unless you're into that 'doing a gearhead' fantasy, and I had enough of that with Dean! "My bedroom?"  
   
"I don't know if we'll make it," I told her, the large floor plan of the house killing that idea. I drifted my vision a little to the right, to find her hand resting on the doorknob.  
   
"You're right," she agreed, her voice becoming a whisper again. "We're not even going to make it to the dining room table from the way you're wound up." Her hand slid into my panties and along my pussy, making me hiss and hyperventilate as shocks of pleasure went through my body.  
   
She opened the door into the kitchen, both of us stumbling messes as we navigated Sharon's attempt to assert herself as queen of the castle and worm her way into a HGTV spotlight kitchen show. Stainless steel everything, clean sparkling tiles along the backsplash, a nice breakfast nook for her social clubs to meet and look at the garden Sharon 'tended'...  
   
My eyes drifted towards the booth, chairs and table in the corner of the room, with a bright window filtering in light and offering and an awesome view of the estate's backyard. I was distracted with trying to work Paris out of her sweater as we made progress through the room. I kissed up from her chin, forcing my way into her mouth to let her know exactly how much I missed her over the last few weeks.  
   
I found my feet directing towards the nook corner. I tried to push Paris towards that way, but she was moving towards the door into the dining room. I had to stop her, because my mind was taking a hot drift towards using that breakfast nook for...it doesn't have to be spelt out, does it?  
   
"Par," I caught my breath as she pushed my jeans lower. "I can't move any further, let's go in the corner." She shook her head and tried to be analytical.  
   
"Sharon will kill me if she finds out--"  
   
I silenced her by yanking her sweater off, pushing her against the center island, and roughly shoving up her turtleneck to expose her bra. I scraped my teeth against the aroused nipple beneath her right cup, and got out of her that familiar moan that haunted me since our first time. "I'm going to die if you don't do anything with me right there, and right now. Who gives a damn what your mother says; that's what your servants are here for, to clean up after the mess you leave!"  
   
Paris bit her lip and looked over at the nook, the mahogany table looking so damned enticing for her to do her dirty work. She heaved in and out as my hand lingered at her belly, edging around her bellybutton, and down the middle of her body until I reached the waist of her corduroys.  
   
She stared at me, hungry and panting. "I shouldn't," she denied again. "As much as I'd like to..."  
   
I smiled at her deviously, keeping my hands possessively at her waist. "So you're saying that the next time you come home on Monday, you still want to look at that corner as where your mother sits with her equally empty-head crew of society chums, not as another room we christened under her nose?" I pushed her closer to the nook, my gaze direct at her, focused on my eyes. "You're a woman of action; you don't back down, no matter the odds. My intuition is telling me that you want me to lie on that table, strip me down to nothing, and then fuck me until I can't take it anymore." I gave her a stern and heated gaze, trying to rile her up.  
   
It took about 30 more seconds of convincing her the end of the world wasn't near if she had me in her breakfast nook, and she took one more nervous glance around the room. I stood there patiently, pants half-done and smiling at my shirtless lover, hoping she'd make the right choice.  
   
Her decision didn't take long. Suddenly, she lunged towards me, backing me right into the table, covered with the classic red-white checkered tablecloth and filled in the middle with salt, pepper and spice shakers, a napkin rack, and a kitschy cow-creamer dispenser. She swept all that stuff off to the side, along with the cloth with her outstretched arm, pinning me between the table and her. I hyperventilated, those deep eyes of her focused on myself, and nothing else.  
   
The stuff fell to the side in a heap, the shakers and the creamer falling to the tile floor without any protection and breaking into shards and torrents of glass and ceramic upon impact. No matter that we weren't paying attention; I lay down on the table as she pulled off my shoes and yanked the jeans off my legs in a flash. I took off my v-neck sweater and threw it to the side, leaving me in underwear and ready and willing for anything she was about to do. Paris moved parallel to me, starting to kiss down my body slowly from my lips with a deep, soft, and starved kiss, all the way down my neck, through the little cleavage that I had, her lips journeying downward through my midsection.  
   
She unclasps my front hook bra, works it off me, exposing one breast at a time and kissing around each of my puckered nipples. The cold air against my chest is chilly, and does nothing but arouse me further. The blue article is dispensed of within a few moments of her undoing, and I can't help but stimulate myself as she moves lower down my body. I run one hand along my body, while the other runs along the opening of my panties to tease my clit and slicken my pussy for what is sure to be a tension-killing fuck sure to relax me enough to make me forget the boys fighting over me and how much I want this girl above me.  
   
Closer and closer she moves, a lioness on the prowl. Down to my belly, she lingers the kisses slower and slower. I beg of her to hasten her movements lower, but there's nothing doing. She nags me to be patient and I can't think that she's enjoying seeing that dark spot of arousal build in front of my opening on the cotton. I know I smell good; but dammit, I also so feel so fucking good.  
   
I keep begging and begging for her, that tongue of hers licking against the lacy waistband of my undies. Paris always knows how to torture me, and she's doing such an awesome job.  
   
She looks up at me across my naked form. "You're beautiful as always," she lets me know. "It's a pity I have to share you with Deano." She moves her hands to the sides of my panties, pushes the article down my thighs, again slow, again spreading out my orgasmic bliss so that she makes me feel like I've left my body once I come. She slides them off once she reaches my feet, and non-chalantly lets them fall to the floor in a heap.  
   
At that point, I'm just a naked girl on the Gellar breakfast table, about to be worshipped by a girl who respects me and has my heart. Paris rises up, smiles towards me, and I prepare to spread myself open to accommodate her.  
   
"Rory, are you ready?" She asks, her concern being my comfort and being pleased. Her eyes reflect the admiration she has for me, and I nod, giving her permission to move in and bring me to bliss.  
   
I feel her move between my legs, her hot exhalations already stiffening my clit into action...  
   
"Rory?" she asks again. I start to feel myself quake quite a bit as I acknowledge her question.  
   
Again, she says my name as a question. Her mouth isn't any closer to my trunk...what the hell?!_ **

**_I acknowledge again, she says my name as a question. "Rory? Rory? Rory?"  
   
"WHAT?!" I'm becoming irritated with her constant name-dropping.  
   
"Rory?" OK, that's it, I can't take this anymore, I have to shut her up and tell her that everything's fine.  
   
"I'M RIGHT HERE!" I grit out through my teeth, impatiently.  
   
_**Now if you notice, the dream went from heated to irritating within the space of a minute. You want to wonder why? Was it Tristan or Dean entering stage left and asking to join in? Did the maid come in and notice us? Did Sharon walk in with groceries?  
 ** _  
"Rory, wake up, Rory..."  
_**   
Nope, it was Paris' voice morphing into that of my mom's, her hand shaking my back, trying to rouse me awake out of bed.  
   
"RORY!" I hear Mom picking up her tone. "Come back to reality here kiddo!"  
   
It was then I realized that Mom usually isn't the one to wake me up. I open my eyes a little to take a look at my alarm clock, trying to focus on the glowing numbers through the haze of sleep.  
   
A few moments later, I start to realize what time it is, once I see a 6 shape at the far end of the display...  
   
I mumble out a "What?" to Mom, and try to turn back into bed...  
   
"Rory, it's 6:40, get up otherwise I'm pouring cold water on your head!"  
   
 _6:40, 6:40..._ I try to recall the meaning of the time in my head...  
   
 _Holy shit!_ I was still in bed with an hour-twenty-five to go before school; 6:40 is the time I'm usually sipping my morning blend and eating my cinnamon toast at Luke's.  
   
I rose out of bed like a bat out of hell, already attentive. "SIX!! FORTY?! It's six freakin' forty?! Please tell me this is a dream!"  
   
Lorelai told I was in reality alright; by pinching my arm at the wrist! "We're behind Sleeping Beauty, really badly."  
   
"Ouch!" I reeled back my arm as she moved away from the side of my bed. "No, this can't be right, the alarm is set for 5:30, it's just early..." I wandered off, looking at the clock once again, reading the cursed 20 to seven time. "It's 6:40!"  
   
"I think we've established the time more than a NewsRadio 88 anchor on speed here, get up!" My mom was being extra snarky this morning, and this certainly wasn't helping.  
   
I was already grumpy, and finding out your alarm backup was asleep on the job only makes your mood worse. "What time did you get up?"  
   
"6:30," Mom said.  
   
"But what about the fuzzy clock, don't you set that for 5:30?" I asked. She shook her head at me and explained the fuzzy clock had no working battery for at least three weeks, thus she was depending on my biological clock's punctuality as her wake-up call.  
   
"Why didn't you put a new battery in it?" I asked, trying to stay calm. "We have extra batteries in the junk drawer, why didn't you look there?"  
   
"Because, you still tick when I throw you against the floor," she reasoned. "Fuzzy clock breaks, fuzzy clock's alarm is annoying, fuzzy clock--"  
   
"Fuzzy clock needs a AAA battery in it because I'm not having this happen again!"  
   
"Well look who got up from the wrong side of the bed," Mom joked. That only soured my mood even further with her. "Wait, you're not even out of bed yet, but you're grumpy, so technically--"  
   
"Paris is gonna kill me, that's what she's going to do," I reasoned out loud, getting out of bed by throwing the blankets towards my nagging mother. "I promised to meet her at Luke's at 6:55, non-negotiable. Now she's gonna drive away without me, and probably she'll be mad all day because I ditched her."  
   
"Rory--"  
   
"I have to get in the shower. I need to catch up and pray that I can get everything done in the next ten minutes... " I stopped at my dresser for only enough time to make sure my underwear and socks matched (Paris' little lecture at me Monday about matching in the locker room had made me **really** self-conscious about that) and that my uniform was pressed and clean. I couldn't even hear Mom as she tried to stop me. In her voice's place was that firm voice of Par's like a drill sergeant pushing me to the limits and demanding I do fifty pushups.  
   
I slammed the bathroom door hard, slipped out of my pajamas and hopped into the shower, turning the water on hot straight-out and almost burning myself in the process. My mind was still spinning from the dream that made me oversleep; Paris drawing in closer, about to touch the tip of her tongue against my clit...  
   
 _And Mom woke me up from it!_ I washed my hair, starting to feel embarrassed that my mom had to wake me from a sex dream! I flushed cherry red, thinking about what may have happened if it had been twenty minutes later and I'd be near the climax...the guilt of seeing that would probably give both of us a heart attack.  
   
I stood there in the shower, doing my usual routine of shampoo, conditioner and body wash, wishing I was feeling normal and staid. Instead my mind was heated from the images that just went through my brain. I wanted to stop and relax and finish out the dream so much, even if I had to create the rest in a daydream. Thinking about Paris like that, as a sexual aggressor who used a town event to get into my pants. God, my dreams were never this depraved when Dean was mine.  
   
I felt myself warm from more than the shower spray as I thought back to the exact moment when I was so rudely interrupted by my mom's hand shaking me awake. It had lasted through an hour of an alarm I wasn't sure went off or not, and I was wet when I got out of bed. The muscles in the back of my neck were tight, my heart beating just from the very idea that I was dreaming of Paris seducing me like that.  
   
I wanted to do more than take a shower, so badly. I felt knotting all over and a certain uncertainty that I didn't finish what I started, my whole morning was incomplete. I gulped everything down however, and focused on the time rather than my needs as I rushed through the bathroom tasks and slid into my uniform a few minutes later, continuing my morning routine, no matter that my body was telling me to do more than smell the coffee.  
   
 _Coffee..._ my thoughts were distracted by that as I ran out into the kitchen, the microwave clock confirming the time.  
   
6:57, it read. If I wasn't dead before, I should start my last will and testament, because Paris was going to be here any minute to bitch me out about time management and my incompetent alarm clock. I headed into my room panicky, with an undone tie hanging around my neck, my shirt tucked on one side and not the other, and askew socks...  
   
"Fourteen minutes, I'm impressed Gilmore. I would've figured you a seventeen minute shower girl." And apparently, a certain blonde girl is sitting on my bed, taking in the décor of my bedroom, and smiling at me like I was the biggest dork in all of human kind.  
   
I was panting and in a rush to get to the town square in the next ten minutes, and my reason for getting there, Paris, was sitting on my bed, holding a cup in her hands and her messenger bag draped over her shoulder. Suffice to say I was shocked; how did she know? Why was she in my room, and not waiting for me outside.  
   
"What are you doing--" I tried asking her and making excuses for my lateness that didn't involve her and I...together in dreamland.  
   
She stood up from her spot on the bed, came towards me, and smiled. "While you were rushing to get into the shower, your mom was trying to yell at you to call me and have me stop here at the house instead of the diner. Since the combination of you showering with a cell phone to your ear might prove to be fatal, she used your phone to call me just as I was getting into town and let me know you slept in this morning."

"Oh." I could only see myself as a mouse, small and meek. In my rush to be on time, a simple detour to my phone and her directory entry would've brought her to the house instead of me running towards the town center on pure adrenaline. _Stupid_ , I chastised within my mind.

Paris moved towards me, her nervous energy getting to me. She felt as awkward about the situation as I did, looking towards the window.  
   
She played with the edge of the cuff of her sweater as she went on. "I didn't know if we had time or not to stop at Luke's, so I stopped there and ask for a couple take-out cups. This one is yours. I gave the other cup to your mom." I was handed the cup of warm joe, but she kept her attempt at banter up. "I hope one creamer and a pinch of sugar was fine, that's what Luke told me you usually took."  
   
I sipped it for a jolt and to make sure it tasted fine. Indeed it was perfect as usual. "Good memory," I said softly, my mind thinking more about Paris instead of coffee, and how she was looking at me. I must've looked the part of a mess with how I dressed, buttoned and covered, but not straightened out. I felt out of it, awkward. Why were we suddenly not so verbal, looking at each other the way we have the last two days but not saying anything?  
   
I sat the cup on the dresser, feeling embarrassed about my state of dress out of the shower. I needed to straighten myself out first, think about Paris' romantic interlude second. "How was the drive down?" I asked nervously.  
   
"Good. Non-eventful, my car isn't scratched, no rain, another postcard autumn day in the land of nutmeg." I started to tuck the blouse in my skirt, a silent version of throat-clearing trying to communicate I needed privacy. "Did you look over that proposal from the Armory about a rental increase for the Winter Formal?"  
   
I nodded back, looking Paris over. She looked the same as the last four days I've seen her. Still smart, beautiful, driven, that hidden sexuality only I truly knew and was trying to bring out sort of subdued after a cooled day yesterday, no thanks to Mr. Mercurio deciding that our Russian Novels class was 'the worst he ever tested' through that one pop quiz, and forcing us to start _War and Peace_ over again for no reason except he's a top-par asshole.  
   
I told her rushed I had read the report, feeling her eyes on me with each move I made. My suggestion was to halve their asking price of $3,500 with our usual yearly $2,500 bid that sufficed for twenty years. We both knew the state guard was using the building for military activities again and to show support for them the price increase was necessary. My mind was more concerned with her staring however. My blouse was unbuttoned down two places and a head gesture to show her out of the room wasn't working.  
   
As I went on about the proposal, she moved towards me, invading my arms length in that assertive Paris-like way I've pretty much become used to over the last couple years. "Fine, we'll try to ask them for $3,000 rent. What's on my mind right now however is you." Her voice was firm, yet the dominating message within the statement was expressed clearly. "How, if you have a 5:30 wakeup time, did you end up just hopping out of the shower now? I checked your alarm clock, it has a loud alert and works just fine, so you can't tell me you slept through an hour of that, or seven nine-minute snooze periods."  
   
"I don't even know if my alarm went off," I responded honestly. "It was 6:40, Mom shakes me awake, I curse a little in my head and I'm off for the shower." I shook a little as she moved closer towards me.  
   
"Look, it's OK, sometimes we oversleep, at least I knew before I got mad at you about it. Which I wouldn't have unless you decided to go Sandra Dee on me overnight and shirk all responsibility altogether."

"OK, good, I'm glad you said that." I tittered softly, my sarcasm synapses apparently on holiday. "I don't look good in leather anyways."  
   
"You know," Paris brought her voice down to a whisper. "Lorelai had to run to the neighbor's for a few minutes."

"Babbette and Morey's?" I was getting annoyed that my compressed routine was getting sidelined. "But she usually doesn't go out there in the mornings to talk..." I felt her move closer, seemingly in an attempt to pin me towards a wall.  
   
"Rory, connect the dots." I felt my rear bump the wall farthest from the window. "If we weren't the way we are now, you really think I'd be in your room, much less your house? I'd be waiting in the car honking the horn every minute, waiting for you to come out." She curled the corners of her lips up, lowering her voice a little more. "Lorelai kind of played an Ed Belfour role because it was odd to those two my car pulled up here at this time of morning, and right now she's trying to make sure they know I have permission to come here. They were about to play twenty questions with me, where are you from, what kind of music you like, how many pets, those kinds of things. Lorelai saw me, ran out from the porch towards me, took her coffee and played interference as I walked into the house and waited for you."  
   
"So wait," I tried to clear my head. "They tried to intercept you, but..." I felt a cool hand plant against my side, and I knew just what Paris was doing with me.  
   
"Twelve years of meet-and-greets have trained me well, avoidance is key. I'll talk to them one day, but once 6:55 comes, you're my charge. That means doing anything and everything to get to this point." Her left thumb lifted the hem of the blouse, the untucked side, to gain access to the waist of my skirt. "In plain English, that means I want what we've both wanted in these last two days."  
   
My lungs staggered, and I struggled to breathe normally as I awaited another of those blood-rushing kisses I was fast getting used to. Still, my mind tried to setup a punchline. "Proper Chilton uniform protocol?"  
   
She laughed smally, wrapping an arm around the small of my back. "You can fix it in the car Gilmore."  
   
"What about breakfast?"  
   
She pointed to the breast pocket of her blouse. "Grabbed a pack of raspberry. Just eat it over a napkin and throw the pop tart wrapper in the ashtray after you unwrap; I'll make an exception about eating in the car just this one time."  
   
My excuses for putting off the morning kiss were fast running out. "I haven't gargled yet--"  
   
She put a finger to my lips, and brushed a slick wet clump of hair back to behind my ear. "Just suck on an Altoid." I laughed a little, those words so familiar from a year ago when she was my last-minute Romeo.  
   
"I'm not in the mood to, right now at least." I felt kind of geeky, but that feeling went away as Paris closed the distance between us and softly kissed me on the lips, her hands resting at my sides, her focus on me and nothing else. I brought myself into the atmosphere of the buss, starting to feel the exciting rush of kissing the girl I liked with my mother only next door, less than a hundred feet away keeping the nosy neighbors at bay. As we kissed, my mind spun with whether I should tell Paris the real reason I overslept, since I felt sexually charged right about there.  
   
It was interesting to say the least, keeping one eye on her and trying to make sure we both had enough space so that if we heard my mom's footsteps approaching towards the kitchen we could separate in moments. It was a kiss that lasted a minute, one that made me feel relieved. We broke, both flushed, thankful no one had seen us. I felt a thrill at sneaking a morning kiss with my lover for once, trying to keep a smile off my face because Paris didn't get mad at me about oversleeping.  
   
"That was...nice," I stumbled out, feeling light as I brought myself towards the nightstand and the hot coffee for a sip. "I should oversleep more often if that's the way you're going to say good morning to me." I smirked towards her as she flopped back down on my bed and rolled her eyes.  
   
"Next time it's cold water in a bucket, whether you're awake or not." Always amazing how her sarcasm dial can go from 3 to 11 in less than ten seconds. "We better get the lead out, I only allowed ten minutes of extra time out of town and last night's sleet made the trip down a little sluggish."  
   
I sighed towards her and shook my head, knowing that even if the end of the world was nigh at 8:06am, Paris would still go to school and be sucked up to whichever afterlife destination she believes in stuck to her desk.  
   
We've pretty much fallen into a routine once I straighten myself out and get into the car. It's nice to see that some things have changed, but our discussions in-car seem to stay the same and within that academic banter that only could turn on the two of us. I discuss what I read, and make sure that what I've noted myself matches her version of events, but not too closely so that a higher-up might think we're cheating. She's also interested in what I've been studying lately, picking up some more journalism classes for my last Chilton semester so that I can get a good headstart on my college credits. Of course she has hers already, but she thinks I'm on a good track nonetheless.  
   
The radio isn't even turned on anymore, nor do I take out my Walkman and try to block out things anymore when I'm in the Jag. How could I possibly concentrate on the latest news and traffic when I'm too busy staring at the blonde next to me blatantly and unhidden? I never thought of myself as a gawkier when it came to love, probably because of the lack of a physical attraction for Dean. Yes he was cute, and the hair did something for me, it made him look younger. But he was big and gangly, and imagining what I wanted to do with him was always a balancing act between fantasy and reality, with the only solution seeming to deny Dean's height and bringing him to my eye level instead.  
   
I don't do that with Paris though. I watch her slip into the car next to me, sliding her key into the ignition, and she looks beautiful. Her eyes concentrate on the road no matter what I say, her hands almost staying still on the steering wheel except when she has to stop. When she's in her seat, Paris is more relaxed behind the wheel than she ever will be anywhere else. When she extended the invitation for me to ride home, the reason I felt skittish about her giving me a ride was because her car is really her castle. She maintains it religiously, even for a little knock in the engine (One deep study session evening between us earlier in the year was spent in the lobby of a Jiffy Lube while her oil was changed), and by entering it, it was another step to say that I was really becoming her best friend.

I feel like I want her to keep on trusting me, and I hope she continues to do that now that I'm her lover. I'm nervous now that I'm not just looking at her and wishing I could be in her arms. But if the last three days, especially today, are an indication of how our relationship will go, I think we'll last quite a long time.  
   
Maybe even 'lifers', as Louise described how close I was to Dean in happier days.  
   
I should probably clarify that. I meant in my younger, more clueless, and in denial days.  
   
Just as long as Paris is in the driver's seat, I'd stay by her side, better or worse.  


* * *

"So I'm thinking that Gregory Smith of _Everwood_ is cute, don't you agree Madeline?" Louise says.  
   
It's another Wednesday lunch at the table I share with Madeline, Louise and Paris, where I'm convinced day by day that the lime Jell-O is neither lime, gelatin, or flavorful. We still sit next to each other, and this is about as close to her I'll get in school publicly with everyone around. Paris picks at her meatloaf with the plastic fork, having long polished off her regular salad. I don't even bother with the meat, going ala carte with a chicken sandwich, the salad, and an oatmeal cookie in place.  
   
Madeline seems distant lately, her eyes drifting left and right as she takes in conversation and tries to wring wittiness out of it. " _Everwood?_ What's that?"  
   
Now this is a shock, Madeline not watching a show filled with a new hunk. Paris even has to look up and comment. "The sugary-sweet product of a _Dawson's Creek_ writer featuring the lead of the mediocre _Substitute_ sequels as a father fleeing the ghost of his dead wife in Manhattan by moving himself and his rugrats to a town she probably coasted by once and thought was pretty from the interstate wayside. It follows the Christian Right rhetoric and community theater troupe of _7th Heaven_. Tell me you haven't at least heard of it."  
   
Again, Madeline isn't in denial, shaking her head. "Sorry, I've been elsewhere on the dial Monday nights."  
   
"Where else, there's nothing else worthwhile on TV that night," Louise argued. "At least eye-candy wise. No offense to _The American Experience_ you two, just not my bag unless there's a JFK profile."  
   
Pigeonholing us into our PBS geekiness, Paris quickly strikes back. "None taken, Marilyn Monroe reincarnated." Louise then sticks out her tongue towards her and calls Paris a know-it-all. Both Par and Lou are so used to their mental catfighting it's almost as natural to them as breathing. They'll still be friends to the end, but one of them will probably leave a last retort in their entry on the funeral visitation log.  
   
"Guys, focus here," I implore, trying to bring the conversation back Madeline's way. "Something wrong Mads?"  
   
She smiled shyly, trying to draw focus away from herself. "I'm good," she smiles fine to reassure us. "After the last season of the _Creek_ I'm not ready to take up new poster boys. I just want...plot, you know, and I'm not getting it lately. So I've taken to watching other stuff on TV. If it involves science and geeky stuff, so be it."  
   
Louise interrupts her. "Hot and geeky science hunks?" she intones with her husky 'sex' voice.  
   
"You forget I watched Mr. Wizard all the time when I was a kid," she said wearily. "All that stuff was cool, and you can only watch fashion shows on Style so many times before it becomes boring."  
   
I nodded at Paris for confirmation of this fact, surprised as she confirmed Madeline's science interest. "The house staff had to keep baking powder and soda on hand on the off chance she saw something she wanted to replicate on her own."  
   
Madeline speaks up, and our attention is drawn back towards her. "My favorite," she lifts a hand up, "was that tornado in a bottle thing, with that thing you screwed in the middle between two two-liter bottles. You'd put water in a bottle, screw in the top and then the other, and whoooosh, we're not in Kansas anymore!" She gets giddy at describing this, very animated. "All the fire stuff was cool too, but Daddy never let me do that because he didn't want me to get burned."  
   
"Would you still be interested in science?" I queried Madeline.  
   
"It's still my best class," she reminded me. "Not many dateworthy guys, not much stuff to do otherwise, so I listen and pay attention."

"You have to remind me of this everyday." Louise butts into the conversation unannounced. "If it was up to me the only chemistry I'd be studying is a soap hunk's perspiration and how to clone the DNA contained for my very own willing and able copy..."  
   
I wasn't listening to Louise bitch about class, my eyes following Madeline's as she found her concentration jar towards the middle aisle of the dining hall towards a trash can. Her features stilled and became neutral as her stare went from across the table and she moved her head a couple of inches towards her left. I notice she straightened her sweater out and ran a couple fingers through her hair, and I can't figure out why for a bit. I sense some nervous energy, her eyes drifting towards a group of three boys turned around, their backs towards us.  
   
She takes a sip from her chocolate milk and clears her throat as they turn around and head towards us and an empty table past us a ways. She gulps it down and the boys turn around.  
   
The signals that Madeline is swooning are really starting to come on strong to me as a bystander, as Brad and two of his buddies from the Robotics and Computer Sciences class walk towards us and Madeline. Instantly there's a connection between Brad and Maddie, and I watch them make eye contact from across the room for but a moment. She pushes in her chair as a sign of courtesy, and they come closer towards us. Louise's ramble has moved onto the latest _All My Children_ developments.  
   
"Madeline, thank you." Brad speaks in that tremble he only has when he's in Paris' line of vision, and he acknowledges all of us. "Rory, Louise..." he trails off as I see Paris give him that focused death glare. "P-p-aris."  
   
"Uhh, you're welcome Brad." Madeline is never shy around boys, which is another sign of what she wants. "Good meatloaf today, isn't it?" Nervous and neutral is how she was speaking to him.  
   
Brad looks down at his tray as he tries to squeeze lengthwise since Louise won't move her chair for him. "Hopefully." Brad directs a funny smile her way, Louise rolling her eyes up at him and his two friends.  
   
"Let's go Langford, we don't have all day," she snipes, pulling her chair in so they can get through. Madeline stills, shocked at how her friend is talking to Brad. They move through the aisle as Madeline looks on towards Brad, then relaxes as the distance between them increases and they sit at their own table. Everything goes back to normal, as Paris finds her salad more interesting than what just went on.  
   
"Louise." Madeline asks for her attention sternly, her voice taking an uncharacteristic firmness. "Why do you have to be so mean to him, he just wanted to get through."  
   
"There's plenty of other aisles in this room, he could've used one of those." Louise says matter-of-factly.  
   
"This one's closer to his table."  
   
"So, I don't want that buffalo stuffer anywhere near me. Anyone who calls playing a video game fun with chodes online isn't worth the time and effort to acknowledge."  
   
Madeline feels hurt from Louise's words, and Paris and I watch as they start to fight. "He just said hi to us, that's no reason to tear the poor boy's head off."  
   
"It's plenty of reason, face it, he's hopelessly uncool." Louise points and Madeline's eyebrows scrunch down in anger. "Why any girl would be interested in him..."  
   
I notice Paris take in everything Louise is saying, and although her and Brad don't get along, she doesn't outright hate him. She's told me this before, that she needs someone to occasionally make fun of, but really she wants to encourage him to be a little less geeky and gain a little confidence. Listening to Louise, I can tell she's had enough.  
   
She firmly interrupts Lou with that tone that still scares me, even now. "Grant, back off. He's Brad, not the token louse from an 80's fraternity movie. He has good points and bad points, and frankly if a girl likes him, more power to her."  
   
Our blonde friend is of course thrown for a loop; she'll never win this argument. "But he's such a geek--"  
   
"Yet you associate with both of us." she reminds, her face neutral as she points towards me. "Retract the claws and pick on some two-bit soap actress instead. That is, unless you hate Rory and I for being smart ourselves. Lest you also forget that you carry a 3.50 GPA and keep up with Rory and I somehow."  
   
"Paris, I just hate the guy. He's so meek and annoying, and has no backbone."  
   
"I like Brad too," I say, trying to form a majority. "So if you want to make fun of him, do it on your own time."  
   
"But--" Louise was stumbling over her words and losing her cause to make fun of him. "He's a---" She threw her hands around trying to justify her teasing, then gave up knowing that none of us backed her up. "Fine, I won't make fun of Richie Cunningham over there anymore, you all win!"  
   
"LOUISE!" Madeline gritted her teeth at her, annoyed at the Ron Howard comparison. "No more."  
   
"Yeah, yeah, I'm done. God, if you weren't just like me I'd think you had a crush on the guy." Louise isn't looking at Madeline as she's saying this, and thank goodness, because her eyes just widen in surprise, she whimpers, and then blushes at the very insinuation of her infatuated with Brad.  
   
Paris and I sneak a look towards each other, Madeline's face revealing all. She doesn't notice us, just focusing on hiding her secret longing. "Of course not, why would I ever want a boy like him. I'd rather have...a stallion in the sack, of course." Not very convincing Lynn, not at all. Louise doesn't notice her inflection fade, and within moments they go back to looking at their lunch.  
   
Meanwhile I can go back to what my thoughts were previously. School is starting to feel a lot more different now that Paris is mine. I looked forward to going to school before we finally acknowledged there was something here that's between us. Not only for the educational aspects, but so that I could stare for hours on end at the vexing blonde that took on the role of my girlcrush for months and months. I could now look at her for free, unnoticed, without any repercussions or suspicions by her that I was noticing her in more as more than my editor and leader.  
   
I feel my heart pound in my chest whenever I'm near her, my nerves on high alert. Then, at that lunch table, I felt my stomach twist around because she was so close to me. Above the table, we looked like we had plenty of space between us. The thing about appearances, however, was that they can be deceiving.  
   
You've probably figured out I wasn't saying much through that discussion. I would've loved to defend Brad more than I did and irked on both Madeline and Paris some more because of what Louise was saying about him, the boy didn't deserve her grief because she wasn't able to able to attract the attention of her cornerback guy for the last couple of days.  
   
My mind was in the conversation, sure, I heard just about everything that happened and my attention was trained on trying to figure out if Madeline and Brad were interacting more than in that awkward talk about meatloaf.  
   
But just try to keep all of your attention on a matter when that damned girl you really like has her hand along the side of your skirt, getting her flirt on without saying one word. Then just try to think of a way to unwind your way out of something romantic beneath the table.  
   
That's right, while Paris brought down Louise's bravado at defending her teasing of Brad, at the same time beneath the table, her right foot was bared and out of her shoe, and rubbing up against my bared ankle. Today I was wearing ped socks that end just above the ankle. I took a quick glance below the table as Madeline was talking to Brad with Louise's attention on them, noticing that there was something brushing against my left shin.  
   
My first thought was an apple had rolled from another table and ended up at my feet. That was unlikely since the tables were pretty big and it would take a lot for one to roll off the huge surfaces. Paris hadn't tried anything funny Tuesday and was trying to maintain the 'no kissing at school' rule we agreed to, which I thought would kill **any** kind of sexual vibe at school that we could share. I guess when you've been on the sidelines of love for as long as Paris has, there's some built-up energy that's been in her for years yearning to get out.  
   
Her hand wasn't actually on my thigh, rather she was brushing it above the fabric of the skirt with her pinkie finger, appearing on the outside to anyone else to be innocent. But it wasn't. I feel my breath deepen and my blood rush down with the slight caresses of her fingertip against my side. Never had I thought of Paris being the type to be a physical flirter. I had a hint of that last week with the car incident, but I'm starting to learn from her that this light touch to her is just as sensual as sharing a kiss with her. I started thinking then about how nice it was that she was left-handed and able to keep her right hand otherwise occupied with me when we sat together.  
   
I felt a thrill at getting away with this kind of contact in school with our friends watching, both of them clueless that we're a couple. Paris' toes brushed along the ridge of the opening of my shoe, along my ankle. I hold back a shudder, looking dead-on at Madeline and Louise without any emotion except that the chicken sandwich was quite tasty. That Paris does this without a word, focusing more on her class work in her head and the meatloaf in front of her than the fact she's driving me crazy beneath the table, it's strange that it all comes back to the flirting that we did to each other over the last year. I heave a breath, wanting more contact with her, but knowing I won't get it unless there's a sudden fire drill and an opportunity to flee elsewhere in the school.  
   
I keep denting into my salad, those damned smooth legs of hers teasing me and teasing me. It's been about ten minutes, and Louise's guy came by to whisk her away God knows where for a quickie. The wait for the lunch bell is torturous as I open up a book and Paris takes her Palm organizer out of her bag to update her assignments. Madeline rests her elbow on the table and props her chin on her hand, uninterested in anything except looking towards Brad's table. I fork a tomato and a few greens, then slather it in some dressing, starting to munch on it. My face looks more interested in looking as if its chewing food rather than having shortened breath from Paris' foot against the back of my leg.  
   
Daydreaming, my mind was drifting off from school as Paris continued her erotic torture unabated. It thought about how wound up I was after the basket dream, how I felt unfulfilled and so turned on with Par in my room, but didn't act because of the pesky 'mom 100 feet away at Babbette and Morey's' factor. I really wanted to tell her about the dream and her role in it while she drove to school, but I'm still trying to gauge how much she wants to hear about me away from Chilton. Also after how she reacted when I kissed her Monday morning suddenly on the road, I didn't want her swerving off an overpass hearing about us defiling Sharon's breakfast nook.  
                                                                                                
The time passed slowly, but soon it was 12:45, and after finishing my chapter the bell rang and Paris' foot left my side. She slid it back into her shoe and I ate the last of my salad, filled from the meal. I got up and felt a little dizzy from my legs seeming to be jelly-like from Par's machinations through the meal.  
   
Madeline got up from her seat and gathered her stuff, shaking her head. "See you two in seventh, I gotta go wake up Louise from her afterglow." I laughed as Paris rolled her eyes, and we both said goodbye.  
   
We cleared our places at the table and threw our trash in the can, starting to walk out of the dining hall close together. She was giving me this funny look out of the corner of my eye for some reason, this little smile that was getting to me and making me wonder. We left the hall and went out into the courtyard, heading towards our lockers.  
   
Suddenly she took my hand, and yanked me away from the walkway around the fountain towards a patch of bushes in a corner after she looked both ways and saw no one near us.  
   
I asked her what was up, but she didn't answer me right away, just giving me this hovering and nervous look before we headed into the small grove and I was able to ask her what was up.  
   
"Did I do something wrong?" I asked nervously. "You're smiling like The Joker, Jack Nicholson version here at me. What is with you today, you're all happy and caressing..."  
   
I was about to start one of my patented unfocused rambles, when I found a finger coming towards my face. She kept quiet until her index finger was against the left side and ridge of my upper lip.  
   
"You might want to blot more next time, that dressing's been irking me for about five minutes." She rubbed her finger slowly and seductively against my face, obviously cluing me into the fact that I had ranch dressing on my lip I forgot to wipe off when I was finished, being occupied by other things. She moved the finger against my cheek, gathering up the remainders of my meal while at the same time sensitizing my body and most likely, causing me to be antsy through the two periods until Life Sciences I wouldn't be sharing with her. Moaning, she pursed her lips out and drew the finger back towards herself.

Wide-eyed, I took in the sight of Paris Gellar, who days before I wouldn't associate with the word 'sensual', teasing me with her actions and the few words she mustered as my vision took in her fingertip with a small dollop of ranch dressing resting on the tip. _What is she about to do?_ I could only form basic thought as what I thought she'd do with it, actually happened.  
   
She stuck out her tongue and licked the dressing from her finger, my eyes wide and my libido doing backflips. All the while Paris was giving me that secret smile she directs only towards me, and I stilled my breathing at this erotic sight. She was tasting me, only not. She finally closed her mouth and let the taste settle on her palate, her face turning from sensual to satisfied, closing her eyes taking in the familiar tang of the ranch dressing, mixed with the saltiness of my skin.  
   
 _I will not kiss her, I will not kiss her, I will not kiss her!! No kissing at Chilton!!_ My mind kept replaying my Ground Rule #1 for this new thing with Par as she kept looking so damned irresistible and the entire lunch spun through the filter of my brain. I felt like I'd collapse in on myself if I walked. She heaved out a breath, starting to open up her eyes and recover from the little scene she just spun. God, even though we're together now, she's still a little troublemaker who gets off on seeing me all annoyed and out of breath.  
   
Paris smiled towards me, and as I settled my heart down, she just kept that hovering look still.  
   
"I've always wanted to do that," she says matter-of-factly. "It's a big pet peeve of mine, how could you be so forgetful today Gilmore?"  
   
 _Sure, blame the girl with a fogged-up mind caused by your one-sided footsie game!_ I knew she was baiting me, but all the same that soft monotone had that know-it-all spin that still sort of annoys me a little. No matter though, the way she was looking at me all flushed and unsteady, with a fast-beating heart. I never thought of her as full of surprises, but right now I'm just glad that there is no fantasy anymore. Everything is reality.  
   
Everything, including what I said in reaction to what she just did. I brushed some stray hair back and stumbled through. "You finally got your revenge on me, some of that dressing on the lips during lunch was on purpose, you know that?" I clasped my hand in hers, enjoying the privacy we had.  
   
Paris nodded and tittered nervously. "I know that now, but there was an inkling and a hope that you were goading on my libido." She looked down at the ground, then back towards me. "You enjoyed that lunch, right? Because I can reel back--"  
   
"Please don't!!" I cried out, a little panicked. "Uh, what I meant is really, really liked what you did, it's nice." I shuffled my foot around a little, nervous I wouldn't get to class on time. "I never knew that you had that kind of thing in you, you know? It's secret and nice and..."  
   
She brushed my knuckle, then let go of it as we got ready to separate until 7th period. "No need to elaborate, the point is made." She hesitated, and helped direct us out of the bushes. "I just want to be nice, you know? I have so much lost ground to make up for, and I want to be perfect, get everything right, not fail you. I don't want you to go back to hating me, you know?"  
   
I decided to leave and separate from her, leaving her with words that were sure to kill the worries she might have had about getting everything with us right.  
   
"Oh, trust me Par, I can't hate you anymore. But..." I lowered my voice a bit and gave her a hovering once-over. "Revenge on what you did to me at lunch today sure will be sweet." I let the sentence hang, and left her behind and still where she stood as she watched me walk towards the Ambrose building and my next class. My hope was that she would know what I was getting at, and leave her salivating for more when it comes to me. What we have, it's like a board game. I have to plot out my next move carefully around Paris' grand gestures, while at the same time trying to accommodate what she wants. I walk down the hall towards my locker with a spring in my step, and I'm looking forward to lunch for more than the salad for now on.  
   
I'm going to keep Paris as mine, whether it takes a fight or not. Hopefully not a fight, more like a passionate argument, I'd rather have it start that way than to fight her. Just the thrill of this relationship beneath the noses of everyone we both know is quite enough for me.  
   
I just have to start remembering to do a loose tie on my shoes from now on; you never know when an opportunity could come up again to plant my 'revenge' towards her...  


* * *

It's my last period of class, number seven, Life Sciences. Usually a class I don't direct full attention towards because my scientific mind does very well and the external reading I do outside of science classes helps in lessening how much dependence I have on the textbooks during assignments and tests. With Paris sitting next to me, the class becomes all that more distracting. Though the stools we sit at are wobbly, I love the table in front of us and our seating in the back. The table is covered at the front, and no one unless they walk into the classroom can see what we're both doing. Dr. Eure, the teacher, is also a nice lady, far from the image I was expecting of a rough teacher like _Popular_ 's Ms. Glass character, who lives and dies on taunting her students.  
   
Since it's our last period, we also have the easier and more relaxing class, and that shows in my fellow peers. She doesn't enforce uniform rules in this period as strictly as most of the other teachers, so the guys in front of me have unknotted ties and popped collars, while the girls untuck their shirts to prepare early for dismissal. Paris ruffles at this habit, but she accepts some things can't change, like that. I keep my uniform tucked, clean and straight just to appease her.  
   
I keep my feet on the bottom rail of the chair, keeping any temptations of doing something with Paris to myself. She's concentrated hard in her notes, the pages and pages of information in her thin compressed left-hand cursive seemingly unreadable to everyone but her, though I'm making progress in decoding her language when I need to borrow them. The class info is filled out in the corner of the sheet fully, a habit she'll never break.  
   
As Dr. Eure goes on about mitochondria, I find myself trying to find a way to talk to Paris about this morning's dream now, rather than when we're on the road or in the _Franklin_ , since talking in the newspaper office after everyone leaves doesn't guarantee privacy. I knew what Dr. Eure was talking about already, so I didn't need to note, and I'm sure Paris didn't either. There was something inside of me that wanted to tell her about the dream, just how would I go about it?  
   
I looked at the notebook in front of me, and towards Paris. Since I'm a righty and she's a lefty, there was open space between our sides of the table so that we could come a little closer towards the center without suspicion. I looked towards the lectern; Dr. Eure was reading from her syllabus, unnoticing our corner of the room.  
   
Passing notes is something I do in class occasionally, but not often. I looked at my book and Par's, and had a brainstorm. If we could have a conversation through our notebooks and without words, we'd look like we'd take notes to everyone else, but between us, shared a private talk within that same class. It was a foolproof method of talking to my girlfriend, without the actual talking!  
   
 _I'm going to make this work_ , was what I determined, _try to talk to her and keep everything down-low_. The worst thing that could happen is that she wouldn't budge from her notes and say no to my offer. It would be like a crude form of instant messaging was the way I thought, talking and then chatting back. It was perfect.  
   
With one last glance, I wrote down a missive on the second top line of my paper.  
   
 ** _Par, want to talk a little? I have to tell you something about this morning. Come a little closer if you'd like.  
_**    
I pushed my pad towards her, and tapped her hand to have her read slyly. She drew her attention away from her notes, and looked at what I read. Since her note page was full, she was able to turn to a blank piece herself. She held up her hand a little, in a way that wouldn't draw attention, then wrote down her response, then directed me to look towards her notebook so I could read.  
   
 ** _I could, just as long as I don't get caught, I know this stuff fine. Anything specific?  
_**    
She was into it already, what a lucky break. I thought she might not jump on, but she's fully into my idea. Again, I write more text into my notebook.  
   
 ** _Remember how I overslept, and you couldn't figure out why?  
_**    
We start to get into a pattern. She looks, writes, then after I hear her scribbling die down, I look at her writing and prepare to respond with what I have. I read her thought.  
   
 ** _I figured your alarm clock was set wrong, you've never been late to class except that one time during the Shakespeare exam.  
_**    
Shaking my head, I write down that it wasn't wrong, and that I slept through the alarm because of a dream.  
   
 ** _What kind?_** She writes. **_A nightmare?  
_**    
Her eyes catch me smiling as I dispel her guess.  
   
 ** _Remember the basket auction from last year where Jess paid a lot of money for my company for an afternoon?_** How could she not, I remember her reaction to the whole thing when she sighed and said "Your town is beyond weird, are you sure Rod Serling isn't your mayor?", then just laughed a little at the absurdist and quaint notion of the basket auction.  
   
She thought for a moment to recall that time, then wrote back right away.  
   
 ** _You had a dream about Jess? I thought that you liked me._** The writing was a little dark, rushed and panicked, which I kind of expected. It's always a first reaction to reassert what we have already, so with the same speed, I soothed her by writing that no, it wasn't about Jess, that he was in the dream, but not the main focus.  
   
Back to her notebook. **_Oh, sorry_** , she writes, her eyes focused on the lectern when she sees Ms. Eure angles towards our side of the room to make a point. We stop writing to take in some facts, and it takes a couple minutes to go through what she's lecturing us through.  
   
When she finishes and directs us towards some textbook reading, both Paris and I open our books and page to the subject, while putting our notebooks on top of the unread page. The back and forth begins again as she wants details about the dream. Never had I done this, told anyone the details of a dream like this. Of course I had to lie around my mom this morning to avoid the mortification of my reason for sleeping longer than usual.  
   
 ** _I had a dream about you._** There, simply stated.  
   
She looks at my curling script, her eyes then drifting upward to read my face. I glance down a little, feeling shy and a little self-conscious about my flirting plan. It's somehow fitting that a couple of years ago if I had tried to get her attention with my writing, she would've crumpled up the paper, like she did over the project I broke. But she's game about this note-passing session.  
   
She writes back, smiling. **_What kind of dream?  
_**    
 ** _You outbid Jess for the basket, got Dean mad at you, and shocked me with how much you'd pay for my company for an afternoon_** , I let her know.  
   
She shook her head, blushing at the very idea that she'd buy my basket. **_Did I get my money's worth Gilmore? I have a discriminating taste for how I spend my wealth you know.  
_**    
Wow, that took me aback, the structure of her words. I shake a little, and she gives me an look as my bottom lip lowers. I flirt back with some shaky cursive;  
   
 ** _You almost were able to use that discriminating taste on me; however my mother shook me awake before you could...God, I think you know what happened in this dream, you're not stupid!_** I was starting to get in over my head, I thought I was going to be cute with this flirting via pen, but I was being outplayed by Paris' curious nature!  
   
Her right hand brushes up against my left as her pencil asks the next question. **_Where did I have you? And yes, I'm not stupid, you wouldn't even be bringing this up if it was just us two skipping across Bushnell Park with psychedelic sixties music in the background.  
_**    
I snorted a little laughter out at that because I actually had that dream in the last cynical days before I dumped Dean last week. Of course the climax was Paris telling him off and both of us kissing in the rain or something (I forget specifics), but however it ended it was hot.  
   
Dr. Eure looked towards our direction to trace where the sudden noise was coming from. "Miss Gilmore, are you OK? Something funny about cell division you'd like to share with the class?"  
   
I looked up, a little embarrassed; I have to be more careful in the future. "Um, no Doctor, ma'am. I just saw a word in a funny place as I paged through the book, gonad I think it was." I never knew how to cover my ass well when the teacher's looking at me wrong. "It won't happen again." I shied down on my stool, praying the attention would go back to the front lectern with a few of my peers in front laughing at my uttering of the juvenile word.  
   
"Please make sure it doesn't, this is a serious class. Miss Gellar understands how important this class is, right?"  
   
"I do ma'am," she responds off-hand, like her response is breathing.  
   
"Alright then. So back to page 174..."  
   
Everyone goes back to reading, except for the both of us, faking reading and continuing to write. I write down the exact details of her wooing track, from her $750 bid, the drive down, and up to the point I beg of her to take me in her mother's perfect _Better Homes and Gardens-_ ready breakfast nook. I avoid the details of her undressing me, no need to elaborate upon that since her mind can fill in those blanks.  
   
It's a long, meandering six paragraph entry, and when I finish, my hand has a wicked case of writer's cramp when I shove the book towards her to read. I've done journal entries on and off through the years because I'm not comfortable archiving my life in something anyone can get at. It's strange to me, confessing a dream of want to my girlfriend, when this description is as ribald as I ever have gotten on paper.  
   
She looks it over, her face showing what I was expecting, a mix of emotions at her persona within my mind in REM state. She keeps her pinkie against the heel of my left hand, teasing me and sending a shudder up my arm, her eyes focused on the script in front of her. It seems like an eternity as she takes in all the details, her breathing the only thing I focus on. It goes from steady and staid...then shaken and huffed...two minutes later and when she finishes reading, it's shallow, slow, trying to take in all I've just written.  
   
I look at the class, still in thought about the current subject at hand, and then towards the blonde sitting next to me, her legs crossed and making hay of my description. I know I've gotten to her when I find her adjusting the collar on her blouse, the tight collar button and tie a hindrance to cool air against her lower neck.  
   
Still, she wrote, her left hand gripping the yellow Dixon, wearing the graphite down like she was making out her last will. I read as she writes, her words stating so much that her voice couldn't say in the space of that science classroom.

 ** _Dear God there Ror, I knew you had dreams about me that were a little involved. I didn't know that you could dream that passionately though. Wow, it's scary; you taking my intensity and channeling that from my bookish self into someone so raw and...sexual. I have to admit, I like how you dream, because that's how I want to come off one day. That is, if you'd like to. In the future of course, not right now, not that I wouldn't want to get involved with you in such an untamed way...  
_**    
I grip her hand, encircling my index finger around her ring finger, to calm her down and have her focus her writing more. The move seems to kill her ramble. In a way it's one of those sly moves that we're comfortable with doing to keep ourselves hidden, but let us still have that couple connection we've had lately.  
   
 ** _I have to be honest with you_ ,** she writes. **_I asked what made you oversleep this morning, and I'm glad you lied. Because if you hadn't..._** She pauses, her eyes burning into mine, **_...I may have ended my perfect attendance streak this morning from ravishing you senseless in the back of the car. I knew there was something up from your blush and panic getting out of the shower, there was a feeling there. I just want to take things slow, but this want of you is consuming me so badly.  
_**    
I let her write on, feeling myself stiffen with each of her romantic words. **_Walking into Luke's yesterday morning, the anticipation building when I saw you at your table with Lorelai, waiting for me with the tea, the minutes it took of conversation with you and your mom until you finally gave the signal you needed the restroom. How I found myself needing the bathroom at the same time and following you, locking the door, and then you dragging me by the hand towards the stall, where you pushed me against the partition and kissed me senseless. I'd been awaiting that since the moment I got up, like a light. The routine was automatic, the want for you driving me through the morning until that moment you took my hand into yours, whispered your hope that I was having a good morning, my ultra-bad soft-core porn-like response of 'it is now', and then you kissed me. You, kissing me in your favorite place in the whole wide world. It was that moment I realized that my dream did come true. That you like me as more than a friend.  
   
Last night, I'm sitting at the dinner table as my mom bitches out the help again over how their table-setting skills are lax, that her food is too dry; never mind the fact that her glass to the side is filled with a fifth helping of rum and Tab, the most disgusting drink I've ever had the displeasure to mix (trust me, it smells like paint thinner, never drink it). She asks me how my day was; and I tell her good. She asks why, and my mind struggles to think up something to cover up the fact that for the first time since mid-seventh grade, I have to lie to her, because the schoolwork wasn't the most exciting part of my day in school.  
   
I make up something about the challenging curriculum of AE, how it's vexing me, yet I'm acing everything Mr. Silvestri's tossing my way. In reality, it's that moment before lunch in Russian Novels when the bell rings and I'm melting in my seat from how relaxing your hands feel against the back of my neck, those fingers of yours through my hair comparable to the hairbrush I use every morning, slowly easing your way from beneath the rope of my necklace. You pull them away to gather your books, but before you do, you get my attention by saying my full name aloud. Your sweet voice has my undivided attention, and as everyone is distracted with the business of getting to lunch, you bring your mouth close to my ear, to whisper a secret. I have no idea what's about to be said, but I figure something mundane.  
   
"Par?" You question, as I'm focused on nothing uncouth. "Pink and pink, I match today, promise." You drift away, turn to face me, and smile. "Hungry?" you ask, reminding me of our next destination of the dining hall. Your whisper distracts me from the thought of food; instead focusing on mentally undressing you and sating that hunger in a way not appropriate for a Chilton setting. You're lucky that I have this reserved persona to me, the kind that doesn't take those words and try to act in the middle of a classroom to confirm that indeed, you did match, and that I'm starved for your touch. Still I lie to Mother, go on about economics, how much I want to ace the upcoming exam he's been hinting on giving out, while the same time getting that rush in my head that you took what seemed like an awful and hidden flirt on my end the day before, then turned the tables on me to let me know that what I'd say to you would eventually come back to haunt me.  
   
I took that little moment of the day to bed with me last night, and thought about it as I drifted off, smiling my way to sleep. It was such a little and inconsequential moment in that entire day, along with the day before when I noted you weren't matching. But you're like me Rory, you notice the little things. You see how I am, and you've started this relationship slow and steady, like a turtle. Yet you tantalize. I'm happy I do that to you too, that this longing for me built up so much, that whatever we have now, it's strong and we can't deny it to each other anymore.  
   
Thank you for thinking of me like that, no matter if it was unconscious in sleep or not. I might not be the most self-confident girl in the room (and you can tell), but right now I feel like the most revered and respected, by you.  
_   
**It takes two pages and seven paragraphs to respond to what she thought of my dream, but whether she took an entire notebook to do that or just those first two sentences in her first paragraph, how she thinks about me, and how that moment at the end of Russian Novels, something rash and unexpected, led her day to go from draggy and regular, to something good. Honest, the matching thing just came to me out of the blue, I was just trying to keep her on her toes. It makes me smile to think that seven little words define a day like that.  
   
I look at her; she's shaking a cramp out of her left hand, gripping the cool metal faucet next to her that pours into the basin next to her that's used for experiments to cool the pain down. Her eyes look into mine, and there's a slight smile, unnoticed by anyone else. I link my index finger with hers, a gesture hidden by the messenger bag in front of us to everyone else.  
   
We both feel everything has been said, and that we can talk more later on. I write down one last line in my notebook to close the conversation, and state how I feel about her description simply.  
   
 ** _Thank you for warming up to me hon. I knew one day you'd finally give up on the 'school a living hell' line of thinking; I wore you down, didn't I?  
_**    
She gives me a dirty look, and ends all talk with her own comeback.  
   
 ** _I'm still making it hell as we speak; right now you just want to flee to the bathroom, don't you?  
_**    
Paris smirked, and I shook my head, knowing she was teasing, but at the same time, knew my truth. The particle board that made up the seat beneath me was magnifying the 'itch' that's now become my new constant companion. After this hot 'instant letter' session, all I did want to do was take this to the broom closet Louise-style.  
   
I pushed the feeling down though, and both of us brought our attention back to where it should've been, the lesson being presented. I'm just happy to have a push to go to school everyday now besides the 'I want to get into Harvard' reason that brought me here in the first place. Paris is such a good girlfriend, and to get to know this hidden and secret side of her, it's something I'm starting really treasure and hold close to my heart. There's nothing better than being next to the one you like, and asserting that away from the wary eyes of the gossip circle.  
   
What I find funny is that we did this in Life Sciences class, which can also be called biology. We certainly learned a little about each other's biology today...  
   
And that joke thudded. Fine, done with the class subject cracks, they're not funny, you can stop with that cringing look already, I see it on your face! Geeze, you try to lighten the mood...  


* * *

The student government meeting later in the day was pretty good. Most of the students were able to air their business, and seemed to notice that Paris lended more of an open ear than she had in the past. I like seeing her happier and less tight when it comes to government business. With my relaxing techniques and the tension between us gone, Paris and I had one of our best meetings yet, and everyone was able to accept the higher bid when she told them "They give our lives, even if we might disagree with the views the government has for military action. $500 out of the student treasury surely isn't a strain on fundraising, and keeping our dance loyalties at the Armory rather than paying so much extra for a fancy hotel name on a dance card is better in the end. Hotels can get another event in place of ours; the military deserves the extra support." The only two to nay the vote were of course Lemon and Francie, so the 10-2 vote to keep the Winter Formal at the Armory was pretty much unanimous. We also put on the docket next week the move to keep the Valentine's Day dance there, much to that evil red-head's dismay.  
   
She made sure to let me know that when she confronted me in the bathroom after the meeting adjourned, backing me into a corner of the room. "I thought you were going to vote for the Capitol Hilton," she nagged at me in a harsh voice.  
   
I shook my head at her. "It's tradition to have it in the Armory, and the statistics from the other schools in the area that use the Hilton for their dances show lax supervision of the kids and the hotel taking advantage of kids there by hiking up room prices if they don't feel like going home. Francie, the graphs don't lie, the Armory is a better location for the students than going through downtown Hartford traffic."  
   
"Traditions can be changed," she spat back. "Frankly, I'd rather have prestige than another boring dance."  
   
"Spirit Club puts a lot into the decorations at the Formal in the Armory, much more than paid union help at a hotel. There isn't a need to move the Formal, so just don't." I wasn't getting anywhere with Francie, but it was worth a shot.  
   
"If I wanted gay decorations I'd recruit someone on Christopher Street to help me out." I stood frozen as what should've been unconnected to the club Francie was trying to eradicate was brought into this fight we were having. "I don't care if a fucking Picasso is in that Spirit Club, a few of them are Rainbow Triangles and they don't belong in that club. The last place I'd want to be is hanging a balloon line on a ladder with some lezbo looking up my skirt!"  
   
Wow, I was speechless. Somehow, Francine Jarvis has managed to make an even more homophobic slur than the last time she met with me. Just cold shock that she'd describe someone like me in such a hateful manner. No wonder Paris warned me it was going to be tough for both of us to come out at Chilton, with girls like her on top, no boy or girl would want to suffer at the hands of the populars like Francie.  
   
"That was uncalled for!" I said firmly. "They help the school, and they do more good than they ever will harm."  
   
"There is nothing about them that is good. They're abominations against God, and just because they can't get their sad little selves laid from the opposite sex in this school doesn't mean they should screw each other's ugly little bodies out of desperation."  
   
Never had I found myself more pissed off at a single individual than at that exact moment. Jarvis had her teeth bared in a wide smile, her stance defensive, words like cutting knives. I thanked God no one was around to hear these hateful words, as they stirred something inside that I couldn't help; content for this right-wing bitch coasting by on Daddy's political clout as a top man in the Legislature and bitter because even he couldn't save her precious Puffs.  
   
"Funny how that also describes you, minus the girl interest," I responded snidely. "You're like the Ann Coulter of this school; you look cute, but no guy wants to share a bed with you because of what comes out of that hateful mouth of yours." If she was going to keep up with these barbs against the Rainbow Triangles, she was going to find herself with a black eye pretty soon.  
   
"Like your words have any effect on me, _Virgin_." Scowling, she slid her bag on her shoulder and started out of the bathroom. "You will keep me happy Gilmore, count on that. If you don't change your vote in the next month when I bring up the elimination of Fag Club, count on these last five months of Chilton to be trying on your mental state thanks to my girls. Just watch, I have conduits into the gossip circle, and when December 18th rolls around, you'll see a 12-0 vote against RTS. You can't deny the will of the people, and when my girls give details of what's what with that club to the general student population, there will be no choice but to vote yes to deny funding." Then just to get in one last shot, she blew a bubble of gum and snapped it real loud towards my ear. "Hope you have a nice evening, Gilm- _whore_." She walked out the bathroom with stiff resounding steps, leaving me yet another tape of hateful barbs, more anger at her now that I am in an actual same-sex relationship, and a determination to figure out how to save RTS without Paris and I being exposed before we were ready.  
   
It's the start of something I'd love to tell someone about, but I can't. I don't want Paris to look at me in a hateful way again, and being in this arrangement to give Francie an occasional yea vote was hard enough. To see her, as just a girl plotting to destroy a student group made me feel like I was in a tangled string, finding it tough to get out. I stood by the sink with two fingers to my temples, feeling stressed at this attack on my new lifestyle. I just wanted to love Paris, but I never expected Francie to make things tough on us by eliminating a social club.  
   
"Fuck," I mumbled into the mirror. I wasn't giving up on Par, and I certainly wasn't ready to let RTS be remembered only in the _Aurora_ on page 237, above a picture of the Arbor Club. I have to figure out a way to keep them alive, not only for this year, but for future generations, so the new leader of Francie's guild won't be able to deny funding to them, no matter what they did.  
   
Francie didn't get Paris, nor I at that Puffs initiation; I'll be damned if she's going to take out her inconsequential feud with both of us out on 27 kids who only mean to help and raise awareness, not disgust fellow students. Hopefully by the time my class of 2003 graduates in June, the tables will turn and Francie will be the one facing the music. Because I could never forgive myself if I was able to save them but could do nothing but stand by the sidelines as cruel parliamentary action undid everything good they ever did. Paris wouldn't vote no uninfluenced, I know that. But she would change her mind if there was force or a groundswell from the students to oppose funding, that or she was afraid of controversy, so she would have to quell it with a yes vote.  
   
Student government is exhausting and wearing at times, but I'd rather be fighting at Paris' side to further her harmless agenda than having to see Francie get her way and leave everyone who doesn't agree with her out in the shadows. And without becoming Par's vice president, the events of the summer that brought me towards realizing my feelings for her would have never happened.  
   
I left the bathroom, putting behind the drama of politics as usual until the next week. My feeling is that Francie picked December 18th to make a statement and discredit our government before the winter recess, and with the holidays approaching the religious feelings would influence the vote towards her. Hopefully this next month would give me time to figure things out.  
   
I'm sitting at Luke's right now across from my mother, trying to figure out where I want things to go with Paris from here. Today was a great day for me, coming up with better ways for the both of us to flirt in such a secret way. Mom keeps asking why I overslept, but there's no damned way she's ever going to learn the truth from me about that! She keeps joking about me being Sleeping Beauty, but I'm barely listening as I glide a fry across a smooth red pool of ketchup, thinking again about how much I hate the distance between North Hartford and Stars Hollow. I don't want to think about Paris right now, I just want to relax and unwind from my stressful school day. But my memory just wants to replay the events over and over again.  
   
It was so much easier when Dean was my boyfriend, where the temptation was killed because of the separate towns we had schools in, and the fact we came together afterschool at the bus stop. My world has been turned upside down though; my lover is there all through school, but nowhere to be found after 5:30pm except under her screenname _PGellar167_ or at (860) 246-0808. God, I want to see her so much more, and I want us away from the eyes and ears of the region, that way I can finally show off my uninhibited feelings for her without having to peek over her shoulder every kiss to make sure a wary eye isn't in on our scene.  
   
I want to go out on a real date with her. I don't care where, I don't care when, and I could care less if it was just to a Barnes and Noble. I just want to be out with Paris, be able to hold her hand without having to use a prop to hide it. I want her to be all chivalrous and caring, pulling out my chair and telling me 'the world is your oyster Gilmore, pick what you want from the menu'. Not that I'm discounting the dance at all, that's how we finally took the tentative steps towards this to begin with. Some way, I want Paris to take me out on a night on the town without any repercussions. Also, without boundaries or time constraints; every time I think of her now I can't help but feel a swoon in my heart at a mere mention of her name, or even one little thought. I go past Connecticut Public Television and see the familiar outline of the Eiffel Tower during a travelogue program. I numb, and I drop the remote. dazedly, I watch the show with eyes glazed over and Sunday afternoon rushing through my mind again. I can't help the dry mouth and smile I get when someone mentions her, be it Jess or Mom.  
   
"Rory? Hon?" My mom waves her hand in front of my face to rouse me back into the real world. "You OK there? You've been dipping that fry over a minute at least."  
   
I look down at my plate; my finger is dripping with ketchup, along with the ruined potato. Dang it, I can't eat that now. I drop the fry and get out a napkin to wipe my fingertips.  
   
"Oh, uh, I'm sorry." I shake my head and blot the ketchup off my fingers.  
   
"Are you alright there, you seem lost in thought. Did you get a bad grade today?" My mom's concern is definitely noted and understandable since my focus is less on school lately. I shake my head and reassure her with another white lie.  
   
"I'm alright Mom, just a slow and wearing day that would never end." Perfect cover Ror. "Just trying to figure out in my mind what's important for midterms and what isn't." That seems to satisfy her and she goes back to her daily game of bugging and poking Luke as I keep thinking here about my dating situation.  
   
Sure it's going to be awkward if we get to the first date, what one isn't? My lead-off line in asking Dean for a date to the Winter Formal was about chicken and Paris was toting a deck of index cards for Tristan, so we're both certifiable when it comes to this kind of thing. My dates usually consisted of movies at the bookshop, while Paris had to make do with dull parties and awful conversation. Certainly both of us have very little experience with the 'so what's this and this like' kind of small talk that you use dates for in order to make sure you're compatible and a perfect match.  
   
I think that's OK though. Awkwardness is a good way to keep us both at ease, and since we're together the pressure is less on things like kissing or flirting through the night. I don't know if it's going to be me or Paris fielding the first ask-out, but whoever does it between the both of us, we're going to have a unique first date. There's the slight possibility that the dating world might not be for us and we'll realize that it might not work between us. If it doesn't, I'll deal with it through humility. But I see that happening only in terms of fractions of a percentage point. There's a connection here between the both of us, and we have to do our share in taking it from a tenuous bond wrapped around like a loaf of bread's twist tie, into a ship's anchor chain.  
   
With that, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket to notify me of a text message. I take it from my watch pocket, and read the screen to see what was sent. I smile when I read who sent it to me, and what's contained.  
   
 ** _Ror,  
   
Good day today,  
Thur should be even better.  
Talked to Mother,  
she'll be gone till 9 tomorrow night...meeting.  
Manor study session; Y/N?  
   
Par  
   
_**I smile a little; she's inviting me to study at the Manor tomorrow so we can spend some time alone together under the cover of a study session. Knowing Paris it will be a study session, but with those open five hours and no Franklin or government meetings in sight, there's plenty of time for couple-ish things for us to do.  
   
"Mom," I ask. "Paris says I should come over and we should study together at her house tomorrow night." I hide my excitement behind the weary 'I'd rather be watching drywall mud settle' voice that used to define how I felt about time spent with Paris outside of Chilton. "Can I go over there once we get out of Chilton?"  
   
"Knock yourself out kiddo, I can do a girl's night with Sookie then." She smiles at me, seeming to be happy with the closeness I'm having with Par. "Just as long as you check in at seven."  
   
"No problem," I say as I message Paris back immediately, internally giddy.  
   
 ** _Par,  
   
Y to that, Mom said it was cool.  
Agreed on good day, I miss you a lot.  
Hope you have a good rest of the night.  
   
Later,  
Ror  
   
_**I send the reply, happy I have an excuse to have some time with her alone. I think that the conversation is over, but Paris sends one last missive before I put away my cell phone.  
   
 ** _Ror,  
   
Miss you too, a lot. Rt 91  
feels like US1 from ME to FL without you here.  
   
A million miles, but I feel so close to you despite.  
   
Par  
   
_**I hold back my emotions reading her truncated text, which no one else who doesn't have extensive knowledge of America's highway system would understand. Thirty minutes between us, but with everything between us, I might as well be in Key West, Florida, with her unhappy in Fort Kent, Maine.  
   
There's no way I ever felt this way with Dean, even when he was writing to me in Washington from Winnetka. Him I could handle missing with how our relationship was, but this...so much different. I put away my phone, the internal clock in my head setting an alarm for 3:35pm and the half-hour after that when Paris and I are in the cavernous surroundings of Gellar Manor with only her nanny and a few other staff members with their eyes on us.  
   
No one near her room, a second floor bedroom, Mrs. Gellar at a meeting...oh dear, something tells me that tomorrow is going to be _very_ interesting. I sense that any allusions to innocent studying will be gone by the time I call Mom to check in tomorrow...  


* * *

** Paris' POV, Thursday, 8:45pm **

****I love the taste of forty-eight year-old wine so much. The flavors, the sugars, the way the red alcohol swirls within the glass and the way it goes from your mouth and straight to the pleasure center of your brain as the liquid slides down your throat. It's not as sweet as I expected it to be, but after two and a half glasses of this $1,725 bottle of Petrus Merlot, it's natural to feel a nice light feeling from all the fermentation it's gone through, along with the intoxicants flowing through my bloodstream. I mean to survive the Cold War, the rise and fall of the USSR, the suburbanization of American and survive several economic growth periods and not be opened, that's something.  
   
What it's celebrating however, may have never been fathomed by the person who corked the bottle in Bordeaux all those years ago, much less accepted back then. They probably also didn't expect that the wine would be drunk by two girls mad for each other, or that it would end up in the end as my liquid courage to take the next step in this relationship.  
   
I remember bringing the bottle out of the mini-fridge I keep drinks in, and wine glasses out of my desk after I changed out of my uniform and into a loose sweatshirt with relaxed jeans. Rory sat on the bed wondering what the significance of it was, and how it seemed to be an emblem of our love/hate relationship. I lent her the bottle to look at, and her eyes widened as she took in all that the wine represented.  
   
"I stole that bottle from the wine cellar ten months ago, almost to this day," I told her. "After you had to get to know Sherrie I wasn't sure that I would ever be able to open it, but I didn't bring it back downstairs because I figured that there's always a flicker of hope out there in anything." I slid next to her in my bed, the large cloud of a mattress I slept on for years for the first time seeming small, intimate, and most of all, perfect.  
   
"I'd keep looking at it each time I thought about you, and I even brought it with me to Washington, where I hid it in the space between the top of my mattress and the headboard. It's not the recommended way to store it by any means, but just having it with me gave me that slight bit of hope that someday, you would reciprocate."  
   
"So this," she mumbled, pointing at the label, "this wine kept you from shying away from your feelings?" I nodded yes, my hand twined in hers. "And you never thought of opening it at all, you never gave up hope."  
   
"I may have thought it was fruitless at times Ror, but I was never going to give up." I brought down my voice a little. "This bottle wouldn't be opened until the day we had each other, and now, it's finally going to be sipped from." I rose up in the bed, taking back the bottle from Rory and reaching for the corkscrew next to my alarm clock and the Supreme Court picture, which Rory was touched to see at my bedside. "Do you want any?"  
   
She thought for a moment, afraid of the trouble she was going to get in, and the uncertain fear that she might do something she might regret. "Sharon won't miss this bottle? What about getting home?"  
   
"Trust me when I say she couldn't tell the difference between this and Two Buck Chuck with her drunken view of the world; she probably thinks she chugged it down months and months ago." I then explained the alternative. "I can have Henrico drive you home, feign tiredness to stay off the road. Any impairment on the road is unacceptable."  
   
"Fine with me," she mumbled. "It looks like a very nice bottle, and I wouldn't want it to go to waste after all this time you've kept it." I uncorked the bottle in front of her and had her hand me one of the glasses to pour it in. We were far from heavy drinkers, but she didn't seem to mind that I poured it up to 3/4 of the way up the glass for both of us as we sat next to each other on the bed, looking at not only each other, but the liquid.  
   
"You want to toast?" she asked. "It's only natural in a situation like this."  
   
"That it is." I smiled, and we brought the glasses back in order to solidify the toast with a hard clanking of the glasses together. "To us, and many, many more of these times, together. Another goodbye to the past, and hello to this future." The foreshadowing to a week ago, when Rory dropped the bracelet into the river, was obvious in what I said, as I intended.  
   
Her eyes met mine mid-stream. "To us." Our glasses met at the middle, and then to symbolize the togetherness, I brought my glass to her mouth for her to sip, and my mouth to her glass as our arms crossed together and we sipped from the glasses slowly, our gazes locked in and unwavering. The taste was a little bitter, but that was to be expected from such an old drink. After a little bit of swilling around my mouth the full body of flavor came out, and both of us noted how wonderful it was that this moment could finally happen.  
   
We did study, sure; that was the exact reason I needed Rory there with me to begin with. The conversation flowed as heavy as the open bottle of wine however, and within an hour, all academic allusions that we were having all but disappeared when the second glasses for each of us were gone, leaving both of us just a little soused up but not too hard. Both of us were still coherent and aware, enough that Rory remembered to call Lorelai and check in with her at seven o'clock, just like she asked.  
   
Rory seemed to talk about everything her mind could catch, going from a _Lonely Planet_ -like dream travelogue of the Alps region, over to her latest reads, to the latest news and her opinions on things, including her opposition of Iraqi war action without hard picture proof. Her opinion matched mine so well, and though I was ready to fight her vocally with a drunk voice, there was no need to. My mind, despite its muddled state managed to come up with many things to talk about; I even felt comfortable telling her about my family and confiding in her how much I hoped that Mohegan Man's yacht would be eaten by a shark in the waters off San Diego. Boy did that receive a loud yelp from Rory!  
   
"I don't think sharks like chickens from the sea!" She pounded on the bed. "What does your mom see in him?"  
   
"About nine inches, and eight numbers separated into groups of three with a dollar sign on the end," I commented, my usual reserved filter of conversation removed in the company of my girlfriend. "She has a history of bad dating choices, and this would be her fifth this year."  
   
"He looks like a white-collar fucking Captain Ron," Rory noted. "Has he done the whole 'I want to be your friend honey' spiel on you yet?"  
   
I laughed. "If he does I'll introduce him to my friend Mr. Taser, God bless money and power." She knew I was serious about owning a stun gun, which I don't carry unless I'm in the bad part of a city. Martial arts come in handy better in lighter situations and less crime-ridden portions of the world. "I've gotten used to the fact that I'll hate anyone my mom brings home, and if she wants to fuck up her life, go on right ahead."  
   
"That-that is good thinking." The wine was dizzying, and her blue eyes were looking straight into mine as we lay in bed at each other's sides. "To hell with your mom, I hope she's having a blast at Lame-O Club or wherever she is."  
   
I shook my head towards her. "OK, you're an awful drunk Gilmore." I smiled at her, feeling the dizzying spell of the wine myself.

About that moment I was cursing my choice of a tank top over the sweatshirt, for the body heat and blankets between us made me remove that first heavier layer of clothing. I only wore the article as underwear so I wasn't stuck wearing a bra, but my abundance of cleavage is crystal clear when I'm laying down on a bed and Rory's eyes are trailed down the line into my shirt.  
   
"I'm glad I know you," she mumbled, as she brought herself closer and wrapped her arms around my waist. "I'm a little buzzed, but I think even without the alcohol talking here, you'd still look as cute as you do right now." Rory's quick change wardrobe after school consisted of track pants and one of those strange slogan shirts I don't know why are popular, but no matter since Rory looks very nice wearing the blue tee; as long as she's next to me, I could care less about dress.  
   
"Thanks, I guess." It's still hard for me to take a compliment to heart, no matter how true it might be. The insecurities of being Paris Gellar are still here as they've always been, but the brunette across from me is doing her best to cut down all that I think about myself.  
   
"Don't guess, know that you are Par." She rolls me onto my back and hovers above me, her legs locking with mine. "You're very pretty," she whispers softly. "Warm and soft too, like a pillow." She moves in close, brushes her hand against my forehead. "Not the wine talking either. When you wrapped around me while we slept on Sunday I felt so relaxed and calm, your arm at my side."  
   
Hearing that the spoon wasn't in vain Sunday morning, I smiled. "I thought you were going to freak out, I didn't mean to wrap around so close." Her face moves closer to mine, and she nuzzles her nose against my cheek. Every hair on my arm is stiff and up from such sexually intimate contact, and her ankle against mine feels so good, even better then when I nudged her beneath the table yesterday.  
   
"I didn't freak out. As a matter of fact I tried to encourage you closer."  
   
"Like you are now?" I note, my voice going through caring timbres I never thought possible.  
   
"Perhaps." She lines up to kiss me slowly, a couple of her right fingers twining into a belt loop on my jeans. The lilting and surprising touch so close makes me shift around a little. "What on earth would I do without that intenseness that you bring into my life, Par-Bear?" It's romantic, and somehow I'm getting used to the pet nickname she's giving for me, even though my first aural reaction is like nails on a slate to that.  
   
"I'm just focused, not intense," I try to correct her as she brushes her lips at the corner of my mouth. The smell of light alcohol on our breath gets into my system, and the night is turning out so much better than planned.  
   
"You do the work and have the passion that can only be done by three Chilton valedictorians, you're very intense. Not that it's a bad thing by any means..." She looked around the room and back down at me. "...especially when you look like this above me."  
   
I felt myself stiffen, her compliment soothing me so much. "Thank you," I murmur softly. "For not only seeing me in this light, but staying a pest all these years, always wanting my friendship no matter what. God knows where I'd be right now if we didn't keep being pushed together by all these outside forces."  
   
Her long brown hair tickles my nose, and nothing but intense crystalline blue is within my vision, Rory's cool blue eyes captivating me so much. She flushes against me, her angelic features and those freckles, now unhidden by makeup, reassuring me that going for this was the right choice. "I never wanted to lose you; what you think about me is just as high an opinion as anyone in my family's, be it Grandpa, Grandma, Lane, or my mother. What you say holds weight in my world, and I never want you to forget that."  
   
She slides her hands up into my hair, and without any extra words having to be said, for the first time ever, I was able to kiss someone on my bed as she closed the distance and kissed me softly and long. I don't even know where the kiss started or ended, for my memory seems to disappear whenever Rory and I come together like that. Her mouth is so soft, her rhythm well-practiced from the two years she spent with Caveman. Not that there's any thought about her ex, I'm just glad to have someone with experience helping me into the everyday peculiarities of the American relationship.  
   
I'm just lost in her for minutes and minutes, the both of us just reveling in our company. By the time we separate for modesty's sake, it's almost about 8pm, and our tops are wrinkled from all the contact and pushing we did in the bed. It's just the both of us, focusing on each other, the world a blur to the both of us besides the webstream of classical music coming from my computer so I would have another focal point for my ears besides the rustling of the blankets.  
   
Rory looks at me a bit after I settle down, her eyes wide towards me, and the time to ask her is just moments away. I have the entire first date planned out, a basic romantic night out away from Hartford, and without any kind of elaborate plan. Plain and simple seems to be the way to win her over, and with the little alcohol we've had, I feel we're still both coherent enough to understand what we're getting into here.  
   
"Ror?" I raise my voice and ask her to sit up. She finds herself curious, and she crossed her legs Indian-style, throwing the yarn afghan my paternal Nana made for me over her shoulders to warm up a little. "There's something I meant to ask you tonight, but I can't find the words to state them." I fumble around with the hem of my tank top.  
   
"Shoot, and take your time, I'm not going anywhere." Her smile reassured me a little. I really didn't have a rehearsed 'I want to go out with you' speech, so I was just going to take it in my own comfortable way and see where it leads. I started, trying to keep calm.  
   
"OK, you know I like you, right?" She nods, mentioning we wouldn't have been necking in my bed for an hour if I didn't. "Well, let's say for argument's sake that I know I want to be with you, definitely. The thing is we're still keeping everything secret, so we can't be seen anywhere in public without a wary eye catching sight of us. They're going to tell everyone and our intimacy disappears like a cloud of smoke. Same thing in Stars Hollow, that Kirk guy isn't exactly the best at keeping secrets, and he seems to be almost everywhere."  
   
"Well his workload is usually five jobs, so I'm required to bump into him at least once a day."  
   
"Anyways, not that this night hasn't been fun, or the last four days in school, I'm treasuring each of those days." Geeze I ramble like a madwoman, why don't I ever simplify questions? "But there's just this need inside that I want to go...go out with you. Like, date you and stuff. You know, like dinner, dancing, a movie, that kind of thing?" I felt truly nervous as I tried to close the deal with her listening intently. "What I guess I'm trying to ask is...will you go out with me tomorrow night, on a real date?"  
   
I expected her to light up and be happy, say yes without much thought. Instead, she frowned a little and tried to let me down easy. "I can't, sorry. Tomorrow night--"  
   
Without hesitation I interrupted her answer, trying to shield my soul from being torn apart. "I understand then, I guess we're not ready quite yet, or you're not. I mean I am, but obviously you're several steps ahead of where I'd like to be."  
   
"Par--" Rory tried to speak up, so I stopped her again.  
   
"Look it's fine, I guess I was never datable material to begin with." The Self-Loathing Express was leaving the station at a fast clip. "I mean I wouldn't expect you after four days to drop everything and be all 'Yes, I want to go out with you', things are going too fast."  
   
"Listen, hon--" My voice was starting to raise and the burn of being turned down was starting to amplify as Rory moved to reassure me.  
   
"I jumped the gun with playing with your foot yesterday, didn't I?! I knew there was something up with that, and you weren't doing anything to reciprocate!" I saw Rory become frustrated with being unable to get a word out, her brows scrunched and seemingly feeling emotional at cutting myself down. "I guess it's my fault, I shouldn't have--"  
   
"PARIS!!" Rory screamed my name real loud, causing my thoughts about the ask-out to evaporate. She was still smirking at me despite the accusations I was throwing towards myself, and before I could react, she took my hand into her.  
   
"Yeah?" Her stern tone killed any response from me whatsoever.  
   
"If you would stop and listen to me before you jumped to conclusions, you'd remember that Friday night is never going to be a good night for me when it comes to dating. It's always going to be Friday night dinners with Grandpa and Grandma. If I don't go they don't pay for Chilton, and I don't see you anymore." Her hand slowly moved up my arm. "Now I know we really wouldn't want that, would we?"

 _You really need to let people finish their sentences_ , I immediately thought to myself, _it's not always going to be the end of the world when they say no!_ Absolutely mortified, I felt like a bitch for jumping on Rory like that.  
   
"No," I answered. "Chilton without you would be...like the Red Sox moving to Minot, North Dakota out of spite, cruel and awful to deal with. I'm sorry, I should've known there was a sane reason for you to turn me down like that."  
   
"I'm not though."  
   
"But you said no to dating me--"  
   
Rory cleared up what she really meant. "I want to go out with you Par, I'm glad you got the guts to go through with asking me out. Just please tell me you have Saturday penned in as a rain day, because if I could, I'd get out of my Friday night dinner, but I don't see Grandma ever letting me out of it."  
   
"Actually, I have plans for Saturday night, so no to that day also." I said sadly. "I have to wash my hair, repaint my room, paint my toenails, launder illegal Colombian drug money, finally make peace with Mother..." It was fun watching Rory go from forlorn to annoyed as my bullshitting and baiting her went from sane to completely impossible. She pushed towards me in the bed as my serious and staid tone of voice started to crack.  
   
"Paris," she growled.  
   
"I'm not done, I forgot to mention my job as a bar mitzvah entertainer, my _I Got You Babe_ absolutely slays the boy who becomes the man of the hour..." She gets daring, pushes me down, as my smile just starts to slay her.  
   
"Are you going to stop?" Rory asked, giving me that look that told me to shut up. I saw her fingers at the ready, wiggling in the air to signal that if I didn't shut up, I'd be in for a world of pleas--...I mean hurt. _She wouldn't possible try that_ , I thought.  
   
"Make me," I stated firmly. Why the hell was I suddenly so playful and coy, trying to bait Rory on. Two years ago I wouldn't have dare done anything like this, hell, a smile out of me would've been a _She's All That_ -like challenge to anyone!  
   
"You want it?" she asks firmly.  
   
"To finish off the night I'm going to play Monopoly with Bill Gates, using real money and real buildings!!" I knew what she was about to do, and that triggered off yet another wave of romantic horseplay. She pushes the shirt above my stomach, shaking her head.  
   
"Such a pity you didn't listen to me Gellar, for now I'm going to have to do this." She then did something none of my friends ever dared to, much less my parents at all; she tickled me!  
   
The silly contact was shocking, considering the last time anyone had tickled me was my old friend Clarence's little 'doctor visit' with me so long ago. With puberty and hormones now in play however, this was a lot different than I expected. She just jumped right on top of me and played around, and I couldn't refuse her because I was too damned mindspun to even try to push her away.  
   
"Stop, please...I'm sorry I mean, oh God, will you not do that Rory?" I was trying with my words to get her to stop, but the words were buffered with laughter and coughing in-between from the wonderful contact she was forcing upon me. I never thought of myself as particularly sensitive, but apparently I have plenty of nerve endings in my stomach. She kept tickling me as I tried to grab at her in an attempt to stop. All that ended up doing was give me a fistful of t-shirt I kept tugging at.  
   
"Someone beneath me is very ticklish, isn't she?" she theorizes, using her free hand to ball one of mine into a fist and nullifying any attempt to use my self-defense training to get out of the situation. Though really it was weak self-defense, because I was becoming complacent to that. Her hands felt so good against my belly, no matter how reeling and foreign the feeling was.  
   
"I'll never do this again if you stop right now, I promise!!" I cried out with laughter blending into my voice, to no avail. She continued, and my hand gripped at the collar of her t-shirt in an attempt to have her level off the touching. I thought that the material was strong enough to withstand what we were doing, that my strength really wasn't that much in the middle of her having a tickle battle with me.  
   
The sound of a loud tear after a tightened yank, then Rory's loud "WHOA!" as I started to see more white floral print bra than blue t-shirt, showed that my wanton side had more control at that exact moment than my inhibitions. I didn't mean to tear at her clothes obviously, it was totally supposed to be innocent. I shut my eyes, ashamed in front of her to have behaved in this manner, and turned away so she wouldn't see the violent hot blush I felt my face taking on.  
   
I felt like I just ruined everything, giving into what I felt and going too far with the tickle game by shredding her t-shirt into shambles. I wasn't in control of my body, but I could've thought things out better, like blocking her tickling hand instead of trying to pull at her, resulting in what happened.  
   
"I'm sorry," I rushed out, still facing away from her. "I didn't mean to tear off your shirt like that. If you don't want to go on that date, trust me, I'll completely understand why, because I blew it." My stomach felt like jelly from the tickling, the top still ridden up from static cling.  
   
It had to be all over, Rory was a prude and wouldn't take kindly to what I had just done, I just knew it. Never mind if it was completely accidental, that is something you **don't** do for quite awhile in a relationship. Say about ten years into marriage, your significant other has a mistress and you need a last-gasp spark to keep them, so you resort to tearing off shirts and underwear to be 'the aggressive one'. No doubt about it, I fucked up everything, and Rory was going to end this silly 'being gay with me' experiment after I freaked her out with this forcefulness.  
   
I braced for her to tell me that we were through, for the string of rebukes and accusations that I was taking advantage of her.  
   
She wraps her arms around me, and settles down against my back to envelope me in a hug, bringing down my shirt to preserve my modesty. Just when I think things are going to go bad, I realize something.  
   
I can feel that shirt is off and she's just in her bra, and her mouth is tickling against my left ear. Her breath is deep and shallow, and her actions suggest she's far from angry at me. She settles her chin against my shoulder, and when I expect her to rip my head off...  
   
"Well I know we're definitely on for Saturday night now, aren't we hon?" Her voice is at that same 'warm me up' purr from last week, and I feel myself stiffen when her hand rubs against my stomach. I widen my eyes, convinced this is a figment of my imagination.  
   
"Saturday night?" I mumble, my voice seeming to retract into a whisper. "But I tore up your shirt, you should be mad at me Gilmore, that must've cost you a lot..."  
   
She kisses the lobe of my ear, leaning closer against me. "You worry too much about my money, trust me, it's OK. That's what fooling around does, kills your inhibitions and make you do things you never expected. Just relax Par, you did nothing wrong."  
   
I moaned from all this sudden comfort and the effect that it had on me, and the relief I felt that this isn't the end was immense. "So you're OK with...that?"  
   
"I'm just thinking at least you get under my shirt, Dean didn't even try! C'mon, turn around, I'm not mad and I'm not mortified here."  
   
She releases to let me turn around to face her, and though I shrug away at first, I bite the bullet and eventually view the efforts of what wrath I had wrought with Rory. To say I was shocked at how wild I can get with a few glasses of wine in my system along with this strong yearning for Ror was an understatement. I saw the shirt, torn and hanging from the bedpost, the frayed fabric from the collar down the middle, looking worse for the wear. I couldn't believe I did that.  
   
My vision then drifted over to Rory, sitting on the other side of the bed, her eyes trained on me, her sitting position strange. I wasn't used to seeing her except for dreams without a shirt on, so to have her on my bed with just her bra on was a sight for me to behold. All that freckling, that wide path of cleavage she had between each breast, and her thin yet healthy build defining the slim curves she has, from the blades of her shoulders to her waistline, where I could see her wide bellybutton. My mouth dried up and I had no words for how beautiful she was, with her smile and her blue eyes sparkling the glare from the nightstand lamp next to her.  
   
I can't help but want her more after that, telling me that my aggressiveness was a turn-on rather than something to reel back from. She beckoned me closer, asking me again what my backup plans were just in case tomorrow night fell through.  
   
"I really have nothing on Saturday, I put all of my plans into Friday night." I slid a finger through my hair, thinking for a moment. "But I'm sure with a few calls I can fix everything to go out with you on Saturday night. That is...if you do still want to date me."  
   
She smiled at me, and moved closer to me again. "What time should I be ready?" she asked, and I felt my heart grow a little bigger when I heard that. Also that I was there to either accept or ask for a date, I wasn't going to have an incident like that with Jamie happen to me ever again, this definitely has my full attention!  
   
I feel peaceful again, the tight unease gone from Rory's acceptance. I look towards her and smile. "You told me once that a Gilmore dating rule is to always be a little late, right?" She nodded as both of us came closer again for another cuddling session. "Since we're going up to Springfield for this date, (God I love saying that word!) I'd say 5:45 theoretically, but in reality you'll be out at 6 o'clock."  
   
"Um, in this case we better both be ready at six. We don't anyone to think this is a date, right?" Rory's worries were well-founded, I had to make this out to be more of a friendly outing between us than a date for appearance's sake.  
   
"Think up an excuse by tomorrow afternoon then, we'll need it for Sharon and then for your mom so our stories don't conflict." I was going to use school to my romantic advantage for once. "Say, we make up something about a Franklin article on something we already know in Springfield and can do research online, and then say we decided not to do the story once we realized it wasn't compelling."  
   
"The last thing I want to do is violate any journalistic standards, so that works," Rory agreed. "I'll try to build it up then. I'll mention it to Mom before dinner tomorrow night, and she'll have to let me go. You're vicious when irked after all." She looks towards the ripped shirt, then winks back at me, causing me to gasp.  
   
"Rory..." I whined. "Just borrow a damn sweatshirt from my closet, I didn't mean to do that! I swear you're going to hold this over my head---"  
   
"And you're right about that." She sided up against me, and I moved my hands towards her lower back, reveling in the feel of her smooth bared skin. "Delicious wine, good company, a passionate dalliance, and probably a guaranteed 98% grade, what more can a girl ask for in her partner?" She smiles and gives me a light kiss as I stare at her, feeling for once that my middle name of Eusatchia has brought me good fortune, as it's defined.  
   
"Just a few more minutes with you?" I asked hopefully, the clock at 8:10 and Rory having to leave in twenty minutes so Sharon wouldn't catch her here.  
   
"That can definitely can be arranged." She nuzzled her nose against mine, and drew closer, as we spent the rest of the time we had with no words between us. I'm such a damned sap for acting and feeling this way around Rory, but I can't help it, she brings out my lighter side the way she does and I don't have a problem with how I'm coming off now. I just think about her now, and my heart races as the truth races through my head.  
   
 _You're dating Rory Gilmore, Paris. Dating her. You never thought it would happen, but she likes you in this same way. Enjoy this and don't let go, because she really is your other half. Without her, you're just half the woman, with the passion for school, but no passion for life._ I'm pragmatic about how this is all going to go, but I can't deny it anymore; I can't go without Ror. She keeps me sane, and I keep her from losing her mind in turn.  
   
 _I'm dating Rory Gilmore_ , I think again. I'm going to get this date right without Madeline or Louise's help, even if it kills me. Looks like Fran is giving more help when it comes to choosing an outfit to wear. Then again, this is one problem I don't mind having...  


* * *

** Rory's POV, Thursday. 11:00pm **

****_I'm going out with Paris Gellar_. That's still going through my mind as I get ready for bed in a daze, after spending a night at the Manor with her that definitely outpaces any time I ever had to spend at the Forresters. Unless I brought earplugs to tune out Clara and her friend's orgasm-like screams in their room over whatever was playing on Radio Disney ("Oh my God, Aaron Carter is soooooooooooo hawt!!" she'd scream, and I can feel Lane shed a tear for the slow death of rock!), Dean and I would never make out as his house. Not that I'd want to, considering his idea of romantic atmosphere was swiping a candle from his mom's sewing room and putting it on top of his TV which was so old it couldn't even have a Pong video game system plugged or modern cable TV.  
   
Paris has a much different room however, it's more tuned to be a comfortable place to be in love, despite how obsessive with academics it's dweller is. It's Spartan and plain, the antithesis of how you expect a wealthy heiress to be. Her only comfort is her bed, but that's good enough for the both of us. Just laying there in that room, sharing a bottle of wine, good conversation, and rolling around in it with her, that's all I needed. I had a fun night, and the wine she had, showing she's been hoping for this moment since February, was one of the sweetest gestures I've ever experienced, making the tiramisu of the three-month anniversary seem quaint by comparison.  
   
I liked that she also took the lead in asking me out, and calmed down once I reminded her that she couldn't take me out on a Friday. Watching her push my buttons irked me as intended, and when I decided to get some revenge by engaging her in a tickle fight, she started grabbing at my t-shirt. The aggressiveness didn't surprise me; this was a battle of our wits gone physical for the first time ever, but since it was meant to be playful in nature, I was happy to go along with it all.

When she tore off my shirt as I tickled her though...something just went through me that never had before, pure desire for her. She was so apologetic about everything being the girl she is, but in truth, I didn't mind it at all, which is why I tried to flirt and keep her at ease through everything that happened after that. I could've taken offense to everything, but I thought her mannerisms and her thoughts that she had destroyed any chance at me for Saturday, it's something that keeps me aware that I'm the teacher, with her the student. I have the two years of dating experience, along with knowing what to expect. Her dates have been pretty much dull society affairs, so I have to keep that in mind, no matter how much she keeps driving me crazy in and out of school.  
   
She gave one of her Harvard sweatshirts to wear home so I wouldn't have to explain my shredded shirt at all, and as her driver Henrico drove me home in the Gellar town car, I kept thinking about how the date with her on Saturday night will be. Obviously she's not going grand with her plans happening in up north in Massachusetts, which I certainly don't mind at all. I thought there was a small chance she might take me to New York, but the distance and our general unease about heading back down there alone pretty much stops that idea dead. The bus trip back up north after I visited Jess and the boys that Madeline and Louise ran away with at the Bangles concert are incidents I don't care to repeat, and two girls, during nighttime in New York? We both might as well wear 'Human ATM Machine, Please Rob Me!' t-shirts. I haven't been to Springfield all that much except for some runs to the outlet malls there with Mom, but it seems like a nice no-pressure place to have a date.  
   
The guilt of lying through my teeth to Mom also is starting to heavily take root inside. When she saw that I came home with Paris' driver, she wondered what was up, so I went with what Paris said for me to tell her, that she was too tired to drive.  
   
"I thought she didn't sleep," she joked, making me roll my eyes. Then she saw the sweatshirt I was wearing. "And that's definitely her sweatshirt, what happened?"  
   
"I left the spare one I was going to bring over at school," I said, knowing well that it wasn't in the condition to be worn anymore. After some talking and catching up, I was finally able to get in my room, study, and get ready for bed.  
   
So far, everything is a mixed bag when it comes to falling for a girl like Paris. Everything between us is passionate, but you keep looking over your shoulder to make sure that no one is watching you interact with her too closely. The hiding is awful, and both of us are ashamed that we have to hide something so right, because everyone else regards it as wrong in their eyes. I can see the pastor and the rabbi when they find out ready to condemn me for thinking this way, and all the townspeople wondering where their innocent little girl went.  
   
As far as I know, I never left. The only thing happening is that I'm maturing and taking better control of things. I refuse to be complacent in my life and end up in trouble somewhere down the road because I didn't do anything with an opportunity presented to me, and took the easy way out. Some people don't see me as strong, instead their view of me is that I'm going through the motions and living out a wish fulfillment so my mother would end up with a proud life because of me, nary having to lift a finger.  
   
I refuse to let them get their way. I can only think for myself in the end, no matter what is thrown my way, so I have to fight my own battles. I know going in that being Paris' girlfriend is going to be something unique. I'm inheriting into a relationship with a girl who second-guesses herself all the time if something isn't on the Harvard track, and who in the past regarded love as something she'll never have, or want. A girl who over the years has been taught to panic over an A- grade, yet has to take a verbal beating each day from her mother, who wants her to go beyond Einstein, long past Edison, no matter that the girl would probably burn out way before the point of those two geniuses.  
   
Paris needs to be a normal girl, with normal worries. Without me there she goes into a tailspin and feels lost anywhere but in the glare of her LCD monitor or a good book. I need to provide her a steady peg to lean on, be the sympathetic ear to her, and let her know that no matter what, I'll always be there for her.  
   
That is my determination. Saturday **must** go well for the both of us, it just has to. I lie in bed wearing Paris' sweatshirt, which buries me in crimson fleece, and think about her at home, hurriedly on the phone to whomever she's calling to make this date perfect, demanding the best damned customer service money can buy. She's such a perfectionist, so I hope that the waiters of South Central Massachusetts are ready for their most demanding customer ever. Just thinking about that here makes me laugh.  
   
The most important thing about all of is though, is that for the first time in at least a year, I'm looking forward to going out on a date. It's not out of obligation, but the fact that we both want to do this. We have fun together, and this closeness we're starting to share is starting to manifest itself in more than a romantic way. Tonight we made out, sure, but most of the evening, we just talked about nothing in particular. Always a good sign if the person you like is also becoming your best friend.  
   
Another thing I'll have to address one of these days, trying to balance out how much time I spend with Lane with that of Paris. She's been too busy with Dave and the band to really touch base with me lately, which is a relief and makes me relax a little. But once things start to settle, I have to start balancing that out, especially considering that I have no idea how Lane would feel about my being a lesbian.  
   
It's a worry, I won't lie. For now though, things between Paris and I are still secret, and we're unafraid of anything that might get in our way. I hope things go well on Saturday night with her, and that maybe we can make some more progress with each other. The pace is a little faster than expected, but at least I'm finally getting somewhere with someone that I like...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	11. The Blossom and The Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Rory and Paris' first date, and Paris is out to prove to her girl that she's as datable as Dean ever was. Being Paris though, this first date is bound to have some dysfunctions and interesting moments.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Eleven | The Blossom and The Brave  
Author:** Nate  
Pairing: Paris/Rory, Rory POV (this will be a one-chapter event with no Paris POV)  
 **Spoilers:** None of the show's plotline is used in this chapter. The timeline will stay between _Let the Games Begin_ and _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_ for the next few chapters, and for this chapter we're in mid-November 2002. _  
_ **Rating:** R (swearing, sexual actions and allusions, dangerous driving, and the girls make fun of a character not introduced until season five.)  
 **Disclaimer:** We last met about five months ago, and damned if Rory and Paris are still property of Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television. I guess if they want to play hard-to-get I'll have to live with that (sighs). Come on though, we all know that when Paris calls Rory boss (as she did last Tuesday working as a DAR server) and abandoning her old rich ways, it's only a matter of time before Rory decides non-Yale life is boring and heads back to give Paris monetary help, and some other kind of 'help' in addition.  
   
 _Femme Fatale_ (the movie portion of the dinner and a movie), its characters and situations are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures and Quinta Communications. All other trademarks within are the property of their respective owners, though most of the Springfield, MA establishments in the storyline are fictional (or inspired by real-life Springfield establishments).  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** It's Rory and Paris' first date, and Paris is out to prove to her girl that she's as datable as Dean ever was. Being Paris though, this first date is bound to have some dysfunctions and interesting moments.  
 **Author's Notes:** First, I'd like to note that there won't be a Paris POV of this event coming out; from the feedback I heard from some about the _And Then She Kissed Me..._ chapters, some of the events mentioned within were redundant. I decided to do a Rory POV for the date because my thinking is that Paris would be more worried about logistics and the way she came off to Rory, and that would take away from the dramatics and comedy I intend for this chapter. Lest Paris fans be disappointed, I promise the next chapter set will return to the alternating Paris/Rory format, and there it will truly be needed. I have tried to make up for the lack of Paris POV here by adding more dialogue between Rory and Paris, and actions on Paris' end being noticed by her much more now that they're closer together.  
   
Unfortunately, Raven and Cinn won't be able to beta for the time being, so again I thank Erin Griffin for reading through for me again. Hopefully one day my girls can resume their betaing :). Thanks to the encouragement all this summer from everyone who has read and reviewed, and all who I talk to on IM about the story. A very big thanks to Balti for giving the story a look too and for her lovely enthusiasm about my writing.  
   
I don't really have a story rec right now, but I'll just make a blanket recommendation of most everything on femslash.net or the Black & White & Read archives.  
   
Oh and ff.net readers, still femslash after eleven chapters. Don't see it changing at all, don't say I didn't warn you, don't think I'm trying to offend anyone with this fic.  


* * *

I still remember the army of nerves that came upon me for my first date with Dean where we went out without any supervision, be it from Mom or from anyone else. I kept thinking to myself that it wasn't going to work, and the night was going to be a disaster because I was never dateable before Dean took an interest in me. I could look the best I could and have the perfectly made up face, but the first mention of something that I would be comfortable talking about, but Dean was clueless to, the date was ruined and he wouldn't see me the way he did again after that.  
   
My mom eased me into everything, telling me not to rush, that 7pm was not a firm time, and Dean would wait until _Tonight Show_ hours for my company if he needed to as I fretted whether to go with the blue dress that brought my eyes out just so, or that other number hanging in the closet. We spent 15 minutes obsessing over a lipstick choice, as Lorelai went through her opinions on colors. "This one, it screams 'I want you Dean'", she teased, rolling up one with deep red pigment.  
   
"I'm not looking for 'I want you', I just want 'I hope I'm interesting enough tonight.'" I felt weird gussying up for a guy who was taking me to one of the 'grown up' restaurants I only saw through a window walking by as a child, not to mention the fact I was dating a guy, the nervousness of balancing a new relationship and a new school getting to me.  
   
Lorelai looked at my selection for a moment, and settled on a light pink color for me. "This should scream that just fine for you, along with 'but I do want you Dean'," she soothed as she bent down to apply it carefully to my lips, closing my eyes so I wouldn't judge myself out of the color as she put it on. "OK, take a look."  
   
I looked straight into the mirror, and the image in front of me worked. "Cool! I like that color!" I screamed out happily, even though my mom was trying to assure me that lipstick color was not the be-all-end-all of the date.  
   
I had gone with the blue dress, and everything seemed to work right, thank goodness. I was glad for Lorelai to help me out as far as dress and makeup that night two years ago I decided to go out with Dean beyond the _Willie Wonka_ watching, and everything worked out well with the date. It was perfectly cute, the food was good, and the movie we watched wasn't half bad, probably because I overruled his choice of a Stallone flick playing at the bookstore.  
   
The kiss at the end of the night was what I still remember about it. We were both nervous, his voice stumbling over words as he let me know that the date was better than expected.  
   
"Yeah, we should do it again, that was fun," I said, looking into his eyes and thinking this was going to be the guy I was going to spend the rest of my life with. He bent down the gap of inches between him and I and gave me a soft slow kiss, and I smiled all through it. Most definitely it was the perfect first date, what has been played out by many young girls with their Barbies and Kens over the last 42 years. I went to bed that night thinking that Dean and I would keep having better and better dates as the relationship continued to play out through the years.  
   
Alas, after that third month anniversary date and the all the mix-ups over the last two years when it came to my friendships with other guys around Dean, the magic of that first date was fleeting and unable to be caught again. I mean I had fun with Dean, sure. I loved the guy for two years and his intentions were romantic. It's just as time went on and on, he took fewer risks when it came to dating, and thought I was content with a Luke's dinner and a DVD rented at Stars Hollow Video or a flick at the budget theater in Cheshire, no matter how bad or not targeted towards a dating couple it might be ( _Domestic Disturbance_ , _Vanilla Sky_ , and _Murder by Numbers_ , I'm looking towards your direction!). Dating Dean after awhile, it became...routine and bland. You never want that that to happen, at the very least you want something new and exciting.  
   
He couldn't offer me that anymore, and the tenuous grasp I had at being a heterosexual girl was lost once my interest drifted towards Paris. After I'd say about February, I still dated Dean, but just out of an 'I need a boy' obligation. I was growing to like Paris in the way I do at this moment, and no matter what Dean tried to keep me interested, it was all for naught. I was looking for a strong flame, one that would stay lit and wouldn't have to have lighter fluid sprayed on (i.e. a date one night at one of those cheesy pool suite hotels), and Dean couldn't provide that for me because my interest in him was gone.  
   
But that's all in the past now. The distant past, that is. I've been home from my first date with Paris for at least an hour, and my heart is still racing as I remember how passionate and breathtaking this night ended up being. I had expectations going in of this cultured evening where we'd chat, get to know each other more closely, and maybe sneak in a few romantic moments wherever we could, away from the stresses and problems that are dragged into dating another girl in Hartford or Stars Hollow.  
   
It was all of that, and more. This evening has far and away changed my view of Paris and the way she is, and in turn, I learned so much about how we work as a couple. That when two girls with all this chemistry between them are in the right situations and settings, everything that happens is unexplainable, and it all works out perfectly.

I could leave it to your mind to figure out what happened between us, but I can't keep this inside, I need to recap this night in full so I can make sense of what ensued.  


* * *

From the moment Paris dropped me back in town after school yesterday, my mind was on nothing but the date and how I was going to prepare myself for it. She had told me not to worry too much about how I looked to her; just to get ready like I was used to and we'd both go from there. Throughout dinner with the grandparents, I kept throwing out evasive topics so I could keep focused on date prep rather than having to conversate about the newest boring goings-on happening throughout society. I kept praying no one notices how much distraction I've had lately. Every free moment away from someone I'd take out my phone and consider calling Paris or sending her a text, but she said something about wanting to have a clean palate for tonight, so I shouldn't contact her in any way.  
   
So that made the first eight hours today from the moment I got up at ten the longest period of time I ever experienced. First there was the accidental order for wintergreen tea at Luke's, causing both him and Mom to look at me funny and nervously like I grew a third eyeball as I struggled through an explanation that it was becoming a habit to order the tea in addition to my breakfast. It was only six days before I started this; I didn't start going bonkers in public over Dean until the _Wonka_ date with Mom!  
   
After that I went to the Inn to help with paperwork and credit card running, and it all seemed a long blur. I sat in my mom's office for those five hours completely uninterested in the work, bored because Paris hadn't even sent out a text message to ask how I was doing. I guess she really was serious about wanting a clean palate, because Michel spent the entire day annoyed at me for the slow pace of my work. Eventually he tired of nagging me to run cards, so I spent the last hour of work delivering the Early Bird edition of the _Sunday Courant_ to every door in the inn, checking my cell phone every ten minutes for any sign of a call, voice mail, text, anything from the girl who had my heart. There was nothing, not that I blame her because she had to make sure everything about the date was right and at the same time find an appropriate outfit without the help of Madeline or Louise.  
   
A stop at home, a shower and much fretting later, by 5:30pm I was at my makeup table contemplating what to wear. I was torn between a light blue sweater/jeans combo, and a blue cotton dress with a medium-low neckline that would be appropriate for a Friday night dinner, or this kind of situation, the lesbian first date. Certainly I'm stylish, but outside of school the both of us really don't know our individual styles because we aren't into being fashion plates. _Too bad the uniform doesn't suffice_ , I thought to myself, _that way you wouldn't have to fret.  
   
_I had to get it perfect, so that it would not only please Paris, but keep Lorelai clueless to the real purpose of the night out. I held both outfits up to myself, both of them having their good points. Five minutes later though, still no decision. I was still in my robe and freezing because the heat hadn't kicked in, trying to think 'What would Paris do?'  
   
I picked up my cell, scrolling down to her entry and having a mini-debate whether to call her or not. She was on her way and all done, and here I was playing the fretful girlfriend afraid she was wearing the wrong thing. _What to do, what to do_. I looked at the phone, and then myself in the mirror again, my finger on the green hook button ready to send the call command. If I were to call, the clean palate would be gone and she'd be mad at me, but I would have an idea of what to wear and what we were eating. If not, I could totally guess, but then end up in the wrong outfit.  
   
 _Oh come on Gilmore!_ There was my inner vixen getting ready to nag me. _You seriously think she's going to take you to Dunkin Donuts for Munchkins and coffee, or TGI Fridays for a pre-movie dinner? This is Paris we're talking about, this ain't Dean!! She'll probably leave a tip that's more than meals you shared with Dean at diners across the region because the only time he could spoil you was that anniversary date. If you want to go with the sweater and jeans go for it, but you'll be fine in that dress wherever you go, it's not too much, not too little. Just get ready because she will make you choose herself or else.  
_    
I guess it was right, the little blue dress worked better than jeans in a dating situation. Thus, I took off the robe and put on the dress, worn only once to a Friday night dinner a few months ago. It was a lighter blue that matched my eyes somewhat with a pattern, and the skirt went to just below my knees. I straightened it out, hopeful that it would look good on me and not expose any unneeded lines.  
   
Thankfully after some fretting and a bookish ponytail to create the researching illusion, I looked quite good, just well enough to knock Paris off her feet. I looked quite innocent in it on the surface, but beneath...that'll be described a little later on.  
   
After a little makeup and some teeth brushing, the clock was at 5:55pm and Mom was home from the Inn, all perfect timing for me to remind her of my cover story. Thankfully a little Googling of 'Springfield history' along with some backup from Chilton's archives gave me all the excuse we needed to say we were doing a story on the 150th anniversary of Smith and Wesson and their connections to Chilton for the 75th anniversary of the _Franklin_.  
   
"You're going to write an article about a gun manufacturer? On a Saturday night?" Lorelai asked. I shook my head.  
   
"Not about them, their kin, some of them attended Chilton and we want to get an omnibus of viewpoints for the 75th anniversary _Franklin_ issue. We have to do some detective work up there to confirm sources and stuff, and we're not just going to walk in their offices and say we want information, you know Paris is a digger and a learner."  
   
"I just don't see why she wouldn't just have you do it from home," she argued back to me, sitting on the couch. "And why are you using omnibus in a sentence, that's the weirdest word I've ever heard." I groaned and shook my head.  
   
"Mom, I want to be a better friend to her, before now we haven't known each other outside school." Sighing, I tried to hold back my emotions that I was truly starting to know her. "Yeah, it might seem like she's on the crack for dragging me along for this help, but you took a trip with Sookie up to Foxwoods that one day because she had this crazy whim that one of her former souse chefs was using her recipes as the basis for his new menu as one of their chief chefs. There's nothing different about that at all."  
   
"I know, but this is Paris--"  
   
"Who if I do everything for her," I noted, "will tell Ms. Peters that I'm the best underling that she ever supervised, and she was proud of my work, thus I get some momentum for Harvard and the _Crimson_. I know you don't understand how much this paper is her life, but it's very important to the both of us that we put 100% and more into this. It's a milestone Mom, and I want to put a mark on it somewhere in school."  
   
Mom looked at me for a moment as I lied to her again. It keeps paining me to do this to her, keeping her clueless on how our 'friendship' is being boosted, but I just don't know how cool she'll be with me dating another girl. And Paris of all beings, the same person who harped on her historical details at the Bracebridge dinner. Sad thing was, she was becoming as much of a punchline with Mom as President Bush, so it was more about wearing Mom down right now so that eventually she might accept Paris as more than a pest than just going right in and saying she's my girlfriend.  
   
Lorelai looked at me for a moment, just stunned about how much I was putting into this friendship. "You're starting to like that girl, aren't you hon?"  
   
I nodded. "You get past her surface insecurities and there's a nice girl somewhere, trust me. I don't like to judge."  
   
"I know, but just a month ago she wouldn't come here without an excuse," she admitted. "Since then you made up, won the dance marathon, and now you're being dragged willingly up north with her to Massachusetts, I just would've never saw this coming."  
   
Mom was right about that, it must be strange to see a former enemy suddenly being buddy-buddy with you after so much strife over the years. Checking the clock, I saw it was two minutes to six. A rush went through me, knowing that Paris was at that moment in town in the square making the turn towards Cherry Lane. I was so excited, the time was almost here!  
   
Before she came though, I had to close out the conversation with Mom. "I didn't expect it either, but I'll know her in some way for the rest of my life, might as well make things easier on the both of us." We smiled, and I think I saw her understand where I was coming from. When it came down to basics, I wanted Paris as my friend, and also happy at the same time. I didn't want to see her fall back into her self-loathing cycle her mother kept her stuck to.  
   
"What time will you be back?" I looked up at her.  
   
"We're going to try for eleven, midnight at the latest, figuring time between there and back and then dinner and research, we'll have a good three hours there at least." Knowing I might be able to wring a half hour extra out of her with a well placed face, I gave her the puppy-dog eyes to convey to her that we would be just fine all alone on the roads of Northern Connecticut, since Paris can change a tire and defend herself well.  
   
"Rory..." she shook her head for a moment, knowing what I was pulling on her. "Fine, you have 12:30 to come home, no later than that however."  
   
I smiled widely, happy I gained some extra time from her that I never had with Dean. Not that extra dating time mattered with him ever, because he always brought me home at ten, no matter what. Something about his mom having a curfew or him needing to rest up for his auto work...why am I still talking about him?! OK, whining about him and how inadequate he was, but still, I need to stop dwelling on him and remember that I've felt more for Paris in one week than for him in an entire school year.  
   
We both got up from the couch and walked towards the front hall when we heard the sound of an engine in the distance, telling me she was now on my street. It was a different sound though; usually her car sounded more quiet and subdued, the usual dull hum of a luxury car engine that was prevalent in the Chilton parking lot. What I heard as I grabbed my coat from the hook was...stronger, not at all restrained. It was a deeper sound that came from the engine, and though I can't tell a school bus engine from a compact car's to save my life, I could tell from sound alone that she was driving something else tonight. _She isn't that gutsy, is she?_ I thought with my first thought being of something even more expensive than her Jag, as Mom went through the usual speech of the AAA number being programmed in my cell phone if needed and to call her if there were any problems.  
   
Once I opened the front door though, and saw Paris' car sweep down the road, I felt myself shudder as my eyes took in her choice of ride for the evening. It was still a little light out, but from memory of the time Paris drove me into the Manor garage, I remembered the look of the car from my memories and dreams of her, and her vivid descriptions of what was Mr. Gellar's 16th birthday present to her as a congratulations for earning her license.  
   
It smoothly took the curve off the road and onto our gravel drive, and I stood with my mouth stilled taking in the soft curves of her 'fun car', which you would never see out on the road unless it was something really special.  
   
 _Something like a first date_ , my mind butted in with. The sound of the tires on the gravel brought me to full attention as her car's headlights swooped across Mom and I standing at front stepside, time slowing and my nerves starting to pick up. _Wow, she truly doesn't go halfway when it comes to a date_.  
   
The car screeched to a stop, and the engine was turned off as I went through a mental checklist making sure that my lip gloss wasn't too much or overpowering, my dress was straight and unwrinkled and my mind was filled with enough leading questions to get through what should be plenty of conversation between the two of us through the evening. My mind was starting to wander off on tangents unthinkable weeks ago, about what Paris would do for me on a date, how she would treat me, not to mention what we would actually **do**. I fell into a lovesick funk, though one shrouded by the educational excuse of what we were going to Springfield for.  
   
"Dammmnn," Mom dragged out as Paris unbuckled her belt and prepared to get out of the car, "she must've run a very profitable lemonade stand to get... **that** , I need to take business advice from her." I remember her making that kind of analogy about one of her other cars that first time she came to study here at the house. "That's a great car, isn't it kiddo?'  
   
"Yeah it is," I responded numbly. Of all the cars in the world, her Porsche 911 convertible was the last pumpkin I expected to be picked up in tonight. 'A silver bullet on wheels' was what I heard it called by another student the one and only time she drove it to Chilton last year the day of the election to try to psyche herself up that she would win with my help and her campaign goals. I've thought of myself in the front passenger seat of that car a few times, but thought I'd never get to sit in it, much less touch it. The plate says 'PARS 911' for 'Paris' 911', and it's definitely hers, because sometimes in conversation she'll mention the newest part, safety addition or other thing she's put into it in order to boost the value of what already has to be a very expensive and speedy car.  
   
Finally, she got all the way out and shut the door behind her, approaching Mom and I tentatively and with some caution. At first sight, I knew that being surprised as to what she was going to wear was starting off the night well.  
   
I mumbled out a hello, my eyes slowly taking in the details of a Paris who this time, knew what she was definitely working with and wouldn't need my last-minute help to look good. The way she looked was beyond words and compare; she was wooing me well to begin the night.  
   
Her hair was done into a sleek ponytail, befitting the casualness of the night, and her face was done up lightly, with some gloss on her lips and a light covering of rouge on each of her cheeks. I was taken back by how intense her eyes looked with some dark mascara and eyeshadow, and the simple ruby stud earrings in each of her lobes. Somehow she was learning well how to get ready, and that continued with her outfit.  
   
I couldn't really tell what she was wearing since she had a coat on like I did, but I did see a peek of brown leather that made up her skirt that went to a couple inches above her knees, making me flash back to why she looked so good in leather. _Keep it in control there Gilmore, Mom's still here, not good to be thinking sexual thoughts around her...  
_    
"Rory, you're looking nice tonight." Paris looked towards me and took me out of the sudden chasm of lust I had fallen into. "Hello Ms. Gilmore."  
   
"Well, hello Paris," my mom greeted back, but then turned inquisitive. "Where's your usual car tonight? It's not every day you see a car like that on the roads."  
   
Paris shrugged and rattled off what seemed to be a wonderfully rehearsed answer. "My tires are getting pretty low on tread, I didn't feel comfortable driving Rory around up north without a fresh set, so I decided to bring this baby out of hiding and give it some miles while the Jag tires get a change back in Hartford. I'm certainly not going to do the SUV, too boxy. I'd rather drive something that'll stay on the road, and this car is very safe." I have to admit, Paris can make any kind of car sound safe, she just has that persuasive way of driving someone to see her side of the argument.  
   
"O-kay," Mom said. "Umm, I just want to make sure I'm not about to send my daughter across state lines in a screaming metal deathtrap."  
   
Unexpectedly, Paris laughed and bounced another comeback Mom's way. "I'm a very safe driver, you can count on that Ms. Gilmore. My father actually had me drive off road in parking lots and take classes at a racing school that specialized in defensive driving instruction for at least four weeks last spring before I could even take it anywhere near a public road." To make the point that my safety was paramount above all else, she made a surprising declaration. "If we get into an accident I or my father will take full care of her bills, but hopefully that's not an issue tonight." She then smiled toward me, and I felt a lilt in my heart towards that small gesture.

"Mom, she isn't Tony Stewart," I pointed out. "I'll be fine." I understood her aversion to strange new cars since the whole accident thing a few months ago, but I never developed a fear for cars after that, just ones built by ex-boyfriends that weren't road-worthy in the first place. "Besides, we'll probably be in interviews and research and eating most of the night, we're just using it to go back and forth."  
   
My blonde girl and my brunette mom stared at each other eye to eye for a few moments, both of them trying to make their points through actions and what they conveyed through their eyes. It was odd to watch, and though I was excited about the wheels being used for the date, I wasn't sure if she would take the bait.  
   
"Nothing will happen?" Lorelai asked to calm her nerves one more time. Paris nodded affirmatively.  
   
"I promise you she'll be fine."  
   
My mother stood her ground firmly, though the conversation became light-hearted and sarcastic. "I'm going to count every bone to make sure they're all still intact when you drop her off. One broken bone out of 206, you're never going to hear the end of it. I really want to trust you, and you've done well so far with the rides back and forth in that sane boring luxury car of yours, and I just want to make sure that you'll keep her safe."  
   
"I don't start the car until both belts are buckled and doors are locked, and I don't step out until the engine has fully cooled down." The finality of this last statement thankfully finally sealed the deal.  
   
"Glad we could work this out together, hope you have a nice evening girls." Mom smiled at me, and the awkward hidden first date meeting was finally ending. "Remember Rory, 12:30 or else."  
   
"Yes Mom, love you." She bent down and kissed me, and said "Love you too hon" as we said our goodbyes. I was relieved that it was all over and I could get back on the focus of the night, this date. The two minutes of the Showdown at the Gilmore Homestead only rustled my butterflies further, the relief of Paris' caring face there lost in the aversion Lorelai had to me going in the car. Thankfully she has that girl's night out planned with Sookie and Gypsy, so her mother's intuition should be fogged out around the third sour apple Pucker drink around 9pm tonight.

She left us alone, getting ready for her own night out, leaving the both of us alone in front of her car, with me shaken up and jumpy.  
   
"That went better than I thought it would," Paris reasoned.  
   
"Better?" I was puzzled as I made my way nervously towards the passenger's side, hoping my fingernails wouldn't scratch up the finish. "Paris, you bring this...this car here, that's a pretty gutsy move, don't you think?"  
   
She smiled towards me, trying to keep my mind at ease. "I just wanted to impress, that's all."  
   
"Well...impression noted." I was laughing a little nervously and began a ramble. "You didn't have to drag this out, I mean in the first place, it's November, not exactly top down weather, so obviously we can't drive down the road in a convertible. Then it's just me, I'm not impressed by big fancy luxury objects, you know that, I mean yeah, I said in the list that your aggressiveness on the roads drew me towards you, but that was in the safe car, with the comfy airbags and tight seatbelts." I watched her start to shirk down a little, and we both got into the car on each of our sides, the fact that this was truly our first date starting to become clear. "I just..." I stopped as she seemed to be taking in my words as a insult and sighed aloud, which I certainly had no intention of doing; call it the cautious me who doesn't want to take a risk jumping in to stop me when I wanted to go forward.  
   
"Crap, don't listen to anything I say, that wasn't a good tangent at all. I'm sorry." I slid my hand towards her in order to reassure her that her picking me up in the Porsche was really nice. "Mom just wants me to be cautious and safe, that's all."  
   
"I know," she responded softly, "you're her everything and all that. I just wanted to make you feel after all those dull months dating Dean that it's a special thing to go out, it shouldn't be Luke's, then movie at bookstore, bang-bang and you're home. For me that's taking this out for a spin with you as co-pilot." Her little finger locked with mine, and she had me bring my attention up to her face, as she smiled and tried to keep me calm. "If you'd like I can stop at the Manor on the way north and borrow the BMW, if that'll ease Lorelai's and your fears."  
   
It didn't take long for me to shake my head no and refuse her nod to make the date 'calmer'. "Don't worry about it Par, really. I'm just nervous about this night being perfect and all, you're safe, and I don't see us doing any drag racing with Duncan or Bowman later in the night, so I'll be fine."  
   
"Alright." She stared at me for a moment, taking me in up and down as I took off my jacket, folded it up, and tossed it into the backseat. "I really missed you today; you don't know how much panic I was trying to get ready."  
   
"I can only imagine."  
   
"Think me at Westfarms taking advice from some girl at Lord & Taylor wanting to bilk out my Fleet card by sticking me with the most expensive outfit possible, then me trying to stumble through the aisles of the shoe department in a pair of tall heels." The image in my head of 'You would look so good in this miss' from a cherry salesman while Paris mumbled under her breath a hope the woman didn't procreate made laugh out loud.  
   
Her talking about shoes also made me look down as she started the car at what was resting on the gas and the brake. The skirt was matched up wonderfully with brown open-toed heels, which for her weren't that high, but just right.

"I missed you too," I said, taking the finger gesture all the way to a full wrap of her hand. "I thought of calling a couple of hours ago, but I didn't know how much you were going to enforce the radio silence..." She brought herself closer towards me as the awareness of my surroundings told me that the 911's privacy windows were a darker shade than the Jag's, giving us just that much more cover.  
   
"Talk me out of it next time Gilmore, I wanted to break it around six last night. I had my AIM and MSN signed on invisibly all night and kept checking my phone for texts, that was one of my more dim ideas ever."  
   
"I was up too, in invisible mode," I confessed. "I didn't go to bed until the end of listening to our debate with Willimantic Union, that was our strongest match last season. You were on fire with all your points and took them out of the running early." Somehow I managed to sound like an Orlando Bloom fangirl with that confession, but she smiled towards me, her gaze fargone.  
   
"Don't delude Rory, you just wanted to hear my voice, didn't you?"  
   
"Maybe," I said back.  
   
"Feel my lips on yours perhaps?" I was starting to get antsy that she was doing this in my front drive, and I kept an eye on the house hopeful the reflections of the porch and street lights would muddle up the front windshield so that if my mom peeked, she wouldn't see anything. Paris then barely brushed against my cheek for a soft kiss, a feeling that hasn't dissipated in the days that have passed. The goosebumps along my arm, the stuttering of my breath, even though she was mine it still always took me by surprise. She pulled back a little, moving towards the side of my head, and towards my ear. Paris was far from done with allaying my dating fears.  
   
"Or maybe somewhere else altogether?" The words were spoken with a touch of darkened lust, and the exact first allusion of where those lips might end up went through my head, the image from my Wednesday morning dream of her and I in the breakfast nook coming back strong. All I could do was nod my head slowly as her lips brushed against the shell of my left ear. "Somehow I doubt that somewhere else you're thinking about is your ear, right?"

I creaked out a little 'yes' towards her, softly wishing that time could speed up and we could continue to be like this for many months to come.  
   
"We should get a move on," Paris whispered as she started to pull away, "the reservations are for 7:00. A minute late and that book in your purse might be coming in handy."  
   
"Actually," I said as I looked down at my lighter than usual bag, "I didn't bring a book tonight. I, uh, figured that there won't be a need for it, since we're dating and it would be rude of me to do that. Besides, we could talk, talking is always a good thing, isn't it?"  
   
"Talking is good, I want to do more of that with you." She smiled. "I thought of things in my rush to get everything ready for this date so I don't see us running out of topics."  
   
"No index cards this time?" I joked, my inner vixen finding an open opportunity to play with her. "I could frisk you just to make sure." I curled my lips seductively, and she got this wide-eyed look, her expressive eyes bugging out.  
   
"Uhh...err...I really don't have any index cards, really." She panted, trying to distract me by turning the ignition and starting the car, the engine revving with the vibrations of all those horses in the hood in front of us shaking up the seats. "I've learned that I don't really need them, especially when it comes to you Gilmore."  
   
"Aw darn it, I was really looking forward to checking you over!" I faked an annoyed tone and then a pout. "I guess I'll have to take your word for it. Although if one falls out..." I wandered my voice off and brought my eyes at her, moving my hand towards the bottom of her jacket, "...I might have to let you know how serious I was about checking you over."  
   
She bit her lip down and gulped, seemingly surprised by the seductive side she was bringing out of me. She was enjoying the night so far, but all the sexual tension between us had to be restrained so we could get through this date without more than that happening. I couldn't believe myself how gutsy my inner vixen was making me act this way. I didn't even start to heavily flirt with Dean until two months in; here I was on day six of being with Paris and I was already hinting at going beyond that point with her already.  
   
"Rory..." she said to me softly. "As much as your hand on my jacket is soothing, we have to go, and it's...very distracting." She frowned a little bit, sad she would have to lose that contact with me on the drive north up 91.  
   
"Yeah, the last thing we want in the police report if you crash was 'the driver's girlfriend was too touchy-feely, thus ensuing the automobile driving through the guardrail and off a cliff.'"  
   
"There aren't any cliffs for miles around." Paris corrected for me smugly. She took my arm by the wrist and pushed it off slowly. "There are river valleys, but you can't count them because most of them have a moderate slope, they're not cliff-like, unless you're driving in downtown Hartford along River Drive on the west bank along the side where there's--"  
   
I looked at her involved in her own little rant about the world around us, and though it was sort of cute, it did bug me a little. _We're dating, not studying the water features and topography of the region_ , I thought to myself once she brought her point south towards New Haven and Bridgeport along the Long Island Sound where there were some cliffs. It was time to get a little extreme with how much I wanted this date to start already.  
   
"Par?" I said sweetly yet in a firm tone to her as I stopped her mid-sentence. She was startled by the interruption and turned to face me, asking me what I wanted.  
   
I knew what I wanted, and it took a check of the windows of the house and those of the surrounding homes to make sure that there wasn't anyone looking towards the silver sports car we were idle in. No silhouettes in the shade, and Mom was probably upstairs getting ready for her night. _Perfect_.  
   
I slid closer in the seat so that I could give her a quick kiss on the lips. She stared stunned as I brought myself closer and threaded my right hand through her back-tied tresses. In the low light, she looked stunning and breathtaking, and I felt gutsy as I went in for a swift brush of my lips against hers. My nose took in the spice of her cinnamon and brown sugar smell, an obvious attempt to lure me in with a favorite of my scents.  
   
The dream was quickly paling to the reality of the first date. She brought her mouth into a neutral guise as I pulled back after the kiss, in shock and registering the tingles that went through her system as I smiled at her and tried to make it known that this first date was going to work, that it wasn't going to end with her spurned and pained.  
   
"The only place I'm going to fall into tonight is your arms," I assured, sounding like a freaking Hallmark card. "No cliffs, no others butting in on us, no bells or deadlines, and certainly no marathon dancing. It's just you and tonight hon, and I know you have something planned out that will amaze me."  
   
She looked down, a little shy and scared from my kissing her right in the front drive, but realizing that nothing was going to ruin this night. We liked each other, and that's all that mattered.  
   
Shaking her head, she looked back towards me one more time, turned the key to start her beast of a car, and smiled.  
   
"Well then Gilmore, I have a challenge to fulfill. I hope you're amazed by this night." The engine revved up quite loudly as she pressed on the gas with the parking brake on. "I have the radio tuned to _Wait, Wait_ , so we can concentrate on the date when we get there. For now, we'll just have fun."  
   
I felt the pressure let of the date a little at this point, and as she drove out of Stars Hollow, it felt nice to have one of our traditional car ride routines as Carl Kasell's voice welcomed us to the competitive news quiz that is _Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me_. It's been a Monday tradition for us this year to listen to it on her iPod after everyone leaves the _Franklin_ and on the way back to town, and score each other on how well we know our current events. First one to shout the answer gets the point, and being able to listen to it live as we head up north, it takes our mind off how big this night exactly is.  
   
The ride north on 91 was slower than usual for a Saturday night, especially through Hartford because it's the first true weekend of skiing season in the Berkshires. Paris stays calm though, and the smooth ride of the Porsche even on the older and bumpier parts of the expressway, hypnotized me into a sense of calm I never had on a date before. It takes forty minutes to get to Windsor, and her hyperfocus on the road and on the radio show gets to me so badly. We say the answer when it comes into either one of our heads, and it's so hard to take my mind away from a track where that same hyperfocus goes into her telling me how much she likes me, or how she shows it.  
   
I can tell from her driving that she knows what she's doing on the road. I'm amazed as when we get behind a semi truck, she looks for an opening in the center lane all the way to the left, and she takes the speedometer from 55 up to 80 in less than five seconds as indeed, she makes a sweep into the center lane, then into a space in the left lane between an SUV and a Camry, and then back into the center lane where there's a large traffic opening where she slows down a little. It almost seems like she's racing the truck, but he keeps his speed constant as her speed pushes up from 70, then all the way to 85 as we get to where the cab meets the trailer.  
   
I feel a lump in my throat, the rush building up, that excitement that not only am I on the road with my girlfriend heading for our first date, but that there is a dangerous side to her. I look at her steady, her mind probably picturing the road already up to the state line.  
   
"Are you watching this Ror?" she asks. "I practiced this technique at least three times driving an autobahn two years ago over summer break. It's tougher here because this is a speed-controlled interstate, but still doable."

"You drove in Germany?" I couldn't get over how strong she was, taking on a truck driver who probably didn't figure her car as racing him.  
   
"Not in this exact car, of course, Daddy has some friends there who offered to let me drive one of their speed machines. I actually drove 140 down a straightaway, and the G-force is unlike any you'd ever feel on a carnie ride. The scenery just blurs by and you could probably take a Burma-Shave slogan series in seconds instead of a minute." It was nice to see her let her hair down, figuratively like this. "It's nice to speed like this, like the illusion that your problems disappear faster with each new mile per hour. I don't know, it's like I want to prove myself in everything that I do, be it a math problem, an obligation to someone, being a driver who loves this kind of speed." Her thought finished as the front end of the truck passed the bumper, and with my eyes trained on the needle of the speedometer, she flicked on the right signal and slid gracefully back into the right lane as the 'Last Connecticut Exit' sign whizzed by us.  
   
It was such a rush, a _Thelma and Louise_ -type moment in real time as we passed the blue sign welcoming us into the Bay State, except there were no police on our tail and the only thing we were wanted for was having this secret thing for each other. We continued to talk, and I learned how badly that Paris had missed me through the day.  
   
"I haven't even made a dent in my homework since I came home last night," she admitted, gritting her teeth through the admission. "It's off to the side on my desk waiting to be done, and you know how punctual I am with it, that it must be done before bedtime Friday night. All night I'd think about doing it, but I was too busy trying to be perfect for tonight, and daydreaming about the last week."  
   
"Good daydreaming?"  
   
She smiled. "Is it wrong to say that I'm on a cloud just thinking about you? When you left after Thursday evening, I looked at the empty wine bottle and realized I had made an error by putting it in the fridge before I served it to you and basically blown all this wine protocol a friend of my mother's had drilled me on during an etiquette lesson. I'm supposed to let it breathe or decant or something, serve it at an exact certain temperature, use a special kind of wine glass etcetera, and I screwed all of that up because I was too busy thinking about us to realize I had put a red wine bottle in the fridge."  
   
"It still tasted fine if that's what you're worried about," I said, trying to soothe her worries.  
   
"No, I'm not worried about that, it's just I went all Forgetful Jones on serving wine, but because of who you are, you still accepted it."  
   
"One of the funnier characters on _Sesame Street_ , I loved him and his horse Buster." I lightened up the conversation with that, and she was happy to see I got her reference.  
   
"See? You didn't nitpick me or call me stupid because I served something wrong, you could've cared less. All you thought was 'she's cute when she tries to be sappy', and that's all that mattered. I'd make a horrible bartender or waitress, and here you are, liking me because I at least tried."  
   
"I can't stand to see you upset," I said to her, Paris' concentration on the road still heavy. "You put a lot into the night and the ask-out, it was a lot to do, and it worked out very well."  
   
"Yeah, it's just the actual date part I'm nervous about," she said softly. "I guess now that we're in the state I can tell you I got reservations to the most exclusive Italian restaurant in Springfield, corner seat overlooking the river, non-smoking, a Zagat editor's choice. I heard they have some of the best seafood Italian dishes around, so I went with them. The price is a little high, but hey, I never use my black card for anything."  
   
"Black card?"  
   
She explained just how special this credit card she carried was in the world of the wealthy. "The Centurion Card AMEX offers that's colored black; Daddy's one of their biggest and best customers, and they offered it to him three years back. It's a card you will only find with the brightest on Wall Street, the chiefs of Fortune 500 companies, business leaders and the largest stars around, and guess who's the daughter of one of those titans?" I was awed as she described what was so special about a black credit card. "Like right now if I wanted to, I could pull off to the side, charter a helicopter to Philly to pick us up and two hours later, we're at Geno's enjoying a cheesesteak sandwich and fries, or something much more high-priced than that. Heck, if I wanted to I could rent out a theater in downtown with that thing and we'd be able to enjoy the movie we'll be seeing later without anyone butting in or one cell phone ringing."

I asked her a hypothetical, wondering one more thing. "So this card, you can buy anything? Get any service, do whatever you want with it?"  
   
"As long as you pay the bill, of course." She said.  
   
"Wow," I stuttered, shocked. "Anything you want?"  
   
"Well, almost everything that I want." She curls her lips into a smile and sighs. "Not everything can be acquired with a swipe and a signature, those things take hard work and dedication. I'd rather have that any day than a blouse that goes out of style after three months or so. I think you know what might be included in that category besides Harvard."  
   
Of course I did, and I could tell by the softness of her voice that my love is something she wanted to earn through something like the date tonight, a slow woo meant to show me that human side Paris keeps behind lock and key to but a few select people. It's nice to see her in a six-figure speed machine speeding through Hampden County with an exclusive charge card in her purse, but that was a minor layer to what she is. The money means nothing to her, it's just a means to the end and there's a lot of it for her to use. It's what she does with her hands, her brain, and what's within her heart that in the end, really matters.  
   
"I'm glad you see this as a challenge," I said, comforting her and trying to be reassuring. "Because I really want things to work out between the both of us. There's much more than a spark here, and hopefully tonight will make it steady."  
   
"I like the way you think Ror." She took her right hand off her steering wheel and brought it to my wrist. "I might be nervous as hell, but in the end the only thing we can do is try and hope for the best." Her focus on the road remained steady, and her hand near mine was something that kept my nerves calm for the rest of the ten minute drive from the state line and exiting the off-ramp to State Street and into the city's downtown.  
   
The big 'first date' conversation was coming up soon...  


* * *

...But judging from Paris' cries for some kind of refund of service at the restaurant she made a reservation at and expected intimacy, it wouldn't be for a bit yet, and not at her originally intended restaurant.  
   
We walked from the parking structure a couple of blocks away and towards the restaurant with what did seem to be delivering a good view of the riverfront and the expressway, DeVecchio's Trattoria. Both of us found our stomachs rumbling with hunger, and I couldn't wait to dig into a plate of cheesy seafood ziti with a sparkling glass of Sprite and what Paris read as melt-in-your-mouth garlic bread.  
   
Judging from the line in front of the establishment, along with the noise emanating from the restaurant, that intimacy Paris was promised wouldn't be there until late in the evening. The store window section, which was in an old 1850's building looked beyond crowded, the line barely held in by the doors. It looked like that even if Paris immediately whipped out the black card and asked them to clear the place, this was far from the romantic atmosphere she truly expected.  
   
"What is this?"  
   
"A long line?" I answered, noticing her face turn from excited about the date as far to devastated that we would be going into a situation that matched up with a Chilton dining hall lunch with everyone talking and conversation dying within feet of the respondent.  
   
"I'd expect this at a Vegas buffet, and I'd tolerate it if we went to ILM Thursday's or whatever that happy and peppy fake-neighborhood bar is called, but not here. Here on our romantic night out." She rolled her eyes, looking at the restaurant with dismay. The stress she had seemed to be coming back quickly and we realized that indeed we were not alone.  
   
"Par, maybe it's just a big corporate group, they'll eat and leave and we'll have the place almost to ourselves." I tried to rationalize the crowd, with Paris continuing to sulk.  
   
"I paid $50 for a table, a corner table no less. Do you see that window Gilmore? The window in the corner? Please, look over there and tell me what you see."  
   
"Maybe they're just taking too long..." Still I made her happy by looking over at that corner window. What I saw certainly stewed my juices.  
   
The couple at our table was just having their main courses served, and the both of them didn't look happy at all. The man, an older gentleman, waved his arms in the air, and I thought I could read him saying 'finally!' through his lips as the waiter tried to assure him that the wait was purely accidental. The woman of the couple sat there seeming to be bored. I could tell because her napkin, which might be on her lap? Was instead an origami swan, not a good one, but the shape was definite of that animal. Somehow she was able to make it in the time between she sat down and the food was finally served, and I couldn't see that as part of the décor.  
   
"Look at them, they've obviously been waiting over a half an hour for their food, and they're agitated that they've had to wait. From the looks of it he's one of the banking bigwigs too, not a good thing." She heaved a heavy breath. "God, maybe I have the wrong restaurant, I don't know, but Zagat gave this a 28.8, I should give it a chance I suppose."  
   
The occupants of our table only deteriorated from this point on. Watching through the window, the customers seemed agitated and pointed at the food to get the waiter's attention that the order was totally wrong. The man gestured with his hands towards him, while his wife looked on in dismay at a good night out turned bad.  
   
Already irked from the specter of a wait ahead of the both of us, Paris walked towards the front entrance, where an attendant stood watch and asked for an explanation of why she would have to wait for so long.  
   
"You can't anticipate walk-in business," he claimed. "Apparently some New England bankers had a meeting here this weekend and they needed somewhere to eat."  
   
"I don't care, I have a reservation!"  
   
"Ma'am, what time was it for?" the attendant asked.  
   
"7:00," she said, pointing at her watch. "It is now 7:20, and I have a specific schedule to keep for this evening. My friend and I have matters to discuss, and a loud environment like this isn't conducive to our business." When Paris gets mad, she really gets mad, and everyone knows it.  
   
Still, this jerk of a guy thought he could outwit my girlfriend with basic flattery. "You're whining about a few minutes?" he says to Paris harshly. "Lady, we have forty customers a night, just be happy you got a reservation here at all!"

Sure enough, Paris' voice lowered into where her threats came, and she stared him down ice-solid. "I paid $50 to reserve a table, and I expect you to seat us at a halfway comparable spot as soon as possible, quiet and removed from the crowd. Don't you try to give me spoon-fed customer no-service lines or offer me a free plate of cheese sticks, because let me tell you right now, it isn't going to work."  
   
"Ma'am, I'm only a parking attendant, not a waiter--" Geeze, this guy was talking about tables two minutes ago and now he claims he only parks cars? Something was funny, and Paris wasn't going to be settled easily.  
   
"Sir, I read your review in Zagat where you got a 28.8 for this establishment. Now I expect that 28.8 service in the next few seconds, otherwise I'm walking away from here and on the phone to my credit card company asking for a stop charge of the reservation due to customer dissatisfaction. I'm easily going to spend $100 tonight here, and if your mind can't process that, obviously you don't want my business."  
   
He stopped for a moment, and looked at the both of us, desperate for this food we heard so many good things about. This man sealed the deal for us when he decided it wasn't worth his while to let us in for a table.

"I'm sorry," he sniped. "You'll have to wait in line like the rest of the customers, you'll be served eventually."  
   
"And just when will this 'eventually' be?" That was me trying to state how I felt about the situation as I saw Paris visually tense up and prepare herself for an evisceration of this jerk trying to ruin our night. "We came all the way from the middle of Connecticut to eat here and all you can tell us is that theoretically in the not-too-distant future, that we might be able to eat here before closing time? My apologies if I'm being rude, but if a reservation is made by us much earlier, we have priority over anyone who walks in for a table off the street."  
   
This guy was just being a gnat and continued to feed us more bull, but no actual food. "We can't turn down sudden business--"  
   
"Oh God, just let us eat already!! I don't care if a banker has to wait thirty minutes to eat, obviously you weren't in his plans this Monday evening, while I made my reservation that night." He just stared blankly at us, not understanding basic customer service at all.  
   
"You'll have to wait," was the attendant's final answer. Both of us finally had enough of it, and I implored Paris to let this go because obviously DeVecchio's had no need for our guaranteed business.  
   
"Come on hon, there's plenty of other restaurants here we can get a table at in a few moments," I grumbled. "Expect the chief chef at my mother's inn to not recommend your place at all, I will be letting her know about the treatment you gave both of us."

Paris stared him down and gave him one last look. "Also let your boss know Monday afternoon I will be calling for a refund, and that he will give it to me. You've also guaranteed if Zagat calls me for an opinion on this establishment a failing grade is guaranteed."  
   
"If you'd wait ten minutes..."  
   
"We've wasted twenty-three minutes trying to get in for our table, that's enough for us. Maybe you'll understand this phrase seeing as this is an Italian restaurant; _scopata fuori, spingete_!" She made a strong dismissal gesture as she waved him off, and we turned around and away from the restaurant, both of us feeling very frustrated that the eating part of the date wasn't off the ground at all. Both of us headed down to the block back towards the parking garage, with Paris voicing her frustrations over that first 'failure' of the night.  
   
Her body language was stressed, and as she walked down the street she seemed to shy away from me, her thinking being that not getting into the restaurant doomed the date and made her look like a fool in front of me. Her arms wrapped around her chest, face looking down towards the sidewalk, not a look towards me at all. I couldn't believe what that guy did to us, and not only that, the restaurant. It made me wonder that even though we never mentioned that we were a couple, he sensed our closeness and denied us access because of an appearance of being a couple. He had no right to act that way towards her, and he should be lucky that Paris let it go rather than pushed her way in and asked to speak to the manager.  
   
I followed her down the street, maintaining my steps as her pace picked up. She was mad at herself for getting angry, I was sure of it.  
   
"Par, you OK?" I asked with concern evident in my voice. "If it's about the restaurant don't worry about it." Paris faced me, and we stopped in front of a Martinizing shop.  
   
"I'm fine Rory, I just need some time to stew in my own head and let this sink in. You believe I made the reservations on Monday, right? I wouldn't take you anywhere unless I knew for sure that the reservations were there. Right after you left on Thursday I called, changed the day and they said it was totally fine..." her voice started to turn from calm to panicked as she continued. "...because I told them there would be a slight chance I'd have to change the day or cancel if you did say no altogether for a date, which you didn't and thank God. But we get there, and it's all 'Sorry Paris, you're not rich or important enough, and your friend isn't too, sorry.'"  
   
She leaned against the wall of the dry cleaning store, and I moved closer to her so I could help her get out her words. Paris looked as if she was on the verge of tears, sad things weren't going her way. "I'm the worst date ever."

 _Don't cut yourself down!_ My mind thought loudly, and I was in a panic about what to do next. We were trying to have a good time and one guy ruins the night five minutes in by telling her that the reservation was no good. "Paris, you are not the worst date ever, because the date hasn't even started."  
   
"It did and the attendant told us we'd have to wait for a reservation--" I felt I had to soothe her back down before she went off on a tangent and tried to back out of all our progress through our first week and end things here, all because some restaurant couldn't say no to new customers they couldn't take in the first damned place.  
   
I took her hand into mine, and moved closer to her to try to calm her down, a novice attempt at a hidden PDA. "Will you calm down Paris, you didn't ruin anything, we just ended up with some bad luck, get a hold of yourself! So your restaurant choice that meets your high standards didn't work out that well. Better that they were jerky at the door than when we were actually eating inside. Besides that, could you imagine being romantic at all in that place? All those older bankers and their wives, surrounding us. Just from looking inside that place I could tell that nothing would be private; they'd be just as judgmental as if we were eating at someplace in Hartford."  
   
She frowned, seeing a big chink in her plan for the evening and not even realizing what may have happened had we been able to eat in DeVecchio's. I saw it in my head, sitting down at the table with all that old money surrounding us, the stares from those people at two teenaged girls looking for a night out, and having to hold back because God forbid they hadn't seen a girl flirt with another before. And then the eventual guy coming out of the woodwork with one of his friends and their eyes being caught by us, thus they drift over to our table, turn on their desperate flirting so that we'd go with them, and then the date would **really** be truly destroyed.  
   
Paris seemed to normalize things, though it took her a couple of minutes to do just that. We just stood in front of that dry cleaner's trying to figure out where to go to eat, because I still wanted to eat and talk with her before we saw the movie. I was very hungry, saving my appetite for a good hearty meal from where she reserved. Obviously we wouldn't be going back there...  
   
"Rory?" Paris' voice was again normal and calm, so I felt I could talk to her again without having to calm her down.  
   
"You OK now hon?" I wrapped an arm around her, setting my hand against her left shoulder, hoping soon to see what she was wearing beneath the jacket, and to have an alternate place to eat.  
   
"I just wanted it to be nice and perfect, but I think I remembered the root cause of the date with Jamie bombing, besides the obvious sexuality clash." She shook her head, looking right at me. "I put too much into venue and it ended up stifling any ideas we might have had to get to know each other better because it was so formal. Same here too, I just went with the highest Zagat rating and ended up with another snotty restaurant that didn't make me comfortable in my own skin, and certainly you weren't feeling that way either."  
   
I laughed at her convoluted explanation that in the scheme of things made sense in the end. "I was looking forward to the good food, it wasn't a bad choice."  
   
"I know, it was nice on the surface, but it just clashed too much in the end with what we want, just a quiet night out in a little corner store eatery that's a secret, that may have been better." She hummed a little. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't in much of an Italian mood to begin with since Mother's chef can't seem to every fall off that tangent, though I have to explicitly list regular pasta as what I want because of Sharon's attempt to limit my carbs, she's into that Atkins diet snake oil where you can eat everything but bread or starches and then watch your body break down slowly without sugars going in."  
   
"Luke encourages healthy eating, but he'll never support that diet because sandwiches are his lifeblood. He actually said that Dr. Atkins probably has his days numbered because of that diet-induced heart attack he had earlier this year."  
   
Once again, an impromptu debate sprang up out of nowhere, and Paris bit on my points. "I just find dieting crazy in general; the reason we have fat in the first place is to survive and stay warm in the winter, and to have something to leech off from in case you get into trouble in the forest and don't have a food source for a couple of weeks. Firming up your body is fine, but looking like a stick is less important than just eating right in the first place."  
   
It was just then that I got an idea in my head of exactly what place would be perfect for us to have our first date meal. Paris didn't seem to care about weight, and as long as her food was kosher, away from her various food sensitivities, and conformed to dietary laws, she really wouldn't care what she ate. All we both wanted was the conversation really, the food was secondary to just having this opportunity away from the maddening crowd back down south to just be our usual smitten selves around each other.  
   
I agreed with what she said about diets, and thanked the stars for my fast metabolism once again. Then I presented her with the idea. "Hey, how about we drive around and look for a good Chinese place? There has to be some good stuff around here somewhere."

"Chinese?" Paris was surprised by my suggestion. "You mean take-out food?"  
   
"Exactly, except we'd be eating it in the place."  
   
"But I've had bad experiences with ethnic food in the past," she reminded. "Last year with the Indian food when we studied at your house?"  
   
"It would've been fine had you not gorged on the ice cream silly!" It was always nice to remind her of how much of an advantage she took that night, away from Sharon's diet dictatorship. She had a Lactaid, but a pint of cookie dough ice cream polished off in ten minutes for a beginner like her was too much and too fast for her, thus her throwing up late in the evening and needing a stop at the CVS before she left town. "You can't tell me you've never had Chinese food at all."  
   
"My mom thinks monosodium glutamate is a dangerous chemical on par with napalm, despite studies to the contrary."  
   
I shook my head and laughed; not only did I have to teach Paris the ways of love, but how to live as a modern girl who ate a sane food once in awhile. "It's a good beginner food, and it's healthy in moderation. We can talk and we won't be interrupted because we just name a number and a few minutes later we have a very nice meal."  
   
"It's not even their real cuisine..." Paris tried to go traditionalist with her arguments against it, and I had to button her up before the idea was shot down.  
   
"I know, but I don't care. It could be called Icelandic food and it still tastes great, does it matter where it came from really?"  
   
"I suppose not." Paris looked down, and then back towards me. "I guess this week has been one for trying something new, be it romantic or culinary."  
   
"Is that a yes then?" She nodded her head, and took the car keys out of her purse.  
   
"Just let me do a websearch on my..." She was ready to take her web-enabled PDA out of her bag, but I took a hold of her wrist.  
   
"We're not doing any more research tonight, tonight you are cut off from anything electronic, all your attention should be on me. Just stick to the main drags, eventually something will attract our fancy." I gave her a look of trust, and though leery, she left the restaurant choice right in my hands.  
   
"Fine, but just remember you're paying for the Kaopectate if I get ill from a bad restaurant choice." Unlike her past threats, this one was buffered by a mischievous smile and a brush of her hand against mine.  
   
"I think I can live with that." We smiled at each other, and headed for the parking garage again, ready to push reset on the date and hope for a better result.  


* * *

We ended up going to Lady Sing's, a place across the river in West Springfield we finally decided on after a stop at a mini-mart for directions and a recommendation after finding the restaurants on the east bank in Springfield proper lacking. We thought it was clean enough, the menu was simple to understand for a Chinese beginner such as Paris, and most of all, it was quiet and very intimate. The dining room had just enough light to see, and the place did have some genuine food. I was glad we chose it in the end, and the workers there were very nice.  
   
She went with a combination of chicken chow mein, rice and a couple of egg rolls, then I went with the Szechwan chicken dish and egg rolls myself. While we waited for the food, we fell into a natural conversation about school and such, along with our pasts, though not really specific stuff quite yet.  
   
"I remember when I first saw you at Chilton and gave you that once-over, like 'why is this girl here', because you seemed so out of element, just this small town girl jumping in with the sharks and such at our school. You didn't seem like that big of a threat to begin with, and before I found your...I mean, about your past achievements in Stars Hollow, I thought you were a pushover."  
   
I caught her pause, which seemed odd. "What did you find about me?" I asked. It suddenly did seem weird on our first meeting that she knew my full name, my hometown, and my aspirations for life. Paris shirked down, feeling she was caught with a dirty little secret.  
   
"Nothing, I just saw you and thought immediately you were dead focused on journalism, I was playing a hunch," she said with a nervous voice.  
   
"A very precise and concisely worded hunch where you knew I was from the Hollow and had a high GPA?" The details were coming back from memory, and she knew she was trapping herself into something she didn't expect. "We did share a class before you first got my attention but I didn't say anything besides 'I'm Lorelai Gilmore, but I prefer to be called Rory.' You were too focused to make it seem casual when you got my attention, saying you intend to be top of the class and editor of the _Franklin_."  
   
She wiggled in her booth, her hands at the hemside of her skirt, and her confession just waiting to come out. It took an extra few seconds, but finally she told me why everything seemed so specific.  
   
"Fine, I might have taken a peek at your transcripts before first period. I paid Maureen Ruschel $20 to sneak your file out the window and into my hands so I could get a quick scouting report of you."  
   
"That senior in the office who did extra credit work for Miss James?" She nodded shamefully. "She gave you my file out the window and you looked at it?" She raised her hands in the air, feeling defensive.  
   
"I had to know the situation; I didn't want to have to find out later that you were as smart as me, and well, I was curious! It's not everyday you see a small-town girl in Chilton and I just wanted to know why."  
   
"So you read my transcript?" I smirked at her, the idea of her getting to know me at first through what my Stars Hollow teachers said hilarious. "Anything interesting at all in there, I didn't even get to look at them myself."  
   
"I skimmed them, but nothing really came out besides your inclination towards being anti-social. Just some blather from a guidance counselor around seventh grade that you needed to fall more into the usual social groups, be it the populars, the jockettes, or the science club."  
   
"That's it, really?" I would've expected more detail than that.  
   
"I only had a three-minute look at it Gilmore, I got just enough to say my name and give you my mission statement when it came to you." She took a sip from her Diet Coke to clear her throat.  
   
"And that was..." I inquired, curious and wondering what was in her head when she learned about me further. I expected more of a 'I will crush you and leave you in the dust' vibe with her first thoughts, the natural teen female instinct that turns girls from laughing together to being at each other's throats over a boy.  
   
"I wanted to be a challenge to you." She said this firm and unwavering, which brought all my attention from part her/part kitchen door to all her. "I saw your records and felt my competitive drive pick up again; my last rival at Country Day back when I was an Eighther was cut down by substance abuse problems and a bad peer circle, and it hurt me to see him just give up after so much long work. I wanted to be mean, of course, but I wanted you to have the sense that yes, this was Chilton and there's no time for slacking in that environment. If that meant being cold and distant, that's how my demeanor had to come off. That, and I never thought you'd ever contemplate befriending me when I kept up the barbs." She looked down at her egg roll appetizer plate. "A friendship with you would be a distraction, break my focus. You would be nice to me and I couldn't take it that way because I've always been so defensive." Paris' voice softened, and I could tell she was starting to feel a little emotional.  
   
"But being me, I couldn't really hate you, no matter what. You know I meant it when I said that I thought you were the nicest girl at Chilton because you paid attention to me."  
   
"I believe that," she reassured. "It's strange, after awhile I did want your friendship, but I kept denying myself. When I found out about the kiss I felt nothing, and I thought it would be an easy way out to use the date with Tristan when I found out about the set-up to put a final note on everything. The feelings for you had started at the concert, a nagging tingle that I had noticed but didn't want to do anything about because you fit the girl next door guise well, no way would you be attracted to me, and I thought it was just a phase because my hormones had no strong focal point."  
   
"Do you think you were attracted to me for lack of a better choice at Chilton?" I asked. "I never saw you fall for anyone else."  
   
"I'd ask the same of you Gilmore, besides that flirtation you had with Jess, there hasn't been another man in the picture." She smiled and admitted that she was probably destined to be attracted to girls from the beginning. "I guess our solitary and studious existences eventually led us to both think 'I'd like her as more than a friend'; my male counterpart was Tristan and my friends were the antithesis of who I was, and my mother, not a good role model for love by any stretch."  
   
"God no," I said, then stated aloud why I became attracted to Paris in the first place. "I can't really find a Eureka moment where I realized I was drawn more towards girls, but frustration and aggravation over Dean, the fact I felt no spark at all with Jess, my male-free raising and general disinterest in the opposite sex, it all came together to say 'Rory, you like girls, one girl in particular.' If it wasn't for Dean coming along before Chilton, I might still be in my study bubble and as clueless about relationships as possible. Sometimes I even think that if Dean hadn't come in at all, I may have found you attractive months before now."  
   
"Wow," Paris said, "I'm flattered by that. I started thinking of you more in the aftermath of the concert, but Tristan was still going on, and back then we didn't really know each other as close as we are now. I'm glad all that stuff got in our way though, it just made the flame stronger, you know?"  
   
I nodded in agreement. "I just keep thinking that if we had gotten together earlier, there wouldn't be a good foundation for much of anything. We had to learn to live with each other before we learned to like each other."  
   
"That's a good way to think about it." We stared at each other dopily, my feelings for her swelled from the conversation. To think that in some way there's always been sexual tension between us, it made me think about how Paris was looking this evening, and how much she's changed from her sophomore year. It wasn't a sudden change, but it was gradual to see her go from the bulky and unflattering turtlenecks and body-hiding pants of the past, to seeing her sitting across from me tonight in a tight, yet conservative leather skirt which was paired with a deep maroon sweater with a low neck. Not a deep V-neck where I could make out her line of cleavage, but down enough that I could take in the dark skin she usually hid in the front, along with her Jewish star necklace. I let her know how pretty she was tonight because she looked so lovely.  
   
"Uh, thank you. I just figured that you liked me in the dress I wore when I dated Jamie, and that somehow you were choosing not only for him or I, but for you. I tried to think of that when I picked out the outfit this afternoon, which wasn't easy as you could tell." She crossed her legs together, puckering her lips together to renew her gloss.  
   
"You did nicely Par." I appraised her once again, her elegant and bared neck giving me this nagging idea of showing her just how much I appreciated her dress and the way she looked. _That beauty mark on the left side,_ I thought, the dark and apparent spot always a place my eyes wandered when I gazed at Paris longingly. _It would certainly be nice to leave a bite there, small that it's not noticed, but something that would make her moan..._ She looked so elegant, and here I was in a dinner dress that I got at Dress Barn and hoped Grandma would regard from a higher label or A&F. I felt sort of out of place...  
   
"So did you. You must realize how cute you look to me right now Gilmore." She got my attention by sliding towards the table. "You don't have a lot, but Lorelai does the best with what she has. That dress really does bring out your eyes so much, along with the earrings," she pointed out my simple pearl studs resting within my lobes. "It's so simple, what you're wearing, but to me, it's beautiful." I felt goosebumps, the compliment of what I chose getting to me in the best way possible.  
   
It was also the first date dress compliment I've had in three months since my first date with Dean back from Washington, so it was so much more powerful than intended. Paris knows how hard I worked to get ready because she goes through it too, and it warms my heart that it worked out so well. I sniffled, feeling a cry ensuing but holding it back because God, that would be embarrassing!  
   
Still, I thanked her, and we spent the next ten minutes before our food was brought out just talking about how she got her name. It was a good story; a secret dig at Sharon from Paris' father because she was hoping for a boy and didn't get one, and he thought the name showed off a certain strength that he saw when Paris started kicking at Sharon's stomach pretty hard in her sixth month of pregnancy. He was also reminded of a sunset he had seen when he was on a vacation in the French capital city in his college years; the shade of her eyes when she was born reminded him of it and the color of the skyline during that evening, thus the name Paris.  
   
"Thank God, I thought your mother was just nuts and trying to out-crazy Kathy Hilton!" I said, the other story I had in mind being her named after Paris Hilton. She shook her head, reassuring me that wasn't how she got her name.  
   
"I will defend to my death that my name wasn't from that famewhore in any way, shape or form." We both laughed, and then she turned the question towards me. "What I've always wondered is how do you get 'Rory' out of 'Lorelai Leigh'? Since that first day I've been trying to figure it out, but I was always afraid to ask how you get that name." She felt embarrassed for asking what seemed to be a 'dumb' question. "I know it's a nickname, but it's a male name."  
   
"OK. So, Lorelai was disappointed and thought I was going to be a boy..." I smiled at her, and she rolled her eyes.  
   
"Gilmore. If it's something like my doctor-playing tale I won't tell anyone about it, promise."  
   
"It's not that bad, but it is kind of a story I don't tell that often." Which was the truth; I haven't even told Grandma or Grandpa how Lorelai III ended up to be Rory. But I was talking to girl with an odd name herself, so we already shared a kinship that way, thus I could trust her. "Just don't share this with anyone and we'll be fine."  
   
"Alright, tell me this classic tale of your name then."  
   
"Well it starts out when I was around 22 months and just really learning how to talk. You'd imagine that my name would be quite a mouthful, and no matter what, I couldn't say it right at all. Six months later I had progressed from 'O-why' as the way I said it, to 'O-E-I'. Suffice to say my L's and R's weren't coming out all that well, and though I could say words like 'cat' or 'wash' well, everything with an L or an R came out without the proper letter pronunciation."  
   
"Must've made it hard to say left and right."  
   
"I knew sense of direction, just not how to express it." I watched Paris eat with some trepidation as I went on. "Mom decided to tackle my R's first because that was the harder of the letters. Her thinking was that L would be a piece of cake and it wouldn't take long, so I was taught R's first. Took me a couple months to perfect it, but eventually I got it, and when I turned three, I could almost sort of say my name. Without more L drills though, I left off the two L's in my name and substituted the first L with a R instead so I could get the full name out, and made the second silent. Thus..." I pointed at her so she could try to say it herself.  
   
"You would say it, 'Row-E-I'." She pronounced it clearly, but not the exact way I would have at three.  
   
"Correct, but add more 'W' to that first syllable." I continued on, trying to add flourishes to the story when I could. "It started off innocently and I was just saying it through the inn, so not everyone remembered it entirely well. Mom would try to get me to say the L's in my name, but it just wasn't coming. Then I got into ballet class." I remembered the first roll call Miss Patty did, just barely. "Patty asked what my name was, and I told her Row-E-I. Some of the girls asked what kind of name is that and a few actually said it was a stupid name."  
   
"So they made fun of you." I shook my head.  
   
"Laughed at me, and thus started my lifelong hate of most of the girls in Stars Hollow. I tried my best to start to say my name correctly, but it wasn't working, it would come out that way no matter what and the teasing would continue. I was just so frustrated, and I spent the year just trying to get the damn L's in my name out. Still, they weren't coming out in any clear way."

I started to get into how I started to grow to like the name. "After awhile the other girls in class just started calling me 'Rory' out of habit, and at first it made me cringe so much because that wasn't my name. I'd correct them, but sound like a fool doing it, so after a couple of more weeks I gave up completely because it did have a nice ring to it and hey, I was three, who knew that it was a guy's name?" Thinking back to that early version of myself looking like fool in a pink tutu and tights made me wistful for those simple days again.  
   
Paris seemed entranced by my story as I let her know how Mom found out about my second name, when Miss Patty accidentally let it slip from her mouth because she was herself starting to call me by that because I responded better to that than Lorelai. At first she was puzzled as to why it had been not only shortened, but then accepted by me as a different way to say it. Eventually by the time my 4th birthday rolled around though, Rory had basically become my de-facto nickname because it was easier to say and saved everyone the pain of a mispronunciation of Lorelai and the confusion of calling out the wrong girl, and since my kindergarten class had two Laurie's in there, I didn't have to become 'Lori G.' on my cubbyhole. I couldn't really explain it more clearly; it was just a way to shorten my name easily that came out of my voice at the time, and all these years later still sticks to me, and I don't mind a bit.  
   
She was astonished by my memory of how the name came about, along with the detail of the story. It felt good to be in the weird name club with my girlfriend, and the conversation about that helped us ease into dinner with very little tension between us at all. You wouldn't have thought Paris as a good date from the outside, but I was glad she was a very light dater, thus there were no expectations about how she would be in this kind of situation.  
   
The plates finally came, and the food just looked delicious and smelled wonderful. A centerpiece of fortune cookies and both of us across from each other with empty tummies unfilled from that jerky stop at DeVecchio's earlier, we were salivating over it as the hostess told us to enjoy our meals.  
   
However, one thing I forgot about Paris' first visit to a Chinese restaurant, was her inexperience with using Chinese eating implements. It was genuine in that regard, with a wax paper package holding two chopsticks at the right of our table settings, with the usual fork/knife/spoon combo wrapped in a napkin. She decided to try to eat the meal for herself with those chopsticks, thinking she would immediately take to the implements like I was doing so easily.  
   
Easier said than done however; Paris would take a chunk of chicken and noodles into the sticks, but didn't grip it just right. By the time she put it to her mouth, it was back on her plate but for the noodles she winded around the sticks like spaghetti on a fork.  
   
I worked on my food fine, but she kept having problems. "I can do this," she said to me with a look as I laughed a little when she decided to grip the food lower than usual to get it into her mouth. Still no luck, and when I was 1/4 through my meal, she was still stuck at the beginning but for a few noodles and some vegetable and chicken chunks.  
   
She didn't give up, not paying any attention to her easier Western utensils and trying to work the sticks so that she would eat something. Her aggravation was picking up, and when I told her I wouldn't be hurt, nor would the restaurant if she cast aside the chopsticks, she told me was going to do it anyways.

Finally, she seemed to give up when she used one stick to stab a chunk of chicken, and then wrap noodles around it. She was definitely frustrated, and though it was cute seeing Hartford's smartest young woman struggling with eating implements (and I have to admit, a little...aw heck, it was laugh-out loud hilarious), she wasn't going to learn to eat them by just eyeballing my hands and taking her cues from that. Obviously I had to help her out.  
   
"Alright, move over, I'll teach you how to use them," I said, getting up from my seat.  
   
"Rory, I don't really need any help..." she tried to argue, but I stopped her before she could say anymore.  
   
"You will if you want to eat without the fork. It's not that hard, you just have to get the hang of it."  
   
I pushed into the booth at her right, having her scoot over so I would have unimpeded access to her hands and be able to demonstrate with mine. I smiled at her as she handed me the chopsticks with annoyance apparent in her features because she couldn't eat them right.  
   
Since I was right handed, I tried as best I could to demonstrate using my left hand. "OK, spread out your fingers, like this, while holding them both in the gap between the thumb and your index finger."  
   
"OK," she said, looking at my fingers then at her hand as she tried to replicate how to hold the sticks correctly. She couldn't get the hang of it, gripping the middle instead of towards the top. "Like this?"  
   
"Not quite, higher than that." I told her to think of an imaginary line starting at bottom of the line of Cantonese characters that ran down each of the sticks. After a bit of finger flailing, she got the positioning right. "That's better."  
   
"So how I do I eat this food without it slipping off?"  
   
"You force the strength down from your hands and into the sticks," I lectured, trying to make the way to describe it simple. "Just think of your thumb as the spring mechanism that holds a clothespin shut, you add tension as you open it to pick up food, then snap it shut as you grab it and bring the bite towards your mouth." Paris tried her best to apply this easy description of eating, pushing around a pile of noodles, chicken and vegetables into a mound and trying to pick up at least a little off the food. She closed around the food nice, but it all fell down to the plate again when she started to bring it up to her mouth.  
   
She shook her head and felt defeated. "I'm doing something wrong here," she convinced herself. "I shouldn't be missing a step, I have a well-functioning brain and excellent motor skills. You know, I memorized my cable and TiVo remotes in mere minutes down to the secret codes you have to dig for on the TiVo community websites and program in so you can skip all the ad blocks. Surely I can master the fine art of Americanized Chinese eating." The dig at the food we were eating made me smile, and the comfort of a Paris rant making this dinner just that much more fun.  
   
I laughed, and took in her look as she tried to communicate 'help me please' silently through her gestures. We were sitting right next to each other in the booth, and it was then I realized what I could do to help her figure this conundrum out. I scooted closer and opened up my hands.  
   
"I guess I can't describe it that well," I admitted, shrugging my shoulders and getting within Paris' demarcated personal space. "But I could show you, that is if you don't mind."  
   
She looked at me funny, and I could swear I heard a sniff from her nose as the scent of the cheap Walgreens imitation of that expensive vanilla perfume and the strawberry lip gloss I wore along my neck and on my lips was within her reach. She raked me over as I scooted even closer, so much that she was against the divider panel at the side of the booth. I found myself starting to think that this help might turn into something else...  
   
"Sure, can't do any worse than I did."

"Cool, now give me your hands," I commanded, something that surprised her. Those deep eyes of hers widened, and she seemed curious as to what I was up to.  
   
"I can't just watch you?" she asked, her voice laced with worry.  
   
I shook my head to negate her response. "You watched me and it didn't work, so thus, I'll demonstrate by working your hands into the correct chopsticking position." I wasn't going to give on this until she knew how to eat properly.  
   
She rolled her eyes and heaved out a sigh, yet she set her sticks down at plateside and spread her hands out on the table. "I swear if this doesn't work I'll eat all this with a knife and fork. Remember, we have a movie starting at nine."  
   
"Alright Armitron," I commented as she narrowed her eyes and watched me bring the sticks into the correct eating position, trying to get them just right so I could transfer them into Paris' hands in the position they were in. "See where my fingers are?" I asked. Paris nods, and I push a little closer to her. "I want you to memorize that, okay, because in a few moments I'm going to help you position your hands the way mine are."  
   
"Sure." I had her set her fingers out in the front to spread them and positioned them where they needed to be. It was at this point I saw that her nails, which usually went unpolished and were grown out a just a little, had a slim covering of clear polish on each of them. _Focus on the task at hand_ , I nagged at myself, her slim hands looking so alluring.  
   
I released my grip on the sticks and stuck them each between her middle and index fingers, accidentally brushing the heels of my hands against the top of her fingers. My eyes drifted towards hers, and I saw her shudder when I brushed, her eyes enchanted from it and sparks of electricity exchanging from that one simple action. I felt myself pause for a bit, taking a look at my surroundings in the dim light of the restaurant. We were far away from the kitchen, and with only seven other customers, they were spread out, leaving Paris and I in a cone of intimacy.  
   
She contorted her hands once again, but her pinkies were out of alignment. Again, I had to go in and help her back into position. Her frustration was becoming obvious.  
   
"If I don't get this in two minutes, I'm going to eat with a fork," she declared. I reached over with my left arm to better maneuver her hand on that side. I planned the move as completely asexual, not to do anything at all.

Around her waist I went, and before I knew it, I was accidentally brushing a couple of fingers across the swell of her breast. My red alert went off immediately as Paris startled from the sudden and foreign contact. She shrieked and my eyes quickly drifted from her hands and up to her face, where her mouth formed into a wide 'O' of surprise, and her forehead wrinkled up.  
   
"Rory!!" she yelled out softly, trying to hide the excitement she felt from the brush behind a harsh tone of voice. _Completely accidental, completely accidental, try to brush it off as an accident._ My mind immediately memorized the feel of thick cashmere against soft skin, and all I was doing to kill the abrupt sexual reaction I felt from the touch wasn't enough to make my inner vixen make a declaration.  
   
 _I told you they were soft, don't I plant a great mental picture?_ Shit, I didn't need to hear that little voice in my head trying to turn innocent actions into a passionate reaction from my routine action! I bursted out a quick "I'm sorry!!" to kill the mood, reaching for Paris' hands to help her with the chopstick.  
   
I heard her breath deepen, and her face flushed as she found her attention drifting away from the chopstick lesson. Wrapping my arm around her wasn't helping matters at all, because in that position near my elbow my arm was now brushing against the side of her chest. Her lower lip was quivering and her gaze lowered towards mine, the closeness of the situation amplifying our individual perfumes further than intended. _Paris smells really nice_ ,my mind relayed, stating the obvious.  
   
Fighting the urge, I wanted to just move away from her because all my senses were on high alert. Here I was in a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese place with Paris and I wanted her badly. All because she can't use a damned set of chopsticks!  
   
Her hand brushed against mine, and before I could realized what was happening, both sticks dropped out of her hands and onto the table. She then turned in her seat to face me, in the process separating the grip on her hand in mine, and causing that hand to again brush up against her breast. Instead of seeming frustrated, the look she gave towards me was of the persuasion that she didn't really care about chopsticks anymore.  
   
"What are you doing--" I asked, but was cut off by a soft millisecond impact of her lips skimming against mine. She finished bringing herself out of the teaching position and faced towards me, bringing her hands back into mine.  
   
"Some things just can't be taught, nor can they be learned. They just come naturally." Her even voice was a hush as she ran her hands up the lower half of my arms, and then along the side of my body. "When it comes to stick, I'm screwed; it has to be automatic for me to make it work." Her long fingers hook around the cotton material of my dress, and my mind needs a few more seconds of processing for my brain to get it. I stare at her like I'm the dumbest girl in the world before the solution to the reference comes into my head. God, only she would connect an eating utensil to that usual female comparison many a lesbian has encountered.  
   
"My mom has the Jeep, so I had to learn stick." I said, trying to create conversation. "I hate it though, it's so hard." Damn it, another unintended entendre, she comes closer, her ankle right against mine...  
   
"Way too intimidating, not so elegant." Closer, there's barely any room between us in this small box anymore....  
   
"Tough to work with..." I crookedly smile, the flirting hotter than it was even during our drunkest Thursday night.  
   
"Complicated and never dependable." There's Dean and Tristan in simple words, ladies and gentlemen. My eyesight wandered down, the closeness, and in my view, her necklace dangled like an arrow pointing down at her hidden décolletage, my squinting surmising that her breasts were cupped in satiny pink lace several inches down which was obscured by her sweater. The hypothetical salty taste of the skin along her sternum and into the plunge implanted within once again...  
   
"Too simple and complex at the same time," I finished off as she gave me her own appraisal, taking long seconds to get a feel for my body.  
   
"I'm finishing with a fork and knife."  
   
"Go ahead." She smirked.  
   
"My chopsticks obviously had performance issues."  
   
"Maybe they need chopstick Viagra." She softly giggled in that nervous way that to me sounds as sexy as a moan.  
   
"Maybe I don't give a fuck." Paris slides her fingers against the bottom of my bra line, bringing herself closer. "I'm hungry for this..." she wandered herself off, her lips looking as kissable to me as mine were to her.  
   
My response was soft as could be and drowned out as we started a torrid kiss with each other. "Starving..." We came together, and before I knew it, for the first time in a public venue, I was kissing my girlfriend and unwilling to hide it from any eyes. Instead of the soft kisses we've shared so far though, this one was more demanding; this was her kiss to lead. She brought her hands higher and me as flush to her in that sitting position as I could get, our teeth nipping at lips, eyes closed, my hands pushed against the divider for leverage.  
   
Not for long however, because she decided to take the next adventurous step a minute into the deep slow kiss. Her tongue experimentally played against one side of my mouth along the ridge, causing me to moan from the flitting. _Too soon_ , my reasonable self cautioned, the implications of everything floating within. But I couldn't deny how good it felt when she pushed in a little further, the tip of her tongue meeting my relaxed one in the middle.  
   
I couldn't disappoint her, or myself, I knew how long I wanted this. I pushed my hands off from the divider, causing myself to lose balance and us to fall deeper into the booth with my hands entangling within her hair. I knew where I was, exactly how it looked, where it could possibly lead...but I didn't care. _She matches my wits, and my heart_ , I thought as the kissing became more aggressive. The sound was more audible than our softer kisses, the mix of the taste of pan-fried vegetables and oils mixing with our own, all I was concerned with was making Paris know that her ideas of romance were awesome, spot-on, and after that, just indescribable.  
   
We were both lost within, reclined in the booth, lost in each other. Right there I was ready to shove off the food, screw the movie, and race for a hotel room or isolated site somewhere off the road. I was so close that I found my hand drifting further until it was at the hem of that leather skirt, with her own hand at my knee. French kissing in a Chinese restaurant; somehow I think the Model UN at Chilton would be impressed with our efforts to combine different nations in something so racy!  
   
Fate cursed us however as our hostess came upon the scene and tapped me on the back, startling me. I shrieked from the touch, as both of us put on that 'hand in the cookie jar' look on our faces, the realization of where we first French kissed hitting us.  
   
"Ladies, how is the food?" she asked in a friendly way. _What, no 'the police have been called, you're both being charged with public indecency'?_ My dress was all wrinkled as both Paris and I gathered ourselves back together.  
   
"Oh, it's good," I said truthfully, trying to get back to normal, "best I've had in months."  
   
"And you?" the friendly Asian girl asked Paris, who found her necklace wrapped twice around her neck, and a naked bra strap exposed from our necking that she was pushing back below her sweater and out of view.  
   
She blotted her lips in the napkin, then spoke. "Delicious, can't use the chopsticks though. See, she was teaching me and we just couldn't do it, and well one thing led to another, a hand here, another there, an ankle somewhere else..." Paris's ramblings were held up by our server holding her hand in the stop position.  
   
"Don't worry about it, happens all the time whether opposite or same sex, you're not the first two I've seen like that." She smiled knowingly. "Joe in front told me you came from DeVek's; the way you two looked, the dots were connected. I didn't see anything, honestly." She winked at both of us, a wave of relief for being caught coming over the table. "Let me know when you need the check." She walked away, and before the temptation came back I moved back to side of the booth, the scent of Paris still stuck in my nostrils as she watched me from the moment I got up until I sat down. Panting and recovering her breath, she looked at me, her face a deep red color and her demeanor relaxed despite being caught kissing another girl.  
   
"That was....that was...that was really, really good." She looked so adorable, smiling widely, the thrill and adrenaline rushing through her so much. "Wow, what have I been missing here? It's just a kiss, a nice regular Hollywood screen kiss, how could it feel that good?"  
   
"Unresolved sexual tension," I said, the theory of many a work of fiction the most appropriate answer. "You bottle it up for so long and it just builds up like that within. And boy howdy do I have to say you must have a water tower full of the stuff, you sure that was you?!" I got back to eating, as she started to tackle her chow mein with a regular knife and fork.  
   
"I could say the same of you Ror, geeze. So much for all work, no play for us, eh?" I shook my head, realizing that all of our tension was being released in small and sensual torrents.  
   
"I guess not." We smiled at each other one last time before getting to the matter of filling our stomachs with wonderful food once again. Eating the Western way was much easier for Paris, and she awed at all the various tastes she had on her plate, along with the fillings in her egg rolls, mixed with beef or chicken (no pork obviously). Her moans of approval at the food were amazing to watch, and to see this side of Paris that was new, probably even to her, was a sight to behind. The relaxed surroundings made things that much better as we both talked about letters to the editor Paris has received since Friday afternoon, which mostly consisted of 'you were great' or 'worst editor ever, a pox on your house' missives which made her want to work harder to make the paper better, and laugh at the notion she couldn't please everybody, especially Charleston. She thought the day he'd like the paper would be the day he died, but before he did he'd still criticize her student-favorable viewpoint on one thing or another.  
   
The time passed quickly for the meal, and the food on the plates disappeared, leaving only that fortune cookie centerpiece in the middle. Both of us looked at the plate, knowing a Chinese meal wasn't just that without cracking it open and unfolding the line of paper contained for the words of wisdom and the lucky numbers.  
   
Paris took a corner of her napkin and wiped her mouth, looking down at the middle plate, then glanced back at me. "We only have a few minutes to make it to the movie, so we better hurry up."  
   
"A few minutes to make the Fantanas commercial, a trailer for the new Jennifer Lopez bomb, the pitch to buy AMC gift certificates and finally being belittled like an idiot to shut off our cell phones? Slow down, we'll make the movie," I reassured her, taking my cookie from the plate and then shoving it towards her. "Now take one from the plate and tell me what it says."  
   
"I should tell you I'm one who sticks around for the credits after the ending of a film," she notes. "Those behind the scenes work hard for any recognition and their due should be respected by reading their names."  
   
"Gives me more time with you then," I said, a sparkle in my eye, as I gave her a flirtatious smile.  
   
"Sure, Miss 'Pro - Watching Paris take her time with something drives me crazy', any excuse for you, eh?" She cracked open her cookie and unfurled the fortune scrap out from each part, bringing it close so she could read the small red text. Softly, she read the text contained;  
   
 ** _A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom. Keep your thorns, but be sure to put them to use only in the right situation. Be gentle with your love; fiercely defend what you believe is right, but withhold the thorns from your love.  
_**   
I listened to her state the fortune, and felt a lump form in my throat. I had fortune cookies before, but usually the fortunes were cast aside or I laughed them off because what was said in them would never match up with anything Dean would say or do. But hearing Paris say this, and hear her voice crack towards the call to 'be gentle', it really got to her too. Her eyes just widened, her voice softened, and by the last few words she was saying them and truly meaning them. It gave me a flashback to her attempt at intimidation before the Shakespeare exam way back when, with a practiced and exact recitation of the 116th Sonnet behind me as I sat on a bench. When she recites something, her heart is in it, and to hear her cultured voice turn what seemed like a rote fortune into something like that just touched at the right place in my heart.  
   
It also seemed to touch her too. "This cookie had to be created for me." Her lip quivered as she reread the truest words about her that had ever been created. I would've never come up with the analogy by my own doing, but truly she was that beautiful rose, insulated by all those thorns she built up through the years to defend the blossom few know she has. Excepting Mom, Paris is the strongest girl that I know, and that she is dropping the thorns so I can become a part of her world is something that I've only begun to treasure.  
   
She turned her face away from my direction for a moment, the reason I thought was to catch a tear that was forming in her eye. "I know this was mechanically produced down an assembly line, but is it wrong that I want to slip it into my coin purse and keep it?"  
   
I shook my head. "If you feel that it's true you should keep what it says close to your sleeve. I know those words did something to me." I rolled my cookie around in my hand, nervous as to what it said.  
   
"I will then." She does just what she says, taking a contemplative beat before she put the fortune scrap in her coin purse, just like she said. She folded it up carefully and slid it in. "So, what does yours say Gilmore?"  
   
"Hopefully not 'You'll meet a tall and handsome man'," I joked as I split it open. Paris looked at me lovingly from across the table as I set the two halves to my side, staring at the distant red Helvetica writing, then bringing it closer to me so I could read it to myself.  
   
My throat hitched as I read the words to myself in my head. OK, there has to be some kind of weird bonding thing that happened between this pallet of fortune cookies and the minds of the people who opens them, because again the words seemed to connect to me as strongly as Paris'. _Obviously this wasn't meant for me_ , I thought. _This was supposed to go to a guy, not for me to open and have as my fortune.  
   
_"So, what does it say?" Paris breaks me out of the spell of the words, and I look up startled at her.  
   
"Nothing about a man, that's for sure." I gave her a funny smile, and slipped the sheet between my thumb and forefinger to read it. This is what it said, and I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible as I comprehended it aloud;  
   
 ** _Fortune favors the brave. Be steady and strong with your emotions, not too forceful, but appear certain in your choices and all will be well.  
_    
**I said it strongly, meaning all of the words I said. Lately I had felt brave, trying to prove to myself that what I was doing with Paris was right. I felt myself swell at the sentence, surprised at how strong those words were. I reeled back, trying to contain the shock at what they said.  
   
"Ror, you OK?" Paris asked, her concern evident.  
   
"Yeah, I'm fine, just these fortune cookies hit so close to home, you know?" I ran a couple of fingers through my hair trying to keep my gaze on her. "Usually it's nonsense when Mom and I get takeout from the place in Stars Hollow, usually something that totally doesn't make sense or is satirical. Our fortunes here, totally different story."

She floated a theory to humanize everything and mute how on-target the fortunes were. But from her voice even she seemed to not believe what she thought. "It's probably nothing, they probably have several boxes in back divided by age and interest. You know, the kids get something cute and non-specific, teenagers get the Bazooka Joe satirical phrases, seniors get fortunes that assure them they won't be kicking off quite yet. That leaves the lover's box, which they obviously yanked a few out of and put on our plate."  
   
"Are we really that obvious?" I had to ask. "We never said to the hostess up front we were a couple in the first place."  
   
"But we're dressed as if we're on a date, and if you notice, there are four cookies on the plate. Probably thought our non-existent boyfriends were on the way later and then only after we ordered our numbers was when they realized that there were no men in the picture."  
   
"We certainly cleared that up twenty minutes ago, didn't we?" Shyly smiling, I made her blush as I remind her of the torrid kiss we brought ourselves into just that long ago. She nodded her head, bringing her hand to the check plate and lifted up the slip of paper that had our order and total on it. She looked at it, and the price of all of this company and food made her happy.  
   
"I'm certainly glad that Italian restaurant wasn't very cooperative, $44 in all for our food and drinks." She handed me the bill, and the price made me smile. "The food was definitely worth every penny."  
   
"And the company?" I hooded my eyes and husked my voice down a little. She squirmed as I handed her eleven dollars from my purse for my part of the tip, which at $22 combined would make our hostess very happy.  
   
"Priceless, of course." She smiled and brushed my hand as she took the money and put it on the plate. "This meal also showed me that my mother's dietician is way too fucking paranoid, this will be the last time I listen to him because this is one of the best meals I've had going out in a long time."  
   
"What was the last best meal?" I asked, gathering my jacket up and getting ready to slide out of my booth.  
   
"First all-A report card, 1991 at this buffet restaurant in Southington with a ball pit and all the childhood trappings. Daddy and Fran snuck me out to celebrate with Louise while Mother was at a Daughters of the Civil War meeting, and we all got yelled at pretty bad when she found out. After that it was all those fancy restaurants I loathe so much and had to wear a starched dress to, and always the same thing, escargot. There's a reason fast food is so good, it's there in an instant. Snails, which are slow, do not make a good food." She wrinkled her nose, and I felt bad that she had to torture herself through meals with that on the plate. She got up, and we met in the middle, both of our hands extended to each other.  
   
"Totally agreed." I smiled at her; part one of the date was a smashing success to the both of us. "Shall we head to the theater to take in the picture show?" She shook her head, and I still think at times she thinks of me as just a little bit crazy. She'd be right, just look at my mother and the genes I inherited from her.  
   
"Let's get going Ror." We headed to the cashier's stand to pay, both of us surprised that the date was going so well so far after what should have been an insurmountable setback. Could the night get any better than it did at this point?  


* * *

"Do you know what we're seeing?" I was in line with Paris waiting for her to buy our tickets to the movie at the West Springfield 15 movie-plex. Sure it didn't have the intimacy of the bookstore during one of their classic movie screenings, and it certainly didn't have the old charm of Stars Hollow's main movie theater, the Classica. However it would still do, as Paris assured me that the movie didn't have the crowds _Harry Potter_ did, but it was far from as bad as _I Spy_. Good thing too, because if I wanted to watch a TV show, I'd watch the actual TV show, not the asinine movie of now it was based on. You figure _Eight is Enough_ as a gross sex comedy isn't that far off in the future. Yeah, Dick Van Patten can stick to hosting poker tournaments, thank you very much.  
   
We kept ourselves separate in the line, not wanting to attract any attention, to just keep appearances as two girls having a night out. It was working so far, though Paris was being coy about what she was setting her $16 down for us to see.  
   
"I know," she said, smirking. "I just don't want you to make a rash decision and ask to see another film that would ruin our closeness for the night."  
   
"I guess that's fair," I said, the line finally getting to our point, putting us in the front. The ticket cashier is one of those disassociated girls with the heavy black plastic-framed glasses weighing down on her nose, jet black hair, and looking out of place in her ushering uniform with her pierced nose and eyebrow.  
   
"Two for _Femme_ please," Paris rushes out, the better to keep her movie choice as private as can be. Ticket Girl looks at the both of us, and seems to gape at us to determine if we're old enough to see this movie. Paris assured her quickly. "I'm seventeen, she's eighteen, you need any identification?"  
   
"Won't be necessary," Ticket Girl groans out disaffected. "Let me guess, you two get your rocks off to Uncle Jesse's wife?"  
   
 _Huh?!_ What on earth was she talking about? I had no clue, except from the movie title why she would mention this 'Uncle Jesse's wife' girl.  
   
Paris rolled her eyes highly, trying to brush off the sort-of Goth's inquiry. "No, we're seeing it for the plot."  
   
"Sure you are," Ticket Girl squeaks out sarcastically. "The girls who see this alone swoon over Antonio Banderas, men just for the spying and explosions, and girls like you...well I'd spoil plot points so I won't go there." The tickets pop out from the printing machine, and she hands them to Paris. "Theater 13, small stadium auditorium. Have fun, but not too much." Ticket Girl's voice is tinged with mischief and Paris holds her tongue until we get past the ticket-taker.  
   
"Does everyone know that we're together? Is there a gaydar dead spot around Hartford, but it's nice and strong up north here?" Her questions of how and why puzzled me too, we really didn't look that close looking from a third person view. We were closer than two 'regular' girls, but not too close.  
   
"I'm not sure," I said, wanting my other two questions answered. "So _Femme_ and Uncle Jesse's wife, how do they connect together? I still don't know which movie we're seeing."  
   
She fumbled for her credit card for the concession stand as she finally clued me in to the movie of the night. "We're seeing _Femme Fatale_ with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Antonio Banderas. I read that it was a romantic thriller in the movie reviews and it sounded like a good choice. That, and your train-wreck attraction to bad acting from a someone such as a supermodel guarantees that if the movie isn't that good you'll still be able to get some mocking pleasure from it."  
   
I perked up; obviously Paris has been paying attention to what I liked and what I didn't. "Really, you'd let me mock?" I asked wide-eyed.  
   
"It's a 2 1/2 star movie, the plot could go either way." She kept looking in her purse as we approached the concession stand, and I decided to make a snap decision.  
   
"Thank you, just for that I'll pay for the snacks." I smiled at her, and she seemed to be shocked by my generosity.  
   
"No, you don't have to, really." She argued back, but I stopped her as I slipped a $20 bill out of my wallet.  
   
"Paris, you've already gone above and beyond everything tonight, so let me do this." I pleaded with her to let me pay, and after some argument, she relented.  
   
I ordered a large tub of popcorn with the largest Diet Pepsi they offered, a box of Dots, and then a cup of water for myself. Paris tried to take back the order, saying she couldn't drink that much soda. Obviously she still hasn't figured out some of those romantic cues and I have to show her why I ordered the snacks this way.  
   
She took the popcorn and Dots, while I took the cups as we head towards the corridor into the back section of the theater. Just near the bathroom and the water fountain, I stop her, and then put the soda down on the fountain, take off the cap on the water cup, and dump the contents into the fountain drain. Paris looked towards me, confused to my actions.  
   
"Was the water not good enough?" she asked.  
   
I shook my head, and smiled. "Remember reading the Archie comics, the really, really old ones where they were set in the 50's, where Archie and either Betty or Veronica were across from him at a booth in Pop's malt shop?"  
   
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Do I look like I sympathize with Betty or Veronica and their struggles to bed some checkerboard redhead in a sweater vest?"  
   
"Ooooh yeah." I forgot who I was talking to there, had to class up the reference a little. "OK, take the malt shop setting and change it into a _Saturday Evening Post_ cover. Man across, woman on the other side. And in the middle--"  
   
Finally, she gets the hint. "A malted with two straws sticking out of it." She bites her lip, thinks a bit, and finally comes to my modern-day solution. "So that's why you ordered the bucket-sized Diet Pepsi, you want to share it with me." I nodded. "I should've known after you grabbed only two straws instead of one."  
   
"Am I that distracting?" I joked, smirking at her as I threw the water cup into the trash. "I mean, if you don't mind, we can go back to the counter--"

She ran a couple fingers through her ponytail and smiled at me. "No, don't. Just call me the dating virgin who has no idea what she's doing." She looked down, and I took her hand as we walked towards our theater.  
   
"I wouldn't say a dating virgin," I assured, "you're just trying to get used to dating someone you're actually interested in."

"True," she said, then sighed as if to gird herself up for the next two hours. "I better have a good film intuition, this is my first time ever choosing for myself. The obligation dates always chose for me, and I now know more about Rob Schneider than I ever cared to beyond his _SNL_ repertoire."  
   
I slipped my hand into hers, as we looked up at the sign above Theater 13, the chasing lights around the mini-marquee signifying that we were in front of the theater. This was definitely the true test of the night, trying to see if we could live through almost two hours of silence and longing glances, building up the temptation to do those classic 'movie date' actions like the arm over the shoulder, leg against leg, the caress inside the popcorn tub.  
   
All things that annoyed me with Dean, but with Paris...got me prepared for an interesting night.  
   
I made it clear that her movie choice wouldn't be bad at all, and we walked into the theater thinking with the crowd in front there would be a problem getting a seat. Not that it was a problem with _Femme Fatale_ , because there were only 19 people combined in the theater, and all of them were seated in the front, some in groups and some alone. Paris and I claimed the perfect seats towards the back, right in the middle and with seven rows between us and the next person. I sat to her right ("The ADA ramp on my side is faster than the steps, and it's my dominant side" she claimed, just in case she drank a little too much soda and had to make a ladies room run), and the seats were nice and comfy. They reclined, though the armrest was fixed and wouldn't go up, so one of us getting bored and napping in the other's lap was not to be.  
   
Thankfully the movie theater we went to was in a different chain than the ones down in Connecticut, so we only had to sit through three brainless trailers, no Fantanas and one pitch to order Comcast internet service. After that, it was straight to the feature presentation.  
   
Which was to say the least...very interesting. I didn't hear that much about the movie, much less the plot since I pay no attention to the Hollywood gossip shows, so I went in uninformed beyond the fact it was a spy thriller. Leave it to Paris to eschew the usual romantic comedy stereotypical part of the date.  
   
The movie started out pretty dull; your average start to one of those movies you see late at 3am on a little independent station. Party setting, the predator following the prey, that kind of thing. The prey, a woman had on some expensive jewelry that this evil character was trying to get...  
 _  
Hold on_, I thought as I saw the character being played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos acting like this predator. Uh-uh, this wasn't happening, she wasn't whispering to this woman that she was interested in her as just a ruse to get her diamonds and gold.  
   
The plan moved slowly at first, and I took a handful of popcorn from the tub, distracted by the events on the screen. Our spy and the other girl head into the bathroom, and I try my best to assume it's just a session where they freshen up or try to boast about the lead male's penis size or something just as brainless. It could also be the old fallback, trap the innocent in a stall and make off with the goodies with a gun to her head.  
   
If only it were that simple; in moments I learn why the spy gets this girl in the bathroom; she wants not only the material gratification, but the sexual kind as well. The two ladies kiss, and I shriek as I realize why exactly the movie has not only an R rating, but such an appropo title as _Femme Fatale_.  
   
"Jesus!" I shriek out as they move into the stall and start making out, body against body, the two lithe actresses getting very into their imaginary roles. People look back towards the row Paris and I share, and I shirk into my seat as those eyes direct at me for ruining the mood of the scene. Paris takes the hand I have buried in the popcorn and grips it at the wrist, bringing her eyes towards me.  
   
"I didn't expect that to happen," she claims. "The reviews said there were some sexual situations, they didn't allude to exactly what." Her voice is a hushed whisper as I watch the scene unfold and this spy claims the jewels from the girl through the distraction of the passion. I'm watching this all go down, and realizing a big thing...I usually avoided any movie with a girl kissing a girl like the plague, besides the few movies I accidentally caught on a channel surf like _Bound_ and the like. My only experience with female/female sexuality was the occasional _Ally McBeal_ episode, but David E. Kelley isn't exactly an expert on Sapphic relations because those situations were created more for comedy than reality.  
   
So there I was, a lesbian on her first date with her girlfriend, who had only imagined herself with another girl in dreams. Not from any outside force, just the barest of imaginations and the occasional brush against it in my books. I liked Paris romantically from very few outside forces and just the idea that I loved the concept of having a romantic relationship with her.  
   
I was watching this almost-sex scene on screen, and my reaction to a supermodel kissing another woman...it was so different from any reaction I ever had to the garden variety hetero love scene. This was beautiful, wonderfully framed by the director and very erotic as these two girls fell into each other. A filter was up to block the true reason for the kiss from my mind, and I just enjoyed it for what it was. I know it was probably focus-grouped to appeal to guys (hello, they are hopeless ideals!), but this was a test to confirm if I could get off to the thought of another girl. That is another fantasy object besides the great girl sitting next to me.  
   
I squinted my eyes, feeling myself tighten as the scene came to fruition before the spy stole away. Watching the slim blonde arouse her prey, whisper sweet nothings and the like, it brought me into such a blur. It was like I didn't want this to end; I wanted to see it be longer. But I knew too much longer and the ladies couldn't have their eye candy, so they had to end the scene. My mind felt like it was yanked away once the next scene started, and in my mind I wanted to change the ending and have the spy character forget her reason for seducing the other woman, going ahead and falling into the chasm of lust she was in further.  
   
"You liked that scene, didn't you?" I hear a soothing monotone as Paris sets her hand on my knee, her arm elbow to elbow with mine. "That was certainly a surprise, wasn't it?"  
   
I could only nod my head furiously as I started to let my mind wander towards Paris as a predator, claiming me as her prey the way the spy character did. The movie stared getting confusing and convoluted after that, not comically so, just in how many threads there were. The spy girl meets the aforementioned guy played by Antonio Banderas, and as they must the sparks started to fly soon after that between them, much to my disinterest.  
   
Where I'd usually mock however, I just thought and stared at the girl to my left, her wide chestnut pupils transfixed to the silver screen trying to will the plot further. The usual spy capery ensued on-screen, and all I could think about was Paris' hand against mine in the popcorn tub, and when I'd passed the Dot box to her so she could take out a few of the gummy candies.  
   
It was about fifty minutes I started losing interest in the movie. More rambling from the Latin heartthrob who only gets my REM numbers pumping, and Rebecca's spy girl getting taken by him. I reclined in the seat a little, hoping the next fifty minutes wouldn't last as long as the first fifty. God, the movie was boring; I was thinking it started with a bang, and ended with a big thud courtesy of an exaggerated Spanish accent. I relaxed waiting for the time to be over, thinking Paris wasn't going to use the darkness of the theater to try anything. Not that I expected her to, she didn't seem to be into doing more than kissing in public.  
   
I leaned towards one side, noticing the popcorn was starting to get low. Paris said nothing and I didn't expect her to do much more as a scene in a cold dark place where for some rhyme or reason, Rebecca's female spy is in nothing but her underwear as something or other happens between her and the guy. I stare in awe at this woman walking around in a bra and panties overacting, and though I could name the many faults of the wife of that great thespian of early-90's TGIF John Stamos as far as her acting went, I couldn't deny how sexually alluring she looked.  
   
I wrung a hand against my thigh, the reaction of the film's content getting to me in such a frustrating way. My mind wandered off into a tangent involving Grandma's wine cellar, with Paris and I doing things in said cellar I wouldn't usually think of. The pretentious French setting of the movie only reminded me further of the name my girlfriend held, along with how secretive and sneaky she could be at times.  
   
What I imagined about us, sneaking a makeout session before a Friday night dinner, was getting to me in the worst way. The fresh memories of Lady Sing's and what ensued in an innocent chopstick lesson with her just taking over and bringing me into a dominant embrace made me flare up.  
   
 _Stop! Rory, don't be thinking of these things, this is your first date. Your. **First. ** Date. Y'know, the one where you just get to know the other and don't do anything besides a cute kiss at the end of the night? Now watch the movie, shut InnerVixenRory up, and keep it chaste!_ Perfect, thank you conscious for stepping in and cooling things down before they could get out of control...  
   
It didn't get much time to make a point known though, because just then our Latin spy guy or whoever the hell he is has forced himself on the spy girl, and all the sudden I hear moaning. I shut my eyes (it was sort of a scary scene), freaking out over the image from earlier that she was with that other girl, and it was so erotic. I tried to think thoughts far away from sex. Sarcasm, Russian Novels, Paris yelling at me for screwing something up with the _Franklin_...  
   
 _Wait a second, what is that touch?_ I feel a brush along my left side, above my elbow, softly at first. I think for a moment that it's accidental and Paris wanting a few more Dots from me.  
   
The only trouble was that we exhausted the supply from the box twenty minutes before, and the empty container was in Paris' purse at that moment waiting for disposal.  
   
"So," she states softly, "you aren't mocking this movie. Why is that Gilmore; too distracted?" I gritted my teeth as she continued to make her point, a nail tip at the cuff of the sleeve on that side of my dress. "You have to admit that this is a rental at best because of the overacting."  
   
"It's not good," I say, settling back into the seat, trying not to look at her and watching the bickering couple in the film tear each other's heads off. "But it's far from bad."  
   
"Oh, I bet. I mean that Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. She definitely has clear skin, a great body, killer hair, and smooth mile-long legs, doesn't she? It kind of reminds me of something you brought up Thursday evening." I don't look away to see a facial reaction as I remember that same exact compliment directed at Paris when I brought myself into a closer cuddle with her after everything settled down in the wake of the ask-out. I remember the feel of her bare back, the blemish and bump-free feel of her skin, perfect from her simple, yet effective beauty regimen. And that hair...that really can't be genetics giving Paris those golden locks that if she decided to, could grow all the way lower than her waist in back, can it?

My pelvis tightened up against my will, the feathery touches of Paris' fingers against my arm irritating that lust itch in a certain place all over again. What on earth was I thinking going with a thin underwear set tonight? I had to choose this date to slip into a pair of striped blue/white bikini panties with a waistband that was barely there at all, along with the matching bra which had a line of lace piping along the top of each cup.  
   
I knew why I chose it indeed; to feel sexy even if I looked matronly on the outside. My line of thinking suddenly went to Paris' choice of what was underneath that sexy leather skirt, and the question of whether she was a color girl, went plain virginal white, or as befits her bitchy schoolgirl persona, wore the same color as Rebecca was on-screen at that exact moment.  
   
 _Hey, she might not even choose at all..._ Oh God, my inner vixen had to go there!! No, I don't think that way, I'm not like that. _Focus on the film Rory, focus on the movie. It'll all be over soon_. I was feeling highly sensitive at that moment, and I did not need to be replacing characters in a film to fit my sexual fantasies.  
   
I thought Paris would back off after a little riling, just enough to give me a taste and satisfy her curiosity. The problem was that from her view, I was vulnerable, weakened by the content of the movie. I relaxed into my seat, her touch soothing. I took a handful of popcorn, bigger than I was taking before, trying to use the excuse of eating to distract me from what was happening. I could feel her eyes on me, watching me eat and savor that bottom layer of popcorn where the first layer of butter topping was, the best part of the entire bucket.  
   
All of the sudden, she took action. Her arm slid slowly past mine slyly and slowly, my mind trying to numb what she was doing to me. I felt hot, my attention mixed between the movie and nothing at all. Paris moved closer towards me, her hand closer and closer, in a torturous descent towards someplace she was assured Dean had never even gotten to. I thought she wouldn't even get this gutsy for at least a few dates, she never showed this side of herself before. The slow, seductive, softer side of Paris that was known to few.  
   
I lifted my arm to take a sip of the soda, the Pavlovian reflex of sating thirst paramount to sexual sating. I lifted the cup and sucked on the straw to drag the sugary substance into my mouth...  
   
Paris stretched her arm out, taking advantage of the unoccupied armrest. I felt a light touch at my side, not self-induced. Alarm went through me, and I softly exhaled as two long fingertips made themselves known, going from my side in a dawdling path that took a curve around from just below where my arm and body met, and then lower along that side. She seemed to be noticing exactly how wound up I was getting and taking advantage of it. The feeling was soothing to me like a warm cup of coffee, something that I was craving right about there since it had been six hours since my last cup.  
   
She kept her hand wandering along my side, alternating between a soft touch of the dress material and running a nail tip along the skin from above. My breathing rose and fell depending on how deep she touched, and my eyes were far from the movie. It wouldn't have mattered if a horror film or romance on the screen, for I wasn't even paying attention to the movie at all at this point. The soothing feel of that hand secretly wandering around me in the darkness of the theater gave me a illicit buzz that I wouldn't have associated with Paris before.  
   
It just got worse from there; her eyes continued to focus on the screen, not even appraising me as her mental vision wrung all it could. Her touch wandered from my side and around my left breast. One moment she would slowly trace the lace fringe on the top of the bra cup, the next her print was circling around the seam between the cup and the band leading to the back. Her teasing was just the worst thing too; she would bring her touch closer in towards the nipple, then retreat just as she neared there. God, she must've really retained the few times in the school shower she's seen me naked and known when to stop, but however she knew, it was working! I felt tight, and tried to move a little to the right in the seat. I couldn't go further.  
   
Trying to move my legs was an exercise in futility, because all each brush did when I would switch and recross them was relay how hot and bothered I was. My breathing would pick up and I'd feel like I needed a release and soon.  
   
 _Stop, public place, don't think those thoughts here!_ I needed to kill everything that was being stirred up. Thinking of unsexy things like Russian Novels, a bus ride, or stale 9pm convenience store coffee was something I tried to bring into my head to stop the thoughts.  
   
It thankfully worked. Unthankfully, it worked for all of forty-five seconds, because it's just at that point the director decides to get all arty and mess with the film narrative the only way he seems to know how. The spy girl jumps off a bridge over the Seine to get away from someone who's attacking her after a rendezvous gone wrong. OK, seems pretty normal, doesn't it, the character is either headed towards sudden death or an escape up the river.  
   
After a few moments though, both of us are startled in our seats as the scene of Rebecca's character in the water turns into something else. The scene cuts to clear blue water, which is impossible in an urban waterway and tells us all this was filmed in a tank and most likely another dream sequence, but I digress.  
   
In that clear blue water, the spy girl is fully nude, and it's all shown. I'm not talking a scene cut below the waist, or a fuzzy effect muting everything, because we were now watching this supermodel actress maneuver around the water and trying to surface with nothing on. It was all there, her hair floating underwater above her head, her breasts exposed, and nothing but a isosceles triangle of hair covering her modesty.  
   
"Oh God!" I said, softly, finding myself reacting to the scene. I was taking in this lithe form on the screen, wettening my lips, seeing what was on the screen. This movie was weird, and it was certainly rated R. But I didn't expect full frontal nudity in it!  
   
I wanted to be a prude, wanted to cover my eyes, be the way I usually was about nudity, that it was meant for only the bedroom and the bath. I should've run out of the theater and questioned Paris as to whether she knew about this all along and was getting ready to make a play once the scene started. But I sat in quiet numbness instead, watching Rebecca swim through the water and replacing her with Par, thinking about her skinny dipping. Not a perfect connection, but that's where my mind went anyways.  
   
"They should really say something about that in the reviews." Paris obviously didn't expect it, and tried to reel her hand from me. "Shit, I'm so sorry Rory, it didn't say anything about this at all."  
   
"Don't be," I hastily responded.  
   
"I knew I should've just did a DVD night at the Manor, you didn't need to see this." Her whisper was easily decoded, but only as close to me. "I just saw spy thriller and thought it'll be good. I should've read the family reviews telling me where each swear word and nudity bit was! This shouldn't be a dating movie, it's soft-core pornography!"  
   
"But it's big budget soft-core porn," I joked. "the production values are impressive." Boy they were, judging from how much my mouth was watering at a woman who could barely act in front of me as a lust object. Antonio had no chance with me; Rebecca was truly flowing my blood.  
   
"No, it's not that, it's just so seedy and slow--" I took her wrist, silently asking her to keep her hand near...  
   
"It's a spy thriller, it's supposed to be that way." I pointed slightly towards the screen, trying to draw her into the whole thing. The reasoning for the scene was lost to the both of us. "Look at her Par, just...drink her in." My voice was husky with want, matching how my body was feeling. "This will probably be a good mocking rental one day, but just look at her." I pushed closer in the seat towards her. "I know you hate actors and actresses who don't put in an effort, but she's doing a good job with what she has. A very good job." My body was reacting to my words, the seductive side I never knew taking over.  
   
"Just think about her for a moment, her calling your name. Her finding you attractive. I know I'm yours, but I can't be mad at you for holding a desire for her, a fantasy of making love to her, whether as a character or in real life." I watched her react to my words, the pulse within her wrist fluttering up. "I already do all of those things, whether it be here right now, or else in bed. I can't help it because you're so attractive and smart, it's such a sexual combination." Paris' lips parted a little, giving me a clue to her distraction. The scene was starting to fade, and her right hand, stuck stubbornly previously to the arm rest, moved to take my hand as she brought the left out of it and played with the leather hem of her skirt. "You want that with me, don't you? That close-knit connection, the sparks, your imagination running far from your fingers and thinking of me like that, exposed, yet intimate." I looked down towards our hands, clasped together, the dim light of the screen reflecting both of us sitting in the back of that auditorium.  
   
The tension was tight as it can get, both of us knowing that there were still at least twenty minutes to the end of the movie. She looked at the scene, and then towards me, seeming to feel like that shy and reserved girl I see hard at work in the _Franklin_ office with an undone collar and her tongue poking out one cheek, straining to read the text on her terminal as she edits the paper and writes her op-ed pieces. In that moment, I found her to be so perfect for me, and I didn't want her to be afraid to assert the fact that behind her plain façade, she is a desirable woman to me.  
   
She still seemed nervous, so I had to slice through the tension. I brought my mouth close to her ear, my lips brushing slowly against the shell as I whispered something sweet in her ear. I let her know how much her sneaked touching was affecting me, and that I was perturbed that the distraction was stopping my first reaction to mock the film. I pushed the sleeve of her sweater up to expose her arm, and then ran my fingers along the sensitive bare skin.  
   
Paris looked conflicted; did she want to continue to ramp up our hidden flirting to blatant, or stop it before she did something she might regret? It was certainly a fun game to play, telling her the teasing touch of my breast through my dress was something unexpected. She watched the last of that nude swimming scene before the plot faded into convolution.  
   
She brought her gaze to me, steely and focused, her eyes starting at my hand rubbing her arm, then my face. Of course she had her own idea on how the flirting went, saying she got caught up in the moment and wouldn't do that in public company, she was embarrassed by her actions. "I won't deny that Rebecca is beautiful, however. The American feminine ideal with the perfect body, the perfect occupation, and the perfect husband."  
   
"A husband you might want out of the picture?" I questioned.  
   
"I have plenty of female dream lovers," she admitted, "usually however, it's more cerebral and less about sexual gratification." Her rushed whisper was soft enough not to be heard by anyone else. "Geena Davis for example, she's the triple threat. Sexy, athletic and smart as a whip; can't say much about her love life smarts and how her husband made her do _Cutthroat Island_ , but everything else...I have thought of her in that sense."  
   
I nodded my head; the redhead seemed like a Paris girl. "She is wonderful, tall too. Sometimes tall is good, y'know?" Oh God, a ramble when I have someone four inches short of me sharing a popcorn bucket and a date. I hoped she didn't notice...  
   
"I know how it is." She smiles, and moves closer to me. "Sometimes you want to reach that special someone by tip-toe." I was really wishing that damned armrest was out of the way. "Take this film; the tall girl uses her wiles to attract the short girl out of what she owns, that's using that special Amazonian-like sexual power to the fullest." She pushes my hand aside, setting it on the armrest and bringing her right hand towards my lap. "Still, I have a theory that those who are shorter are just as powerful. Our minds are closer together, our nerves also. There's just that less distance for pleasure to find its way to the proper channels through the nervous system and the spinal cord."  
   
 _Uggh, she knows I can't deny her when she gets all geeky and essaic!_ Her theory is probably scientific junk, but spiritually, it's completely possible. It also brings my mind towards seeing if she receives pleasure faster and in a stronger wave than I do. We start to move closer, the intimate conversation drawing us back into our little box, _Femme Fatale_ being forgot even before the credits start. I felt her hand move up, and involuntarily I was drawing in towards her again. Only this time I'd make sure I'd be in control.  
   
"I'm sure you're very sensitive," I said softly, moving an arm towards Paris. "You probably think I am."  
   
She nodded, acknowledging her touch. "Slimmer body, faster response."  
   
"More weight, and more bulk for you. Flattering bulk, that is." I directed my vision blatantly towards her bustline, what was beneath that sweater just taunting me.  
   
"Again, they're just breasts," she tried to deflect. "Not much to them except a pain in the ass trying to rein them in." The space between us closed in, we were getting closer and closer.  
   
"Well then they're the nicest pain in the ass I've ever seen." We knew it was getting to that point, where we might actually start to make out in the movie theater. We were getting closer to a two-seated hug and starting to kiss something awful. _So close, almost there, she's closing in...  
   
_It's just at this damned point the room brightens from the darkened hues of the film, to a intense, vivid white. The soundtrack starts to cut off like an internet stream, bits and pieces until the voices start to slow down. A piece of film is seen on the top part of the screen, stuck because the movie decided at this perfect moment to break apart and disintegrate. The house lights are brought up, and suddenly where Paris and I were in the dark moments before about to do things I might have thought long and hard about with Dean, was the abrupt end to the movie. We quickly broke apart since the front viewers would look our way towards the projection booth, and we gathered up our stuff as we hope that the movie can be restarted. Suddenly we had some time to pass.  
   
We talked about school for the next five minutes because of the lights being on and a fear that doing anything now would result in derision from the other customers in the room. Paris was jarred with the sudden mood change, but somehow I could hear in her voice that she was as wound up as me from our all-night teasing.  
   
Finally, the goth ticket girl came to the front of the theater to make an announcement. "Sorry folks, looks like the movie is ending early because our projectionist decided to take off and let all the films run out unsupervised, the last part of our feature presentation is all over the floor. You can get a refund at the front..."  
   
"Lazy union labor," Paris grumbled under her breath, making me laugh just a bit, though mad because I won't know how the movie ends for months. Everyone else in the theater groaned and we all left disappointed. Them about the plot, but the two of us for completely different and unrelated reasons. _Aw man, we were this close!!_ If the film would have broke two minutes later I might not have been as disappointed.  
   
Both of us grumbling, we headed out of the theater after getting a refund back in full, along with a perverted question from Ticket Girl about whether we did it in the theater or not. "I'm sure you have," Paris grouched as the girl handed back her card after running the refund, and she tried her best to look innocent. The date was good, but somewhat of a disaster because of the change in dinner plans and that early end to the movie. There was still a little bit of time though before I had to get to back to Stars Hollow; a free half-hour at the very least. I was getting tired, and Paris was noting that as she drove over the bridge back into Springfield.  
   
"I feel awful, this date just doesn't want to get off the ground." She shook her head, obviously crushed her well-formed plans turned out to have less planning than the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. "Are you up for a stop at a diner off route 83? I need something for the ride home to stay awake." I knew what that meant, and though it wasn't Luke's, a good cup of Folger's would hit the spot.  
   
"There's always room for coffee," I said jubilantly as she gave me that funny look, and she searched the road for place to stop.  
   
She pulled off 83 east of I-91 and stopped at a nameless diner which though not gleaming was serviceable enough for us before we got back on the road. We spent some more time just talking as we had a couple of cups of coffee between us. With the pressure of the 'big date' part off, we were starting to get down to brass tacks when it came to getting to know each other as I brought up an interesting question for her.  
   
"There has to be a newspaper you hate, I know how much you loathe Fox News," I brought up. "I think of you as a _New York Post_ hater."  
   
"You'd be surprised actually, the paper's long history more than makes up for Rupert Murdoch's current bias. They stick to a viewpoint and keep at it; something I like in a paper. What I don't like is the me-too attitude of some newspapers, which just happen to be in the Huntzberger chain."  
   
"Really"? I lighted up, impressed because like her I found the papers from Huntzberger Media to be some of the worst I ever read. "I would've thought--"  
   
"The _Post_ and the _Daily News_ are perfect train reads, they're compact and they get their message out with clear articles, excellent photography and eye catching headlines, I have absolutely no problems with them. But read the _New York Globe_ , _Washington Sentinel_ , _Los Angeles Ledger_ and _Boston Bugle;_ I dare you to get to page three before you throw those papers away in disgust."  
   
"You can't, the Page Three Girl ruins the paper." Mitchum Huntzberger, the owner/publisher of the chain was inspired from the ideas of the worst of the English newspapers, and was desperate for any circulation he could muster, even if it was from putting in pictures of scantily clad women who needed the money and the attention. "That chain is a joke, their sports coverage is awful, and business? Don't make me laugh."  
   
"They're so terrible birds reject them as cage liner." Paris continued to cut the chain down. "Plus you really think his son is in any condition to take over the empire? He's on the _Yale Daily News_ staff, but his crap is clearly ghostwritten because he's too busy holding another on-campus party which campus police can't stop because of Daddy Dearest."  
   
Ahh, Logan Huntzberger, truly, the worst offspring a publisher could ever have. I don't usually cut down someone I don't know, but from my reading of the same New York tabloids we're talking about, he seems like a crude carbon copy of Tristan with the suaveness of a lizard. I swear if I ever met him I wouldn't exchange three words with him before he'd ask me if I'd like to have sex with him. Except substitute 'sex' with 'fuck' and my saying 'Take me hard!' with 'Go fuck yourself!' while pouring a cold bottle of water down his pants and stomping off. I held off what I really thought of him from what I read and went with the more logical argument of why I hated him.  
   
"Logan couldn't run a newspaper if Guttenberg himself taught him how to set type, and a general jerk, he's had more relationships than A's."  
   
She shook her head, correcting me. "Rory dear, he's had more relationships than he has F's and C's, combined."  
   
"Wonderful, remind me to flee the country after 2019 when he becomes eligible for the White House."  
   
"Surely you jest," Paris tries to point out.  
   
"You remember who's in the Oval Office right now?" I said with a smirk.  
   
She shook her head and wrung her nose in disgust, the concept of Logan 'C Average' Huntzberger as president is just the image we didn't need. "This country is doomed. We're two intellectuals stuck in a nation of idiots, where you have to have a label on your curling wand telling you the iron **might** be hot, so don't touch it."  
   
"It's not doomed," I argued. "We can create an intellectual community I'm sure."  
   
She sipped her coffee and came right back. "The _Simpsons_ episode where Lisa and the Springfield Mensa tried to create an academic utopia proved that it doesn't work."

"That's just a cartoon though," I laughed out loud, surely it would work. "You can't knock it until you try it."  
   
"Three words; British royal family. Academics breed with each other only, and eventually the gene pool is exhausted when the generation after several turns out to be morons."  
   
Both of us stared at each other across the table, the coffee nice and hot and the conversation flowing. In the space of a half-hour stop, there were so many topic changes I can't remember half of them because they came fast and furious from our talking styles. Her plans for Harvard, mine in turn, how she rose through all these years as a bright four year-old with promise all those years ago and into the girl she is today. Two refills later, we were still talking about our love for foreign lands, her dream destination being Copenhagen ("You have Fez, but my dream trip is discovering Hans Christen Andersen's Denmark," she remarked) as we made our way out to the car, the early errors of the date being long forgotten and the bond still there as we shared a quick kiss in the lot.  
   
Wrapping her arms around me as we neared the Porsche, suddenly I felt a mass of metal and plastic being slipped within my hand. "Close your hand around it," she asked in a whisper, and when I did, she released from the embrace. "Now bring it around to your front." I held the object tightly in my hand as I brought it towards my face.  
   
In an instant, I turned white as I saw what she put in my hand. I expected maybe a ring or a bracelet.  
   
Instead, a keyring was in my grasp with the red, yellow and black insignia resting just below the hole holding each key to the ring. Paris looked up at me expectedly, trust written all over her features.  
   
"I want you to drive yourself part of the way, at least to just south of Hartford," she told me. "you should find out why I really love this car."  
   
I stared at her with shock, wondering if she was serious about what she was offering. My mouth dried as my fingers traced the pattern of the key teeth, the impact of the gesture unimaginable.  
   
I held the keys to Paris' Porsche 911 in my hand, her six-digit baby, the one car I would never expect her to even bother to borrow out, much less to a girl with two stupid accidents on her record. I would still keep the left arm that ended up broken protected as much as possible in a car, to keep the healed extremity protected. _She wants me to drive this?  
   
_Thinking she was kidding, I laughed and tried to hand back over the keys, explaining that there was no way she was serious. She shook her head no.  
   
"There's no kidding around here Gilmore, I want you to drive it. It's not everyday you get to experience the front seat of a sports car." Breath puffed from us in the clear and cool night as I tried again to turn her down.  
   
"It's your car, I don't need to drive it."  
   
"What's the problem, you're insured and you're a safe driver." She smirked at me as again I tried to remind her that the 'silver bullet on wheels' was unsafe at any of **my** speeds.  
   
"I've been in two accidents in the last two years, I don't need a third."  
   
"One caused by a wayward deer at a four-way stop playing battering ram, the other in a rust bucket that should've stayed in the junkyard, you weren't even behind the wheel for that one." She gave me the keys one more time. "I do owe you for a lame dinner wait and only 3/4 of a watched movie, so think of this as makeup for that until I can buy you the DVD once its released."  
   
I looked at the car sheepishly, wondering if I should go ahead and drive. The thrill alone in me to be trusted with such an expensive car and the speed I could possibly get to was going through me fast, but the motherly concern was too. It had to be lighter than the Jeep so I could maneuver it easily, and the transmission was automatic so I wouldn't have to play with the gearshift. Still, the very idea that I would be behind the wheel of that car was unfathomable.  
   
I puckered my lips, looking at the key, hitting the unlock button on the remote. I didn't want to turn Paris down and disappoint her, and truth was I had wanted to get behind the wheel of her car since it pulled into my driveway earlier in the evening. It was fast, and the thrill of the speed we were at passing the truck near the state line was a rush of exhilaration I certainly wanted to repeat, especially with the speed under my control. Dean would never let me drive one of the roadsters he was restoring with Mr. Forrester, not that I wanted to because they sputtered more than Speed Buggy with a heavy cough.  
   
After a beat deciding the risks of driving it, I looked at Paris, and knew that the trust she was putting into me would be a protective influence. She knew her car, and would tell me what I was doing wrong or right. The thrill and the adrenaline I would feel now and into tomorrow would be better than the 'what if' thoughts I would have if I gave Paris back the keys and sat in the passengers seat, wishing I would've taken up her offer.  
   
I approached the driver's side door and Paris looked pleased that I was going to drive her car. "I'm still slowing down in every deer crossing zone," I joked, earning an honest laugh from her and a smile.  
   
"As long as we get into the Hollow near 12:15." She went around to the other side and got into the passenger's side, her soothing presence next to me calming my nerves. With her as navigator I was sure to be well on the roads back south.  
   
I felt rejuvenated from this coffee stop and well awake as I inserted the key into the ignition and turned it. The car roared to life, the rumble of the pistons firing up, the feel of my foot against the rubber of the gas pedal, feeling like a racer with the imported leather steering wheel in my grasp. My heart skipped, the control I felt going home taking root within.  
   
"Now doesn't that feel nice?" Paris said as she buckled up.  
   
"God, yeah." That was my only reaction as I shifted into drive and made my way out of the parking lot and back onto 83. Low to the ground, I found myself not used to the visibility in front of me, with the glare of the street lights above shining onto the well-waxed exterior of the Porsche. I felt nervous as I went the first few blocks, the feel of getting comfortable more paramount. Paris thought I was doing fine and didn't indicate any sense of panic.  
   
I prepared to make my way back to 91 in the Seven Corners area south of town, thinking that she'd have me drive immediately home. The map voice tried to guide me onto Maple Street, and as I came to the sign indicating where to turn, I made my way into the far right lane...  
   
"Second lane, Shaker Road." Paris' butted in with her direction to me.  
   
"But the sign says Hartford, this way, I need to turn here."  
   
"No you don't," she said. "Take Shaker Road, we'll get to Hartford eventually." I didn't want to refuse her, so I switched back into the Shaker lane and stopped at the traffic light, wondering what on earth that girl had up her mind. Maybe she wanted to meander and have a slow conversation with me, I wasn't sure. The light turned green, and for the next two miles she didn't say a word, which was good because my focus was on breaking myself into the car. I kept at a legal speed all through the rest of the road's length in Massachusetts, the sign welcoming us to Connecticut a beacon of relief for the both of us. I heaved a breath, as Paris watched out the window the dark scenery of the small road passing by.  
   
Four miles and six minutes later, we go through the small town of Somersville, and the navigation is on track even as the road takes another name change. Paris' weekend driving experience comes in handy as she lets me know which fork to take, how familiar she is with the stretch. At 55 miles an hour, it's very leisurely and winding, so much that my mind for the first time all night drifts to a different place than Paris; it's how on earth I could convince Mom to finally break down and let Grandma and Grandpa give me a car, something like this. Not that it would ever happen, but it's a good fairy tale to hold close.  
   
I get ready to flick on the cruise control after the curves of the road become fewer and farther between, the traffic very light. The drive so far had been unsurprising, with that promise of why I'd find out why Paris loved her car not indulged. In all honesty, at that speed a Buick land-boat would feel just about the same, I couldn't see why a drive down an old colonial road on the outer fringe of Hartford was so special at all.  
   
First appearances are deceiving though. After crossing a road and seeing a sign that the next intersection wasn't for another four miles, Paris finally spoke up softly, and brought her concentration towards me.  
   
"Bring 'er up to 75," she commanded. Was she kidding, that was twenty miles over the speed limit! I have sped before, but only in a late rush to get to a destination. There was plenty of time to get home yet, no need to rush. I told her this, and she just shrugged it off.  
   
"I'm not in a rush, I just want you to feel how responsive this car is on the road, it's built for speed."  
   
"But what about the police--"  
   
"It's really late, they only really monitor here at rush hour. At other times of the day this is just another farm road with milk and egg trucks rumbling through. When it's night there's an unsaid agreement between the motor enthusiasts of this part of the state and the community that we can use this road to test our cars...safely," she emphasized the word. "We can't go 145 and wring out every horse, but at that speed anyways there's not a lot you can control, the brake is tenuous and the margin of error is a string of thread. I always stay under 100 if I can, it still gives you that rush without that dread you'll fly off the road."  
   
I gulped down, thinking about how crazy it was because I never knowingly broke the law in my life. But watching the needle on the speedometer bounce back and forth between the 60 and 65 gauge lines, and the few curves of road that were ahead according to the map screen. The effects of the speed lured me in, beckoning me for more, to feel more of a rumble in the wheel. There was a freedom here that I never felt before, the trust the both of us were having in each other building a bond further that wasn't there previously.  
   
That if I was ever in trouble, Paris would be there for me. It wasn't even a question whether I'd be there for her anymore at the same time. She liked me as the small-town girl, and in turn her eccentricities that would annoy all others kept me close to her.  
   
"Par?" I demanded with a heavy dose of confidence. "I hope your seatbelt is nice and tight." Before she could say another word, I pressed my foot down harder on the accelerator, and let the speed of the car pick up.  
   
Immediately the effect felt intoxicating as I could feel the G-forces along the back of my neck paste me into the deep plush of the bucket seat. The speedometer went to 70, the needle slowly inching up until it reached what Paris asked me to drive at. The scenery started to blur further, the lonely darkness of the road, the bright yellow centerline the only guide keeping me on the road. I debated with myself whether to go above 75 on the straightaway, the sense I wanted to clear in some psychic way to her. My foot pressed down a little more on the gas pedal, flirting with 80 but teasing it back down to 77.  
   
"You want to, right?" Indeed she knew, and I nodded. She ran a hand along my upper arm, and I could feel her smile. "I told you this felt good."  
   
And she was right about that, because with each additional pound of pressure on the gas, I could feel the rumble of the engine more and more in my seat. I mean literally in my seat too; I brought the car up to 85 and slid into a gentle curve, the tires making perfect contact with the smooth asphalt. The vibrations picked up more with the speed, my eyes focused on the road and thoughts of any cops nearby were more than obliterated, the logic portion of my brain more concerned with all the mathematics going into keeping the car steady than basic law.  
   
The pleasure lobe presented something interesting within; those vibrations were being focused into one point in particular of the seat. Right on center, those sensations were heading right between my legs, and I could barely articulate how it felt to have a six-digit performance car engine sending sexy tremors where I so didn't need them to be at that exact moment. The seat beneath me hummed like it was battery-operated and had three speeds. Not that I know how that feels, really.  
   
Alright, once on the washer a couple years ago in completely accidental circumstances. There wasn't a chair in there, I was deep into reading a book, didn't want to be interrupted, and I couldn't help it, God! Why am I even talking about this...  
   
Anyways the seat hummed and I continued to drive down that road, Paris next to me and no way to hide the arousal I felt from driving so fast. My legs couldn't be crossed and there was no covering up the effects, I was exposed. I heaved in and out to keep the car in control, the better to take my mind off the fact Paris was looking at me as if I was the most beautiful thing she could ever behold. She would say the occasional thing, telling me I was doing a good job, or that I was driving better than she would in the same situation. My eyes didn't leave the road, for all I knew I was driving the speed of sound. Below the humming only magnified, my panties starting to feel as if one layer too many. The self-gratification I had held off since my Wednesday night shower was finally coming to a head and telling me that as soon as I was home the first stop better be my bedroom.  
   
A yellow diamond sign came into my view; a 180° curve was up ahead, the road winding around a small hill, advising 40 mph of speed.  
   
"This is it, the last curve before we get into the extreme north suburbs." Her soothing monotone let me know that this roller-coaster ride was almost over. "You'll have to slow down to only 70, but taking it at that speed is so worth it."  
   
 _Only 70?_ RationalRory had to butt in with that observation, wanting me to back off and drive like a grandma. My heart was probably bursting from an upswell of blood pressure, and I think my stomach had relocated to just above my liver. Whatever the case, Paris was ready to challenge me once again.  
   
"You ready to take it Gilmore? This is something you definitely don't learn in driver's ed, it has to come to you naturally." I had already played gutsy all night with how I felt, what defined a relationship. We're still hidden from view of everyone, but creating our own world to keep the secret that we were a couple, to fall into each other the way we have. I felt adventurous, gutsy, fearless.  
   
For now, I had to keep everything with Paris to myself. But on this two lane road just outside the megapolis, I could feel free to express myself however I pleased. She was making me discover what had long lain dormant, or even undisturbed inside of me. I could have the guts to do this.  
   
"Hang on to your armrest baby," I said steady, only a trace of nervousness in the treble of my voice. "How about 80?" I let go the gas the little I needed to enter it safely, my mind gauging all I needed to take the curve at double the legal limit that sign begged me to take. Paris was alarmed.  
   
"You sure? I always have to back off at--"  
   
I cut her off with simple words. "You can only get to Lover's Lane through Dead Man's Curve, might as well make the most of it." With tension hanging in the air, I let more fuel burn in the engine as I saw the first of the striped signs against the guardrail. I tightened my grip on the wheel, starting to feel the spin of the curve against one side of  my face. The reflectors along the side were the bread crumbs guiding me, my bloodflow tightening, my legs struggling to stay straight. I felt like a race car driver taking one of the tough curves of a road course, the tires squealing below as I took the curve, keeping the speed no lower than 77. Paris held onto my arm tight, for once showing some nerves from my cavalier driving style. I wound the steering wheel, keeping the 911 within the lines and steady even with the centrifugal forces weighing in on the vehicle.  
   
I reached the top of the curve with 90° to go, the speedometer holding steady along with my resolve. Hearing from Paris that she hadn't taken it at the current speed made me feel even gutsier about everything. I felt the car shift but hold steady, every bit of Mom's driving instruction coming into handy for the next 700 feet. The tires kept a constant Morse code-like squeal, the effects of the curve getting to me in the worst way possible. My pelvis shifted in one direction, the way I certainly didn't need it to, the space between my legs making me think of even more illicit behavior with Paris, say in a backseat or in the rear of an airplane. The intensiveness of the situation and the curve was getting to me in the worst way possible.  
   
The car shifted a little right of the white line, but I quickly reined it in as Paris seemed amazed at how composed I was about being able to use her car. She held my arm tight, so much that I could to feel the bruising beneath where her hand was resting. I managed to keep control for the rest of that long curve, until the hill finally ended and the first signs of civilization came back in my front view strong with a string of street lights along what had turned into Pinney Road going past Ellington and into Vernon.  
   
I settled down and brought the car into the demanded and much slower city speeds, relaxing my sudden lead foot off the gas. I couldn't believe what I just done; I sped through miles and miles of Connecticut farmland and countryside with no one but the occasional car in the other direction! It was such a rush, and below my waist, though not irked by the heavy speed, still felt a hum like a cell phone stuck on vibrate. I shook myself out of reverie, and the last few minutes had felt so good. After all that time without a word, I finally had to say something to Paris as I stopped at the first light since Springfield.  
   
"I'm glad you got me to drive this!! Wow!!" My eyes were wide, and there was a smile brighter than I ever had before. "The control and handling is out of this world, and the luxury...honestly I could sleep in this seat." I felt totally sunk into the plush confines of it. "I mean I knew I could drive like that, but it wasn't realistic to think I'd ever go at those speeds, much less on a public road of all places." I was smiling and my breath was taken aback, as if I just had the best cup of coffee or candy bar ever. Meanwhile my heartbeat had yet to recover, for it was racing at a fast rate.  
   
She looked at me in euphoria, proud as she could be she could give me this moment to savor, driving a fast car the way I did. Truth be told, she was still catching her breath from the shocking drive, her thoughts for what may have happened overwhelmed by what actually ensued. All that she could do to show me my driving skills rivaled hers was to 'mm-hmm' in acknowledgement.  
   
The light turned green, and I drove into the metro area at the appropriate speeds, the signs directing towards the Buckland area and Route 84. The drive was relaxing from hereon in, Paris turning on the classical channel to soothe herself back into the dullness that seemed to be her life with Sharon. She could see that the good times for the evening were coming to an end, seeming resigned to the fate of us having to go back into hiding again.  
   
Going back into downtown Hartford, she finally gathered her bearings and spoke again. "I really don't like having to hide all of this."  
   
"Me either," I said automatically. "Tonight, as far as it's gone, has gone well despite what happened with the movie and the restaurant, we recovered quickly. But we can't tell anyone that, we have to lie and tell them some fiction about the interview subjects being too boring for a _Franklin_ article."  
   
"Not that they are," Paris pointed out. "But how else are we going to be able to sneak this all in? I go to bed at night, and my mind fills with all the things I want to do with you, the things that if I had a boy, would be OK. Holding hands, sharing a quick kiss, sending you a bouquet or a teddy bear as a surprise to remind you that you're in my thoughts. I can't do any of those things, it's like the only way we can express things or be together is using the Colts-to-Indianapolis 'Mayflower in the dead of night' strategy." She sighed sadly. "I have to plan you being with me at the Manor around my mother being there because she has the line of thinking where she hates your mom all these years later."  
   
"We'll be public soon enough," I assured her. "We just need to think of this for the time being like a private little thing that's known to us and us only. And maybe Miss Patty, I haven't told her we coupled up yet but when I saw her this afternoon, she was giving me that look."  
   
"What look?"  
   
I wrinkled my eyebrows. "The 'did you do something slutty' look."  
   
She laughed. "Which you'll have on your face all day tomorrow if I can help it. She'd be proud of us, making out at a Chinese restaurant and in the theater." Both of us giggled at the very idea of Miss Patty watching the both of us making out, if somewhat creepy, yet hilarious.  
   
"Seriously though, things'll be OK. We can probably cut the tension out of school eventually because everyone is starting to think of us as good friends anyways."  
   
"I just don't want it to get back to Mother," she pointed out with worry. "That's why I kept some space between us, because some of the Chilton girls get back to their Daughters of the Civil War mothers during 'how is school' talks, and those women then happen to let Sharon know at a gathering we're closer than we should be."  
   
"As long as her new man from the casino's distracting her we're fine." I smiled at her, and tried my best to assuage her worries. "Think of it this way, Dean and I managed to hold out for three months until Thanksgiving everyone finding out about us even though we surreptitiously flirted for the two months before that. If he wouldn't have given me that first kiss right in the market just before Thanksgiving, we might have been able to wring out an extra month." I then noted something else to compare to that. "Both of us, in comparison have been flirting for the last four months, thinking about each other the way we did until we finally decided to do something about it. We were just a little bit late on the 'doing something about it' part."  
   
"We made up for lost time," she interjected. "I've just never been in a relationship like this before, where I'm sharing stuff like I am, my worries and such. I keep thinking any minute it's all going to go to pot and that's it, and I want to keep us secret for as long as we can. At the same time, I don't want to be ashamed because I'm gay and we like each other."  
   
"I'm not ashamed of you Paris, not at all," I said. "When I was getting ready it took all I had to make Mom know that I don't think of you as high-strung and wacky anymore, but as a friend, a good friend at that. You've been really good to me, tonight you treated me well. You must've wanted to slug the guy at the Italian restaurant for not giving us a seat."  
   
"Nah, of course not." She pauses for a moment, evilly smirking. "Slug, probably not, it's not lady-like to throw a punch. A taser shot to the groin however, that's class."  
   
"Par, you wouldn't!!" I laughed out loud. "He's just the front guy, not the manager who ordered all those reservations to be put aside for the bankers."  
   
"He stopped us from entering, thus the stress gets taken out on him."  
   
"What about that omniscient ticket girl at the theater, she was flirting with you," I noted.  
   
"She was not."  
   
I imitated the girl's response after Paris sarcastically told her off when she asked whether we did more than movie-watching in the theater. "I would with you blondie!"  
   
"Stop it Gilmore."  
   
"Come on, I saw it in her eyes, she wanted to be with us, more you than me."  
   
"Was not."  
   
"She was looking at you the way I have over the last few months in secret. You can deny it all you want hon, but you are a wonderful looking girl."  
   
Paris got self-conscious and tried to hide the blush that was forcing up through her. "No one noticed until you did."  
   
"Well, they're idiots," I opined. " I remember each morning through the summer getting up when you roused me awake, telling me the shower was open and I could hop in. You'd wear a towel or your underwear and the first thing I'd wake up to in the morning was the sight of you getting ready, not only for the day ahead, but to prove you're the best, and God, you looked beautiful like that. When you wake up, you're happy; it's only when the weight on your shoulders and Sharon gets to you that you become the way you are. When I look at you, I see more than that someone fully dedicated to your studies, you also want to make a difference in this world. You do that through the paper, the government and charity work, knowing that wining and dining at a society event is crap. Money only does so much, getting your hands dirty is the only way to feel like you made a difference."  
   
I let what I say sink in with her as I drive down the expressway, taking an exit when I see there's a nice private park ahead nearby, because the driving kept me from getting into the conversation fully. What I said however, was fully meant. The lust aspect was built up through all the months living together and confirmed what I had felt for Paris over the months was the right thing to do. She cares so much, no matter how much she says all the activities she gets into are just for impression's sake. She would've tired out long ago if that was the only reason she rolled up her sleeves the first day back home from Washington and got right back into Rebuilding Together, working on three houses in the short time until the start of school. She might have an abrasive outside, but I know she has a sensitive inside.

It's just been up to me lately to get through to that layer.  
   
I pull into the park, the dark setting of the parking lot overlooking the stars of the cool, clear night in the sky, and north to all the lights of Hartford. This had to be a lover's lane, but we were the only ones there. I pulled into the parking space and turned off the engine, wondering what to do next.  
   
"I don't mean to sound worried," Paris said soothingly. "I know how you feel for me, I just keep thinking that after a pinch this is all a dream, that none of this is happening."  
   
"It's OK, I think that way too." I took her hand into mine. "Trust me when I say this is not going to go away, that this will not end."

Reminding her of our outing conversation, I brought up something from almost towards the end. "Remember when you ask me whether this might have been a phase, being interested in girls, on my end mostly?"  
   
The question was clear as day to her, along with the answer. I could see the worry in her mind as she remembered my answer of _if it's a phase, it's a phase, but we have to take a risk_. "Yeah," she said, her voice soft.  
   
I had to take the next step in making it clear that tonight had definitely taken me quite a ways from the 'I like boys' camp. I found the seat-adjustment control and tilted the back down as far as it would go. It was my time to be aggressive, for she took the lead twice already in the evening. I felt a bit nervous, but that feeling was overwhelmed by a sense of confidence in what I was about to do.  
   
I asked Paris to push her seatback down as far as she could too, which she did, not knowing my intentions. The small interior of the car would have to be enough, as I brought her attention to me, her eyes wide with a blend of confusion and want.  
   
"The phase is over, I think we've gone beyond that tonight. This us, it's now a definite." I smiled at her as she struggled to describe how happy she felt. I brought a finger to her lips to keep her quieted.  
   
"I'm serious Par, this night...it was all you wished for, all I wished for to happen, and more. I mean this night...there was not one moment I was bored at all, every part of it was interesting and gave me just that much more to learn about you. Not the you that's out there at Chilton, just you, a smart girl with all this want for me, and for the longest time, nowhere to express it except in your dreams. I loved the restaurant, loved the movie, and I loved the drive, this night took me by surprise." I pushed closer towards her, trying to make her position herself horizontal to the windshield. Taken aback, she reverted to non-vocalness.  
   
"Thanks..." she blanched out, obviously not used to the idea of giving up control. I rubbed soothingly along her back, and she laughed when she accidentally bumped the back of her head against the passenger's side window.  
   
"Ouch!"  
   
"You OK?" I asked when the small laugh ended. She rubbed her head, and gave me a dirty look.  
   
"Maybe I should've brought down the Rover." She smiled, as I brought my hand into her hair. "I had a great time tonight too, this was the best."  
   
"I bring out the best nights in you, don't I?" I was easily reminded that she's had three 'best day/nights of my life' in just the last week.  
   
"You bring out the best in me, period." The words were said seriously, and as she stared at me over her, both of us getting into a somewhat comfy recline along the two Porsche seats. She brought herself closer, wrapping her arms around my waist. "I'm very happy about everything tonight." Our lips softly meet, and we buss, then separate again.  
   
"It was great, wasn't it?" Another kiss. "I especially liked when you took my accidental breast brush as flirty and turned the tables against me."  
   
"That did not feel like an accident, I know you did that on purpose."  
   
"The first time, total accident," I noted. "The second time, maybe I did mean to do that." She threaded her hands into my hair, as I worked mine along her side. "I honestly haven't developed much of a fetish for them yet. You could say I need some hands-on time with them." With a twinkle in my eye, I elicited a groan from Par.  
   
"I need to be up by noon tomorrow Gilmore, don't be planting things in my psyche I might think about all night long." She was melting in the seat as I continued to mercilessly kiss her senseless, then dragged a couple of my fingers along the curve of her breast. She makes this sexy little straining sound that just gets to me as I torture her like she did, keeping away from the sensitive tissue around her areola, covered by the layers of her sweater and bra.  
   
"Fuck, Rory..."  
   
The sound of passionate profanity is something I quickly copy to my memory banks, as I push up her sweater a bit to feel bared skin at the side of her waist. She in turn sticks to deep kissing me while running her hands up and down the length of my body without pushing up my dress. Her smooth legs brush against mine, and she pushes one of them against my crotch, my already oversensitive clit causing me to bite my tongue and hold off trying to bring gratification out of this. We have to wait, no matter what, it's too fast to start giving each other deep sexual pleasure. I let her know exactly what I thought of her six-figure 'sex toy' by telling her how I responded to each and every curve in the road, her kissing getting deeper and deeper with each insinuation. Never had I been so dirty, I always thought of my sexual talking as more Masters & Johnson than Dr. Ruth. But the clinical dissection of all the passion of the night we had brought Paris more satisfaction by her own confession than she ever expected.  
   
We stayed liked that, wrapped up in each other for fifteen minutes, giving into the held impulses we kept built up through the week for modesty's sake. I truly did want her so badly, and her the same. The radio silence from last night was now unacceptable, because it just strangled these feelings that we now have. God, Paris is such a great kisser, I mean she's amazing. Dean was aggressive and always prone to kiss overkill, but when that blonde gets into my mouth, it's soft and lingering, we both share the load. I can't help but think all those tongue exercises over the years meant for public speaking and debate and Paris in front of a mirror, pecking her lips and rolling her tongue around a lot. I could just picture her lost in a daydream about me while going through those motions.  
   
Eventually a check of the dashboard clock told us that 12:10am was here, and we had used up every single second of the date that was possible. By then, my hands were wandering against her bare back beneath the sweater, and in the heat of passion we had both managed some breast brushes...OK, more like gropes. Nothing too deep, it was along the sides and we never outright palmed them, me through her bra and her above my dress. Still, we separated looking as if we were in a lover's embrace. She looked at me and said that I should throw on my jacket because my dress was wrinkled up, and that there was a little gloss from her lips sparkling along my neck side.  
   
I was smirking as I watched Paris gather herself together for the last twenty minutes of the drive, because I think I stretched out her sweater, along with messing up her hair a little. She was still exhaling rather loudly as we got out of the car and traded seats, tugging at the bottom of her skirt.  
   
"Cripes, my panties don't feel right," she grouched, then asked me to turn around.  
   
"I hope not, not after all of that." I quipped.  
   
"No, I mean they're riding up, you try having the emergency brake against your ass for 25 minutes!!" I couldn't help but laugh that I had turned Paris from a refined and buttoned-up schoolgirl who didn't want to get the stick out of her rear into an untamed woman who seduced me with her words, her actions, and her wheels. I turned around to let Paris have some modesty as she reached beneath her skirt and straightened out her underwear.  
   
Yeah, I wasn't thinking about helping her out at all. Riggggght. The whole minute before she said she was decent was nothing but torture and dirty thoughts. So much for being uncorrupted and innocent, my naughty side getting more than enough mental images of tonight to build up my dream library for the next few weeks.  
   
After that, we got into the car and Paris drove out of the park, the last twenty minutes of the night going without incident. She asked me to drill her on that homework that remained to be done, and from memory I quizzed her on Russian Novels and AP Trig, just glad that all the stress of the relationship was starting to dissipate. We were still our ol' little selves, just with some extra sugar and spice that made us think we were both nice.  
   
It was 12:20 when Paris entered the town limits of Stars Hollow, and 12:25 when her car made that last turn onto Cherry Lane. Every minute of the night had been used to the fullest, except for those last five before half-past midnight. I looked at her quietly, focused on the road and drinking in the way she looked after six hours doing nothing but being together. She was tired from the long schlep both ways from Springfield to here and still had a half-hour in her to get back into Hartford. Looking at her in the very dim light, with her long blonde locks mussed from our rendezvous at the Hartford lovers lane, her shoes off and bare feet on the gas because they hurt, along with her tired eyes, it was the very picture of beauty. She had a neutral expression on her face, the night having many memories to overwhelm the both of us.  
   
I contrast to her, with that same make-out hair and a wrinkled dress beneath my jacket to hide the evidence of anything more than a study session with Paris. This is where I remind myself that I can't say I went out with her, just that we spent a night chasing a story that never happened.  
   
She took the turn into my driveway, and with a squeak from the undercarriage, comes to a stop just near the walkway so she won't have to put her shoes back on for long. Quietly, she got out of the car, her gaze pouring over each and every inch of me. Paris went around the front, holding up her hand, silently communicating that she'll help me out of the car. Over on my side of the car she opened the door, I unbuckled my seatbelt, and climbed out with the help of Paris' proffered hand in mine. I thanked her and she shakes her head.  
   
"The date must help their significant other from the carriage," she reminded me simply. "If it's wet, their coat must be draped along the ground."  
   
"Chivalry's still hanging in there I see." I got out and straightened out the bottom of my dress.  
   
"I'd say it has a 60% chance at a full recovery. Can I walk you to the door?" She smiled and I wanted to shrug her off, playing the modern girl. But I just can't help it, what she's doing is so cute, so...unlike her. Still, it's taking a while to see the softer side of Paris Gellar that very few, if any, see out there.  
   
"You up to it, it's almost 12:30." I try to talk her out of this anachronism, but no way is Paris budging.  
   
"I can sleep in the afterlife." Ahh, that's what I was waiting for, a quick quip said in that bitter voice of hers. She asked me to walk with her, and as we made our way to the porch, I note that the living room light is still on. Even with Paris, my mom still worries about me getting home on time and in one piece.  
   
"How much was this house? I've never really thought about it, but everything about it is so nice. Quiet neighborhood, plentiful parking, old-style architecture, you even have a swing porch."  
   
"Mom has a $125,000 mortgage with half already paid off," I say. "She saved almost every penny for the down payment from my birthday on, and when she fell in love with it, there was no going back, she wanted us out of the apartments in downtown. The couple who used to own this house moved to Florida, and we lucked out and got it somehow, they rejected all bids because they respected Mom so much." I look in awe at where my roof still is, seven years after we moved in. "Last year we had a termite invasion."  
   
"I remember that, get that fixed?" We were still uneasy at the time the termites came, but she understood all about them since they invaded her father's ski cabin up in the Berkshires, forcing him to build anew.  
   
"Oh yeah, everything's fine now, but my mom looks down at every step she takes on the porch from now on. It's an old house, but it's got so much, in memories and more than that. You could say it was the culmination of mine and Mom's dreams for us until we started looking at Harvard and her own inn, respectively."  
   
"Doesn't she have the Independence?"  
   
"She just runs it, what she really wants to do is own an inn, she has an MBA now so she could come closer to the dream with Sookie. It might not be here though, there's only one other appropriate building in town here that's sort of run down and old, and the owner doesn't want to sell. She tried last year, no luck."  
   
"Well she ran a tight ship the night I was there, she'd be a good boss." Paris meant every word of what she said, I could tell from her relaxed body language. After the slow walk in the front yard, the time was almost up though. We were now on the porch and almost at the front door, and both of us felt that all the hours in the world weren't enough for us.  
   
"This is it," I croaked out, trying to put off the fact Paris was about to leave me for the night. "The end."  
   
"I know. I don't want it to be." She was just as sad about parting too. "This night just went way too fast."  
   
"I wanted it to be slow." I wrapped my jacket tighter against me as a cool gust of wind blew towards the direction of the porch.  
   
"Any other date and I'd be rushing away from you right now, relieved it's done. But I still feel a pull." The magnetism between us was just getting stronger by the day, and by the hour at that.  
   
"You date well Par," I said. "I had a great time."  
   
"Likewise." Close to the door, we gazed at each other one last time, as I drank her in. Her eyes reflected the happiness she's had of the evening, and her body isn't tight anymore, she seems more relaxed and at ease. The space between us is closer than we ever have been in a public place. "Did, um, did you, want to you know...call tomorrow, late afternoon? I mean if I don't pick up the phone I'm signed into iChat so you'll find me there too, or if that doesn't work and you're away and/or I am at the same time, there's the cell phone, my Blackberry, I have your portable IM address so I know I'll get a hold of you..."

I hushed her, and tried to get her over the bundle of nerves she had. "If you need to get a hold of me by string and can I'm sure we can work something out. You will hear from me tomorrow, whatever it takes." The unease was lifted, and she sighed audibly.  
   
"Good Ror, I'm glad." She laughed a little nervously. "This is why I never won Ms. Congeniality, how do you put up with me for so long, I'm a wreck."  
   
 _Because I like you_ , I thought right away in answer, _maybe even love_. I've been finding it harder and harder with each new meeting to keep the L word far away from us. I can't help it though, she just makes me want to fall for her, it's too easy to do. I smile and say that no matter what, I'll stay with her, no matter what.  
   
Another check of the watch showed 12:30 approaching, so after Paris said a thank you to me, she started to have to rush away from me.  
   
"I'm sure Lorelai wants you back, so I should go." Looking all around to make sure my mother's shadow isn't in the window, nor Babbette or Morey watching us from their house, she brings a hand up to her mouth, and kisses it. I watch in a trance as her fingertips brush against her luscious lips, and then she brings it back down her body. She then takes my hand and brushes the kissed fingers into my palm, stunning me with the romanticism of the gesture. It's so sweet as she releases my hand and then gives me her secret Mona Lisa smile only I seem to know.  
   
"A kiss goodnight, my sweet." God, I love it. "You'll think of me tonight?" A nod on my end.  
   
"As long I'm in your dreams." I look at her one last time as my hand meets the doorknob. "Goodnight Par." We break apart.  
   
"Goodnight to you also Ror." She turned around, and we go our separate ways, the night now officially over for the both of us and my stomach in so many twists a Wisconsin Dells waterslide has nothing on my intestinal tract. I panted, the nearness of her getting to be like a drug for me. I wanted more time with her, to just run in the house and tell Mom we had layout work to do at the Manor overnight so I could have an excuse to be with Paris until I awoke tomorrow morning. Still, I let go and watch her walk back to her silver bullet of a car, the air of the New England midnight chilling me, but not cooling the afterglow of this entire date. I don't watch her depart this time however, choosing to go in the house to ease the pain of watching her drift further and further from me as she makes her way back north.  
   
Not one date with Dean did I feel this way. My hand seemed to tingle from the kiss into a hand that she gave to me, the quaintness of our courting, a mix between the best of Victorian times and the modernity of two sudden lesbians drawn to each other making the whole situation something that was indescribable.  
   
Going in the house, I don't stop at the coat hook, and head into the living room. Indeed, Mom is laying on the couch watching _SNL_ , waiting for my arrival. She directs her eyes from the TV and towards me.  
   
"Well, there she is," she said with a smirk. "Is Paris that demanding that she needed every minute of the evening?"  
                                                                                      
My mind spun into action, starting the white lie factory back into business. I hated this, really hated this. For now though, it had to be done. I could feel in my voice the lie like acid going through me. "The night went fine as far as research. As for actual material, forget it."  
   
I sat next to her on the couch and spun the best yarn I could muster when I was on cloud nine from the evening just passed. Following Paris' cover story with Sharon, I made up something about the Wessons keeping us waiting with a boring game of bridge, and when they finally got to us, the interview had so few sparks or spontaneous moments that Paris was falling asleep from the deadly dull chronology of their Chilton careers. I put a spin on his senior prom description being so tedious that it would be the perfect lesson plan for a sex ed teacher to bring up celibacy.  
   
I felt jumpy as I continued to rattle about this fake interview, and after about ten minutes of discussing it, I finally said that we ate Chinese up at Lady Sing's and then went home after that.  
   
"It took that long for an interview?" Mom wondered. I nodded.  
   
"Journalism is pain Mom. Sometimes you get the Dali Lama for hours, and other times you're forced to fill column space with the crazy cat lady from Seekonk. It's like your job, where you get a charity group one week, and then the Serial Killer Enthusiast Club Convention the next."  
   
"Oh, don't remind me of that, Michel still isn't over the fangirls of Ted Bundy gushing over him. Last time I book a group based on initials alone." She laughs, and slowly changes the subject. "I can understand why you're so involved with stories lately. All the sudden though you're friends with Paris, close friends at that. Did this have something to do with Dean?"  
   
I bit on my lip; she's trying to wear me down and get to the root cause of my sudden closeness. More aversion was needed. "Well Lane's been busy forming the band, and well...yes, I was having some doubts about Dean because I wasn't truly deeply in love with him anymore. Paris noticed, and at first I didn't want her help dealing with it. You don't understand how close we became over the summer, sharing that dorm room. We couldn't just clam up 24/7, there were times we had to talk. I didn't go into detail about it while we were down there, but occasionally we'd talk about guys, and without Lane, she became a sounding board. She might not understand relationships but she doesn't want to see my focus go down over a boy."  
   
"But you come back, Lane is there and you can get back to normal with her." This annoyed me, since when was 'normal' talking to Lane and nobody else? I rolled my eyes and tried to explain the best I could why the closness with Par.  
   
"Am I allowed to have a second best friend Mom, because Paris has been more of one than Lane lately. I match brains with her and I don't have to edit myself because Lane might find the topic dull. She's heard more than enough about Dean; she sees him everyday. Paris barely sees him and has no interest in bo...dating (almost let it slip out there accidentally, yikes!), and she understands that it's not the be all-end all of high school. I just feel comfortable with her lately, the sarcasm about him she has worked to ease out that pain I felt when I went ahead and dumped him. It gave me perspective, he's just a guy, and now he'll work, but in four years? I'll be off at Harvard juggling a _Globe_ or WGBH internship while he's becoming Gypsy's apprentice."  
   
"But you hated her last May when she put your hat in the race! Did you forget that?" Easily corrected and taken care of.  
   
"I was annoyed that she did, but it gave me something to do, a goal to strive for, I never hated her decision. I had a great summer with her in Washington, and we came back here with an understanding that this rivalry is better the way we have it now, we barely even talk grades anymore and she crossed her heart she'd only monitor them weekly instead of daily."  
   
"I know hon," she looked at me with concern, "I just don't want to see you abandon Lane for Paris, she would be devastated."  
   
"We're still on good terms, she just hasn't felt the need to talk to me lately, I promise. I just want things with Paris and I to work out, being her enemy isn't something I'd like, you have to know that." I was just impassioned about how much I wanted to be close to Paris so much, trying to make Mom understand that this wasn't my descent into high society, cocktail parties and boring men with nothing to show for themselves but their name happening to be on a will with a nice dollar amount in front of it. "Paris doesn't want me to leave Lane either, she said she'd rather have a sliver of my friendship than none at all. But you have to understand, Chilton senior year? It's hell (the total truth). You see me; I don't come out of my room until at least eight each night. I have _Franklin_ , student government, debate, and all these little other things to do, oh and don't forget the schoolwork. I can't talk to Lane about this. But Paris is there, in almost every single moment. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't ignore her, she has so much pain with her life and I'm her lifeline to stability. I'm not under all that much stress, but her? I **have** to be her friend. I **want** to be her friend. Without all this school crap on her plate, she is intense, yet fun to be with. I just wish you could understand that."  
   
"Rory, dear--" I was starting to get a little unhinged, tired of Lorelai belittling her because Paris seemed like she needed to be on Zoloft. Finally, she decided to relent on what she used to say about her. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm still under the thinking that in two weeks you'll be at odds again, differing sides. I just never expected you to finally bite the bullet and befriend her fully."  
   
"Well, I did," I said weakly. "I would appreciate it if you let up on the teasing. I've kind of checked with her, and she isn't a robot." I smiled, feeling like I was keeping some delicious knowledge from everyone else that against me, she felt so soft and tender. "Oh, and thank her for winning on Monday morning. I still didn't hear you say anything about that to her, we won it for you."  
   
"I know," she sighed in resignation. "I'm just trying to let the picture sink in of Paris and you dancing for that long a time, and actually winning. I have to admit, you two are an OK team, and judging from the lack of damage or scars within your person, she's a safe driver too. I guess I'm a little resistant to change sometimes, especially when it comes to someone like Paris being your friend." She then apologized for everything she's said about my girl for the last two weeks. "However, I feel free to reserve mocking for something that's justified, say her bawling over a B-?"

Pretending to think for a moment, I accepted it. "I think she'll be fine with that. Thanks Mom."  
   
"You're welcome." We hugged, and I felt a sense of relief that Paris and I would be accepted more as friends than originally thought. After some more time talking about how her night went (pretty good if you must know, except for Sookie unable to hold a little liquor), we sat down and watched the rest of SNL, even though by now we were at the lame part of the show. With _Soul Train_ coming on after, it was my wakeup call to go to bed, and after wishing Mom a goodnight and sweet dreams, I headed to my bedroom, feeling much more calm than when I came out of it hours earlier.  


* * *

I flopped onto my bed, turning on the CD clock radio to some music and curling up with a book, my mind not on either thing at all. Obviously, it was all on Paris and how close we've been lately. Kicking off my shoes, I look down at myself, my head propped on a pillow as I look towards the ceiling.  
   
It's now twenty after one, and I don't want to change out of my dress and into PJs since the night has exhausted me so much. Never mind that it was such a great night, but that it exceeded what might have been a fine first date. We did the cute things, but we also both got a little aggressive. I surprised myself tonight with how much my feelings for Paris are starting to overwhelm me. For the first time since the Winter Formal in 2000 when I feel asleep with Dean on the mats, I'm starting to get the butterflies in my stomach, and the nervous feeling that I have to reel off and keep things in control.  
   
This is much worse, because I see Paris for at least half of my day, if less than that. Before it was easy to stay in control of how I felt, because the Chilton uniform and her attitude never flattered her. After this evening, it's going to be that much tougher.  
   
 _She looked so damned hot,_ I recall, the picture of her in the tight sweater and leather skirt something that's replacing her usual authoritarian guise in my head. I saw her being kind and happy for herself for once, glad to have my company. I just don't know anymore if when 7:40am comes and we walk through the Chilton doors, I can handle her having to be antagonistic to keep up the charade that we hate each other.  
   
Bittersweet is how it feels to be me right now. I'm in love with a girl who is my compatible equal, but not too compatible that's she's boring. But no one knows that at all, except the two of us. Because if they did they would immediately frown on it and tell us to break up. Me for someone like a Jess or a Dean, her for a guy with several surnames, a roman numeral in his name, and the sexual prowess of a sloth. I just want to say to someone else that I like her, but who the hell do I trust besides Miss Patty? My peer circle is small enough as it is, and everyone in this town lives on gossip. Chilton runs on rumors and secrets in turn. How do I confess to someone, anyone, that I'm a lesbian, without them shunning me and becoming distant because it's a lifestyle choice that's frowned on by all others? I mean what's so different about it, I'm kissing a girl, that's all, nothing else. I'm not doing anybody any harm, and frankly I don't need some know-it-all religious scholar pointing out that it's not in God's plans for me to be the way I am. _Love knows no boundaries_ , they might say, but that's always suffixed by _except if you want someone of your own sex, then punch your ticket downstairs!_ I know I'm a good person, and I work hard to be good, what does it matter that I like a girl?  
   
Maybe I need a therapist like Dr. Birnbaum, I don't know. I just have so many expectations and it's so hard to stay in line with them lately when the only thing I want to think about is Paris giving me release and mounds of sweet nothings to mull over. I could call her right now, but it's too soon, and she has to be way too happy about the date to have self-doubts like I do. No need to stress her out, and certainly there's no need to build up the anxiety I have about this right now.  
 _  
You had a good night Rory_, I remind myself as I slip out of my dress, taking out an old worn tank top from my dresser to sleep in. There's an urge to get myself off, so I decide to go without bottoms. Still though I can probably wait to wind myself down like that; I'm wound up but I can handle not having release for a little while longer.  
   
It was a great date, and Paris proved herself to be perfect dating material after all. I think of this already as a day I can recount when I grow old as perfect. All the roadblocks that got in our way were easily quashed, and she proved herself to be quite the sweetheart and romantic that was lurking within her. Going out with her now is not going to be boring; I can feel it inside.  
   
Feeling nostalgic after only such a short period of time, I reach into my purse and take out the pair of chopsticks from Lady Sing's I kept, and the _Femme Fatale_ ticket stub. I could already feel time shift back five hours to the both of us sitting in the restaurant, watching each other eat as the talking went on and on without any stopping. My fingers run along the exquisite wood, and in my mind I can feel my hands as weight down on Paris' as I try to teach her how to eat. _That was cute_ , I recall, her frustration like a seven year-old so funny to watch from someone with an air of sophistication usually surrounding her.  
   
Already though, I have an idea to remind her when she comes to pick me up on Monday morning, another secret shared between us only. I'm smirking as I think of look that would cross her face as I came out of the diner with these chopsticks tied into the back of my hair, something I would do only for her as a hint, for provocation. I could ask her to come a bit early and share some breakfast, and then when we departed, I'd find a secret spot off the side of the road where we could have privacy, just her and I all alone as I encourage her closer, asking her for some passionate things. Maybe have her massage my scalp and undo the chopsticks so that the bun I'd put them in would be released and she could bring me closer to her and just show how much she deeply cares for me and my company, in more than academic ways...  
   
My imagination is so vivid lately, I love it! Now I **must** do it, just for the priceless reaction for when she comes into the diner and has to keep her mouth shut as she clenches her teeth and desires to pull the sticks from my hair. Everyone else might think of me as the naïve bookworm, but I'm really going to show Par how much I think about her, what she's doing and that I want this thing we have to go way beyond one date. My chips are in the pot, I'm risking it all on a Tajikistani Political History question response in _Final Jeopardy!_ , I'm spinning for the dollar when I already have 95¢ on the Big Wheel from my first go. Whichever game show analogy you use, my heart is totally with Paris now, and I just hope she realizes how much more that I want her after tonight's successful date...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	12. Hand Down the Cookie Jar, Caught With Her Shirt Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory decides to use another academic cover to bring Paris into something romantic and cute on a school night, however they both have some explaining to do when someone they hope wouldn't find out until they were ready catches the both of them in a guilty position. It's time to confess and hope for the best from this person, and we watch Paris as she tries to keep Rory's heart.

**Title:** **Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twelve | Hand Down the Cookie Jar, Caught With Her Shirt Down  
Author:** Nate  
Pairing: Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Spoilers:** Closer towards _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_ , though none of the episode events are mentioned in this set of chapters.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, sexual actions and allusions, some violence in a flashback scene, nudity); FF.net version not edited.  
 **Disclaimer:** Despite all these reviewers thinking that I'm very close to Liza because of my devotion to her, I can't claim the characters, for they belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino through Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television. If I did however, Paris? A little more settled down than she is this season, and the safe word would be 'coffee', uttered by a certain brunette in the heat of the fight ;). If I can thank ASP for anything, it's for finally working around the fact that Liza has a chest and letting her do stunts. You might also find a last-second reference to something Paris also alluded to as her worst fear from that same ep, it was sort of inspired by something that happened to me at school when I was young, that they had to take down a skeleton picture hanging in the hall for Halloween because I went into full-on freaked over it. Thus, that scene, figures I'm such a scaredy-cat.  
   
Montblanc pens are from Montblanc Int'l. GmbH. Parke-Davis is now within Pfizer Corporation; I use the name here in a historical and fictional sense. _Seventeen_ is now a Hearst magazine, though in 2002, it was owned by Primedia. All other trademarks within are the property of their respective owners.  
   
Movie/TV refs \- _Care Bears_ , Those Characters from Cleveland/American Greetings; _Jem_ , Hasbro and Marvel; _Wizard of Oz_ , MGM/Turner/Warner Bros.; _Willie Wonka_ , Paramount/Warner Bros.; _Switchblade Sisters_ , Miramax.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net (if it comes back), aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Rory decides to use another academic cover to bring Paris into something romantic and cute on a school night, however they both have some explaining to do when someone they hope wouldn't find out until they were ready catches the both of them in a guilty position. It's time to confess and hope for the best from this person, and we watch Paris as she tries to keep Rory's heart.  
 **Author's Notes:** Everyone who's read this story and has been kind enough to drop me a line telling me you read and love this story? You're the best; I'm just a guy in Wisconsin writing for fun, and I never expected the reaction that this story has had, up to and including reading parties with chapter printouts from what some of you have told me (blushes). It's just a little story, and I'm just proud to write Paris and Rory in a way that is reverent and deserving of these characters personalities. Some of you are going to be disappointed I only got 25,000 words in this chapter; but we're back to the split Paris/Rory POVs here, so I hope that this will suffice. Your printer should be relieved though.  
   
Again, thank you to everyone who has read the story; Erin for her betaing, and Balti for her betaing and encouragement, and Amy again for continuing to put up with me as much as I do her ;). Thanks to RalSt and Rachel for embracing the story the way you have, and for the speedy posting of Chapter 11 once I got it in. Again, I call for Raven and Cinn to come back soon, I miss both of you so much, but you are still remembered by me, no matter what. Thanks to Raves for her suggestion that I add a bit of daydreaming where it really could be used; I hope you enjoy the scene that I wrote.  
   
FF.net'ers, do I have to say it? For a twelfth time? Fine, you pulled my leg...femslash, don't like, please read elsewhere. Again, I encourage any feedback, positive or negative, I live for the stuff and the suggestions that come with it, and I'm not looking for a certain number because I'm just glad to read the hit numbers in my user profile.  


* * *

I'm definitely not known as a troublemaker.  
   
That statement defines who I am and how I feel I need to come off. I don't mean it in the academic sense however, that's probably what you're thinking, given the history I have of trying to stay atop Chilton's pecking order and keep Rory from overtaking me. I mean in general, I try to stay away from trouble and the consequences that come with it. That means staying away from the gossip circles and behaving like the good girl Sharon has expected me to be, ever since the first hint she had of me as a toddler having advanced motor and critical thinking skills.  
   
Besides that, being bothersome has one major side effect, and that's spending time away from the books and falling behind on my schoolwork. You know that one day I fall behind I'm sure to have an aneurism from getting off track.  
   
There's also the matter of my mother's punishments when I was child. I got in Daddy's study once when I was four for example. Dog days of summer, not much to do because Sharon was too paranoid to let me near a pool despite the begging and pleading of my father and Francisca. "What if she has an ear infection?" she'd whine at them, and even if their response was they'd have a lifeguard on staff ready to jump in when I struggled, I couldn't swim because of her. So I was left to wander the mansion during a relieving 'recess' from a tutor Sharon had hired for me over the summer, and I snuck away from Nanny when she wasn't looking. I made a beeline for the study and his desk, where a $1000 Montblanc desk set sat at the edge, two pens, calling to me to use them for expressing myself.  
   
"I'm gonna draw a doggie!!" I said to myself excitedly (making my inner adult at the time cringe), running into the room and then taking a spin on the big leather chair where he sat. I grabbed one of the pens from the set, and started to draw on the first piece of paper that I could find.  
   
Being four however, how was I supposed to know that the paper I used to draw my malformed canine was a national Parke-Davis distributor's contract that had been hard fought by my father to win and took four days of wining and dining to convince the owner to sign? It was paper, paper was meant to be drawn on, and draw I did. First on the paper, and then when I got bored, on myself. I drew my name on one arm, and then some squiggles all over the expensive blouse Mother bought me for an outing we would have later on in the evening. Once I found out the pen could be disassembled and there was a lot of ink contained within the cartridge, I was gone. I broke it open, played with the ink inside and spread it all over the place, the contract, the blotter, along the sides of my skirt and blouse, and into my hair and all over my face. I never admitted it, but I liked being messy playing with that pen. Dare I say it, drawing the picture and being all inky was fun.  
   
However, Mother saw it a completely different way. She was walking around the Manor looking for me after trying to tear Fran up because she wasn't paying full attention to me, and when she passed the door and saw me inside with pen ink all over me, she was livid.  
   
"PARIS EUSTACHIA GELLAR!! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Her eyes popped out and she sneered at me like the wicked stepmother in _Cinderella_.  
   
Even then, I was a wise-ass, playing cute and coy. "Daddy and I don't believe in Hell Mommy, we're Jewish, remember?"  
   
Angry, she whipped across the room, and started giving me a lesson I'd never forget. "I'll teach you to give me lip young lady, you don't play with your father's office supplies."  
   
"But I drew you a doggie picture--"

SLAP!! Right across my face as I tried to give her a gift of my love. I can still feel the sting of that first slap to this day, her sharp-tipped nails scraping across my cheek and the impact of the heel of her hand burning through the skin to make me wail in pain. She then grabbed at my wrist, leaving me little time to react between that slap and the start of my crying.  
   
"I thought I told you that you would study today," she reminded me, her hand wrapped around my wrist so tight I thought I could feel the bone curve unnaturally. "You aren't supposed to be drawing, that's not for kids like you. Go read _Ivanhoe_ , you have Mr. Cullen testing you on that Friday."  
   
"But I wanna go swimming!!" I cried as I was forcibly dragged from the room.  
   
"You can't swim!"  
   
"You don't know that Mommy!" I held the contract tight in my hand, and when she saw it, she got even more livid.  
   
"What the fuck is this you little whippersnapper?" She grabbed it out of my hand and looked at the formerly legal document. "I hope you know what you've just done."  
   
Of course I didn't know, hello, four-year-old. I was crying, the pain from her gripping my wrist numbing my hand because of cut-off circulation. "I'm sorry, I'll make it good, don't hit me--"  
   
She slaps me again, this time on the other cheek. "Your father is going to kill me, thanks a lot. You know he can't get this contract resigned without another meeting!" She dragged me kicking and screaming into my bedroom, and then threw me hard against the footboard of the bed. "Get on the bed and lift your skirt. NOW!"  
   
 _Please don't, please, pretty please?_ I knew what she was about to do, seeing as I heard about it from Louise after she got into her mom's Chanel No. 5. Only Mrs. Grant didn't spank Louise very hard and she did it with the pants or skirt on. I was mortified, embarrassed, but still defiant. I flopped onto the bed and crossed my arms over my chest, lowering my lip and pouting.  
   
"NO!" I said through my tears, "You can't make me!"  
   
"I most certainly can. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it!" I think you should probably know at this point there was a half-liter of Stoli, along with 3 rum-and-Tabs in her. Yeah, big shocker there, my mom an alcoholic.  
   
"Get your ass out here now and take your lickin'!" I pushed even deeper on the bed, trying to stay away from her and sighing in relief that her precious heirloom breakables surrounded it. We eyed each other up like boxers, my face stung on both sides, a deep bruise muddied by the ink of the pen at the wrist-hand junction. I wasn't going down without a fight. I hid beneath my blankets, keeping up a struggle as she tore the sheets away from me and onto the floor. She tugged hard at my leg, so hard that she got my shoe and sock off in one try. I screamed out loud for Daddy and Fran, desperate to get out of the situation. "MOMMY'S HURTING ME!! HELLLP!!" Another swipe at me that just barely missed.  
   
"You're gonna be grounded if you don't let me punish you," she screamed like a banshee. She found herself on the other side of the bed, it was time to make my move. I jumped off the bed and slid under, starting to hear the pitter-patter of Allen Edmonds wingtips and work shoes coming towards my bedroom. Both Daddy and Nanny arrived at the same time, wondering what the ruckus was.  
   
"Sharon, what on Earth are you doing terrorizing Paris?" Daddy asked, his voice seething.  
   
"She was playing with your stuff on the desk, she needs to be punished. You should look at her, she's covered up in pen."  
   
"So?"  
   
"That was my Passover gift to you dear, that cost me a pretty penny."  
   
 _Yeah, his pennies_ , I thought, already onto the fact of her 'snuck loans' from Harold's bank account. "That's no cause to punish her, she's a kid--"  
   
"She ruined your contract, look at this!" Peeking out from under the bedskirt scared for my life, I watched her hand the paper to him. I was expecting them to tag-team me on a spanking.  
   
Instead, he laughed. "Aww, look Francisca, she drew a dog. Not much of a dog, sort of a Dalmatian from the smudges, but it's very cute." He handed the paper to the woman who was really raising me, and she smiled too. "Your daughter is very creative, sir," she said in her then heavy Portuguese accent.  
   
Mother looked at them incredulously. "She broke your pen, you shouldn't be rewarding this Harold. She needs to learn a lesson that it's not OK to play around with other people's things."  
   
"Nonsense, she's fine. It's a pen, I can always get another one, and we can always get another outfit for her. A bath and a refrigerator magnet holding this up on the fridge, and little Par will be good as new." I watch him seem to roll his eyes at her. "As for the contract, this was my own personal copy; you haven't heard of carbon paper? The office has the original, I'd never bring that home myself."  
   
"Still, the principle of the matter--"  
   
"Is that Paris is creative, better that than drilled to death in those ridiculously boring sessions you force her in." Smiling, he bent down and began to overrule all the punishment Mother had tried to dole out. "Dear, you can come out, no one will hurt you anymore."  
   
"Are you sure?" I asked timidly.  
   
"The only thing you need to do is change into your robe, bring your clothes downstairs, and then head for the bathtub. I just want you to know that if you need to draw again, Fran can provide you paper, pencils, pens or crayons, Daddy's desk in his office is his drawing table and he needs it clean."  
   
"Mommy won't bruise me anymore?" I was freaked out at her getting back at me. I pushed out from under the bed, and the dark red slap marks and bruises were very clear as he tenderly brought me out to try to keep the pain from flaring up.  
   
"She certainly won't or else, will she Nanny?" His voice was gruff and demanding, accusatory against my mother. She reeled back, knowing that causing me any more harm was on the level of him cheating on him. It would be an unforgivable offense, something that would make him give up his love for her.  
   
"I will not let her, I know how to keep little Par well-behaved without this violence sir. Mistress Gellar, I'm appalled by your handling of the situation, you know much better than that." The both took a look at me and tried to keep some built up laughing to themselves at my dog picture, which was annoying Mother to no end. This was supposed to be her chance to shine and make a difference, but I couldn't look her in the eye anymore. She had harmed me, and it would take a couple of months for her to get back into my good graces.  
   
"Can't I ground her? She destroyed your office set!" she whined. My father shook his head and asked me to take Nanny's hand.  
   
"Honey, just let it go, it's a pen." I brought my gaze to Mother, who actually seemed disappointed that she couldn't punish me. Her stature was strained, face neutral, but more curved towards thinking of me as a pain in the ass. I still wanted to make things right though.  
   
"I'm sorry Mommy, I won't do it ever, ever again." I meant every word of my apology, because I certainly never wanted to be hurt like that in the future.  
   
Her hazel eyes were cold towards me, and for the first time I saw that I had disappointed her, that she was angry because she couldn't play the mother role she never knew well.  
   
"God, whatever, do what you want. I have to call the florist for the Jaycees ball next week." She began to stomp out of the room and I asked her what was happening with the outing from later.  
   
"You should've thought of that before you got all messy dear." She left the room, and a collective sigh could be heard from Daddy and Fran, though I was sad because she was abandoning me.  
   
"Paris, chip up," Daddy said, lifting me into his arms and putting a kiss on the top of my head. "She's just a little mad right now, she'll be over it soon. You can call Lou over and watch _Care Bears_ and _Jem_ videos after your bath if you'd like."  
   
"Really?" Just like that the trouble I was in was forgotten. "Nanny, can we have popcorn and juice too?"  
   
"Anything you'd like dear, now let's get you cleaned up." With that, the pen incident became but yet another anomaly in the history of my life.  
   
At this point though, it became hammered into my head to expect the worse possible punishment when it came to getting into trouble, so I did my best to stay out of it. Here and there Sharon managed to catch me doing something bad and doled out her own sentence with her words and her hands, until that point when I was ten and my father caught her in the act of slapping my hand with a backscratcher because Louise and I got into her vanity and makeup. It's gone down considerably since then, but I'm still scared to death to get myself into a pickle, lest Sharon find out and tell me I don't deserve my last name and that I'm a shame to her family.  
   
Why do I bring this entire tale of a pen and a mess up here at this point? I'm mortified to say anything, but thus I will, confession is said to be good for the soul, no matter how much you want to keep what you have to say inside.  
   
It's just too bad that confession had to come so suddenly. I'm still trying to wrap myself around the fact that what Rory and I have is no longer a covenant between only the two of us, with vague details going to Ms. LaCosta here and there to keep her posted. What happened has only given me a better respect for the safeguard that is the locked door.  
   
For as of now, Rory's mother knows that we are romantically involved. I'm in their living room, sitting next to Rory with a stinging swoon in my stomach, the both of us looking at Lorelai as she tries to summon up the strength to accept us for who we are, and Rory for who she now is in general. Ninety minutes before I felt like I did once Mother discovered me playing with that pen in the study thirteen years ago, guilty and scared for my life, freaked because with just a few well-placed words, Lorelai could decide she doesn't want me anywhere near her daughter and forbid me from seeing her ever again. Sure, the talk before this was soothing, but you don't know...  
   
Actually, you don't. I better start describing what led to this point, it's quite a tale that you cannot accept without filled in blanks in quite a few places.  


* * *

The relationship I had with Rory has been doing about as good as it can be under the hidden circumstances and mountains of excuses used to be close together. After the successful date last Saturday night, Sunday was spent on both our ends catching up on schoolwork and _Franklin_ stories. We both decided to trade notes via instant messaging, thinking phone-to-phone would stress out our anytime minutes, and that our private thoughts would remain just that, hers contained in the blue shell of her iBook, mine inaccessible through 128-bit PGP encryption.  
   
We ended up talking online until about eleven o'clock, when I had to force myself away from the keyboard because of tired eyes. All of our work was finished, and after nine we were chatting about just things, the vague things that excite the both of us, public television documentaries, opera and the like. It felt good to be able to know she wouldn't roll her eyes if I ever took her on a day outing up to Boston for a museum tour. I also loved how much she wanted the IMAX dome format to stay in the domain in documentaries and stay away from big box office films being shown on the tall, 72 foot screen. It wasn't one of those Madeline-like conversations where every other word was just one letter and in a rebus code that I could barely make out (CU L8r? Coup labor? What on earth was she trying to say?), the lines just kept filling up and up, and about the only thing that would tip the log from being academic were the occasional kiss smilies and 'roses' she'd send my way in a moment here and there. I know nothing of this net-talk, so I'd type out 'accepts rose' and feel like a weirdo typing it out. Somehow I think a trip to the bookstore for a book specializing in this new foreign language will be needed.  
   
The last week in school also wasn't that easy. I showed some more caution throughout the week, while at the same time trying to ramp up the innuendo to a higher level, the both of us. There was something involving her putting the chopsticks she ate with at Lady Sing's Monday morning in her hair, and my making a detour to a forest preserve near Chilton so I could play with her hair and make out with her before school. God, I should be slapping myself for being so off-focus lately, especially because the first thought when I walked into Luke's and saw her hair in a bun wrapped around the sticks was _I want to leave a mark on that pale neck of hers_. Remembering how I ran my fingers against her neck, and her moans of approval drove me further into a funk that's getting harder to crawl out of every day.  
   
Then we cut to Wednesday afternoon in the student government meeting, when Francie wanted to have all of us sell fashion magazines instead of chocolate and candy for fundraising. " _Seventeen_ and Primediaoffered us a double match on each subscription contract we can get," she would tell us, and for a moment I actually thought of going ahead with the plan.  
   
"Alright Jarvis." Rory started her argument sweetly, and I thought nothing about it, this is complacent Rory we're talking about here. No way would she hit below the belt.  
   
"I guess you can be the one to ask all the men of Chilton, and the football, baseball, basketball, soccer teams 'Hi, I'm with Chilton's student government and I'd like to offer you America's #1 magazine for the best in fashion, shopping, and sex tips for the teenage girl, along with the occasional real-life drama piece. You'll only pay $9.95 for a year of the best photoshoots of your favorite male celebrities, like Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, and Andy Roddick.' Because you know, guys find other guys and the best savings on a peasant blouse and the reddest lipstick so dreamy." Her voice went from kind in the beginning to a rough snarl. Her look towards Francie was like something I never saw before, a fiery hate, one that was totally different from when her and I ended up in an argument together. She then went on to say there were quite a few girls in the school that would take offense to being offered such a magazine, like the jockettes and the cliques into darker things like Gothism or cars.  
   
Francie bit her tongue, and struggled for something to say; how do you exactly respond to being dressed down by Miss Nice like that? "Well, uh, er...I don't know. I just thought..."  
   
"That's your problem, you didn't think over the idea at all. We'd lose half of our fundraising if we went with it!"  
   
"What about if we offered _Maxim_ or a comic book, _Sports Illustrated_ \--" Again, Rory was ready to cut her down.  
   
"Nice job, cutting down guys to wanting only two things, sex and sports. Why don't you just offer _Playboy_ and cut out the middleman?" My thought at that moment? _Anger and Rory make a good combination, fuck. Nice job dressing down Jarvis, that is just, whoa!_ The boys sitting at the table laughed, one of them making an off-hand comment that they would buy if Francie was the centerfold. No, not a thought I needed in my head. Though it did make me think of Rory on the bearskin rug pouting at the camera...  
   
"But I was just suggesting--"  
   
"Suggest better next time, the idea needs much more work, wouldn't you agree Paris?" She moved her gaze towards me, and she smiled at me in the way that melted my heart. Just what I didn't need, being reduced to a lovesick pile of goo in my most important Chilton chairmanship, my heart is definitely softening around her.  
   
I nodded and gave the lamest agreement ever in my student government career. "Yeah, needs more work."  
   
Francie looked defeated, and slumped down into her seat, embarrassed by being outwitted by Rory. "Uh, just table it then, I didn't do enough research on the idea obviously. Sorry for wasting your time on this." She shirked down in her seat and for the rest of the meeting, Francie and Rory exchanged dirty looks, sighing whenever one had the opportunity to speak up. I couldn't seem to get the reason for this sudden antagonism against her out of Rory at all on the way home, no matter the tactic I used to get an answer out.  
   
"It's nothing, she's just being Francie, you know she gets off on flustering those she could never beat. Anyways I was right about the idea cutting out half our revenue from fundraising, wasn't I?"  
   
"Yes," I agreed, "but you don't usually tell someone their idea is dumb because they didn't think it out."  
   
"My mom taught me to speak my mind, and that's how I called it. I'm sorry if you hated it hon."  
   
"I didn't hate it," I admitted. "I like it when Francie gets taken down a peg, I just never expected it from someone other than me or Charleston."  
   
I watched her smile as she placed her hand along my knee, something which soothed me. "I'm just trying to defend your agenda, trying to give you a break once in awhile. I'm learning from you and I just can't help it, Francie blamed the both of us for her undoing when it was her stupidity of leaving a note next to her locker a janitor found on the ground tipping the administration off to the bell ceremony. That and I can't understand how she got the senior chair, I chose Thomas Hammond and you did too."  
   
"You don't know?" After five months you think she would've known. "Hammond gave his votes to Francie after they had a meeting of the minds." I'm such a prudish gossip, I know, but I don't even want to imagine what that redhead does to maintain her popularity.  
   
"A meeting?" Rory seemed innocent at first, and it took a sly nod of my head for her to get it. "Oh, that kind of meeting." Cringing, she shuddered at the thought of those two 'meeting'. "Now I know why she seemed a little glowy in her thank you speech."  
   
"Wasn't from the sun, that's for sure."  
   
"How'd you find out, you don't usually gossip."  
   
"Madeline let me know with a promise not to reveal and embarrass Tom."  
   
"Oh, then I won't tell," she promised, relaxing into the seat. "I have a better secret to keep anyways."  
   
Funny she would say that, because keeping our secret was starting to get tougher. Later that evening was an early visit with Dr. Birnbaum (she's pretty much on call if I feel the need to talk as long as she has 48 hours notice, and I **really** needed to talk), and like I promised Rory when I freaked out last week in Russian Novels, I decided to confess, though through a tougher track full of leading questions that made my therapist understand deeply why I was falling for a girl. It took two hours to get through the session, an hour longer than usual, and several times I actually ended up breaking down as I let the trusted woman advise me on what to do next, begging her not to say anything. She said she wouldn't, and the poor woman is such a dear for having to put up with my worst ever since I fell into a deep funk after the abrupt end of my dance career.  
   
Dr. Birmbaum gave me her word that what is said in her office stays in her office, and I know from experience she doesn't even talk about work at all when she's off the clock. She really understood where I was coming from, and it was one of the most intense sessions that I've ever had with her as I voiced doubts about Mother cottoning to me being a lesbian. It's always been tough talking about my mother, but suddenly with that influence suddenly gone because of Mohegan Man and his distractions, I feel freer to talk things out, be it with Rory or Birmbaum. It's better knowing they won't say anything than to go to Louise and pray it stays between us.  
   
I couldn't talk to Rory over the weekend because the Inn had a rare Saturday/Sunday two wedding combo she had to help Lorelai out with, while I had a Daughters of the Civil War commitment to fulfill on both Saturday and Sunday. I hate DCW, not the actual organization, but how my mother has turned it from philanthropy and service, into her own personal clique that froze out the older and more respected members of the organization in Hartford, and brought it into a shadow of what it used to be. There have been rumors of the branch having to declare bankruptcy because my mother is spending more money than they're bringing in from all the events they sponsor because they're in this lame competition with the DAR for society page supremacy.  
   
It was hard to get through those two days; Vance Beardsley III was helping me out and kept looking at my chest like my eyes were actually there each time he passed. I ignored him the best I could and took comfort in the few texts Rory sent to my cell saying she was still thinking of me through the chaos of her weddings. I could only grin and bear it through it all, thinking of Rory in the purple gown she was wearing for the Sunday wedding, and how beautiful in my thoughts she would look wearing it. Several times one of the DCW ladies had to get my attention to fall out of my daydreaming, and the activities of the weekend because a slow drudge to today, when finally I would have my Rory back again.  


* * *

Thank goodness for Harvard, for it brought us back together again this afternoon after _Franklin_ work. The Academic Trinity is coming up; the three things that will define where Rory and I will be in August. The SAT, the ACT, and all the various interviews for each college, they're all important, and after having a dream where I bombed during my Harvard interview last night, I thought it a good idea to ask Rory for some help with some rehearsed questioning lines I had written out.  
   
"I've been thinking the same," she admitted, turned on to the great idea of us comparing and toning our answers to be appropriate. "When I was with the Springsteens they suggested I make sure my questions were tuned to the admissions director, and someone should help me out. I tried it with Mom, and well, you can only imagine how that went." She half-smiled and sighed.  
   
"Three minutes before her James Lipton impression came in?" I guessed.  
   
"I really can't see the AD asking what my favorite curse word is."  
   
"Me either." I smiled, able to have a familiar face besides Fran (or Louise's lame _Basic Instinct_ strategy) to help me out with the interview practice. "So the house is all yours?"  
   
Rory nodded, and though my first thoughts were of how we could use that alone time in other ways other than rehearsal, I pushed them back in my head. _Stop you_ , I told my inner self, _you can handle a situation like this, it's completely academic. Just focus, you have to get into Harvard, so do this without thinking of her in that way at all._ No matter what, I had to go into Rory's house thinking like Paris Gellar, classmate and Harvard valedictorian of 2007, and not Par-Bear, the girl who's letting herself go because this girl likes me in more than a normal way.  
   
Keeping on the tracks was easier said than done. We stopped at my house so I could change clothes on the way, and I noticed that Rory was more of a flirt than she usually has been when I changed clothes in my bedroom from my uniform and into a loose pair of jeans and a sweater. I went into my closet to change, being a little uncomfortable with her watching me undress.  
   
"Come on, why do you have to wear a sweater hon?" she whined as she checked her email on my Mac. "It's not like anyone else will notice, we're just going to my house."  
   
"I'm adverse to cold," I replied, telling the truth...somewhat. Truth was I knew what would happen if I came out in something flattering to my body, I'd end up distracted because Rory's eye contact wouldn't be focused on my face, it would be elsewhere. I had to keep the night innocent, no matter how much it pained me. This is our futures we're practicing for, and you wouldn't want the AD to interview you to have more notes about your attire than personality, would you?

I came out, and she smiled as she wrapped herself around me for a kiss. It's still a shock to know that Rory isn't looking at me as just competition anymore. She nuzzled her nose against my forehead, beckoning me onto tip-toe to kiss her. I blush, her hand brushing a stray hair in front of my left eye, tangled between eyelashes.  
   
"No hairspray for you," she noted, her hands threading through my locks in a soothing manner. "That's just so luxurious." She kisses me again.  
   
"Rory, we have to get going," I beg, flattered by her attention but wanting to get into the fake interview frame of mind. The cute tone of voice I use betrayed my conveyance that I needed to focus. "Stop it, we have time for that later."  
   
"But you look so good," she complimented. "and cute, and...frustrating. God, I wish we had a study hall together, I just had an urge this afternoon to..." she wrung her hands and gritted her teeth. "...just spend time alone with you."  
   
"You can forget it Gilmore, I'm not a broom closet kind of gal." I smirked and pulled myself away from her, trying to tease and snap her back to attention. "No one ever uses the elevator though except the crutches kids, but I have key privileges."  
   
"Aw man, just my luck that I have a fear of being scared of being stuck in the elevator." Souring her face, Rory shook her head. "But you're right, we focus on Harvard. Crimson runs through our veins, we have to ace our interviews and prove those seminar idiots wrong." She got serious finally and helped me with my messenger bag. "This is me not distracted by you and 100% hyperfocused, let's go."  
   
I rolled my eyes at her, wondering how she could turn it on and off so fast. "Peculiar girl from a peculiar town," I rattled off beneath my breath, meaning it more as a compliment than a wisecrack. We left my bedroom and headed downstairs for the Jag for the rest of the journey back to the Hollow.  
   
The focus was on our interview scripts as we set up in the Gilmore kitchen, her on one side, with me on the other. Her script wasn't in the style I expected, it was more of a crib notes style than written out with focused answers. I thought this would detract from a clear and concise response to whatever I did ask playing AD, but I was surprised to see her think on her feet with each question and do an ad-lib on almost all I tested her on. For example, when I asked her opinion on why her slot should go to someone in a public school with all AP classes and most grades being double Honors credit, she thought on her feet and came up with a monologue about how her experiences in a small town high school with limited curriculum and fewer opportunities to build up her grades helped her work on more extra credit projects than a normal student would do. She then pointed out that to this day she continues to do all extra credit, test aced or no, and does her best to find opportunities for extra work wherever she can find it.  
   
"OK," I acknowledged. "Let's say that your admissions director doesn't think that a good enough response. What are you going to tell me to change my mind about this? For all I know you're just doing this extra credit mechanically, without heart."  
   
"I would point you to my references, and my list of achievements within Stars Hollow," she pointed out. "I've been helping this town with almost everything for years and years, from decorations for town events, I was Trick or Treat for UNICEF leader for my zip code, at age eleven I might mention. My many suggestions through the _Gazette_ about how the town could be improved to be cooler for kids, like taking out the director of the youth center who still thinks it's 1972 and all teens want to do is play ping-pong and air hockey. I would add video games, a paint job to hip up the place, and maybe ask for donations from several town organizations, more dances, maybe some new sports equipment. A student taking all AP's and Honors is trying way too hard and just exhausting themselves by doing nothing but that and extra credit. I need to take the occasional regular class because I need to be a well-rounded student and know everything that I can possibly know. I want to be flexible if I get a position on the _Crimson_ , who wants to be stuck doing the crime blotter and calendar of events because all they know is what the school gossip tells them? I want to be out there reporting on a student protest, not a lame feature on bracelets and the form of sexual activity the color you wear denotes."  
   
I was blown away and impressed; ever since that dumbass of an AD told her Hillary Clinton was overdone, she's worked on her answers to make them perfect. She's a shoo-in at this point based on this practice alone.  
   
"Gilmore," I ask, "do you ever breathe? I swear that WPM is faster than mine these days. John Moschitta just called, he's putting out a Mob hit on you because of your word speed."  
   
We looked at each other longingly, and she was glad I had noticed that her words were coming out faster than they were last year. She had taken my rough advice to heart and without so much as one beat, explained why she should get into Harvard. The simpatico shared was becoming overwhelming, and a flash in my mind of her in the _Times_ newsroom setting her fellow colleagues straight as she helps breaks a story that might bring down a corrupt government or renew the drive of a moribund head of state. Her shyness is long gone, in its place that of a strong leader, ready to question instead of keeping her complacency.  
   
I want her to be strong, not only for me, but for herself. No matter the Amanpour prestige she dreams of, she's not going anywhere except the _ET_ newsroom as the replacement for when Mary Hart's million dollar legs finally show varicose veins if she keeps her question lines light, her reports uncritical, giving concessions to the interview subject just to get the story. It would be a failure to see her as any less from the _Franklin_ than a perfect writer, and a perfect student in addition.  
   
After another fifteen minutes drilling her in the questions she wanted me to ask her, we moved on to her being the interviewer as I answered the usual battery of interview questions. I was quick on my feet with the first ten or twenty, able to rattle off my opinion or party line with each response like I had a psychic connection into Rory's psyche. It wasn't challenging, which surprised me. I made the questions so that I could be challenged by what my own brain brought up, and it felt so dull and tedious. After the nineteenth rote answer, I felt like my answers were average, neither too exciting, nor too awful.  
   
I didn't want that, I'm more than average. I should be orating like Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln combined, but in this questioning I was barely up to the level of a Warren G. Harding. How would Harvard be impressed by these boring answers? There was no fire starting beneath me, and because of Rory's kind voice, I felt taken out of the usual cultured and strict authoritarianism that would come from an average AD.  
   
Somehow I felt out of my element, and held back on stronger answers so Rory wouldn't become mad at me. When she asked me what my opinion on school vouchers was, I weakly responded by arguing the church/state connection between them was tenuous at best and the fact that the religious school accepting the vouchers could always make a promise not to put any of their beliefs within curriculum.  
   
I pissed myself off when she asked the important Darwinism/Creationism debate question that formed many a quandary. I believe in Darwinism myself (and it is taught in Chilton), but there is a higher power up there that could've given the world a little nudge towards life and such. But I couldn't apply that to a religious school in my argument, and I tried constructing an argument from it that would sound impressive to him or her.  
   
Instead, I ended up stressed, forgetting what I had to say. Not by Rory's cause I must note, her clothes weren't that distracting and she was quite neutral as she asked me the questions. That became the pattern, and I felt like I was totally off my game. A theory on one thing that might have sounded good on paper or a digital recording of myself wouldn't pass muster with the one man or woman I needed to continue my pre-destined future.  
   
"Come on," Rory asked when I got stuck on a question about Harvard traditions. "You know this Par."  
   
"I don't," I said desperately. "I guess I'm overstressed right now, my mind hasn't been on all Harvard lately and it's thrown off my track."  
   
Bless her heart, instead of being offended, she noticed how stressed I was feeling, with my shoulders tight, posture straight-arrow, my eyes strained from reading. I had looked at these questions 2,000 times, and the answers started blurring into my head.  
   
"Are you OK?" she asked, her voice light.  
   
I nodded that I was, but admitted to wanting to lie down on the cursed couch to recharge my batteries for a few minutes.  
   
"I have a better idea," she said, and without revealing what exactly she had in mind. "Let's move into the bedroom and work on it, lying on my bed might be more relaxing than these chairs." Gathering up her books and supplies, Rory went to her bedroom, and my thinking was it really would be more relaxing in her warm, familiar bedroom. I followed her inside, bringing only the scripts and sitting next to her on the bed.  
   
I was willing to try anything to get out of my drought, and she told me if I'd like I could get comfy and lay horizontal on the bed while she asked the questions from her desk chair. Figuring I would indeed have my ease level rise, I took off my shoes and left them at the side of the bed, crossing my feet together and feeling already that more at ease.  
   
Once again, she got back to helping me rehearse, and like she promised the answers came much better to me in the more relaxed position. I had never considered it because I felt true-to-life training was better (i.e. sitting in the intimidating wood chair wearing a stiff power suit in front of the desk as the AD grills me), yet I could get used to it.

Laying down however, had several disadvantages (besides the obvious I-could-fall-asleep-mid-question problem), mainly that Rory was staring at me as I answered each question in a way not at all AD-like. Her lips were curled in this grin I can't quite describe, and she would look at the question just enough for some quick memorization so she could give me that hovering stare that felt like she was scanning over my features and trying to see through my clothing. Yet she stayed stubbornly scholastic, even after asking her a couple of times to stay neutral and not look at me like that.  
   
 _I knew I should've gone for a longer sweater_ , I thought to myself after pushing the hem of it down for what seemed to be the seventh time. It kept riding up my waist, and that I was wearing a silk camisole beneath didn't help matters all that much, the wool just slid over the bottom shirt like a sheet of ice. It's not as if I'm ashamed of my body, I look fine. I just know that I'm not the current drug addict feminine ideal and that my figure isn't as demanded. No matter how much Rory might compliment me (or Mads and Lou say I look better without the pancake bra squashing me up), I still have many, many body issues to get over.  
   
However, Rory was doing her best to dent them. The questions were becoming fewer and fewer, until the supply was exhausted and I couldn't come up with anymore for her to ask. It worked out perfectly, and by the end my defenses were more aware, able to turn around an answer as I heard the question like usual. I felt much more prepared for the interview, though I was sure a couple more dry runs would be needed before December 11th, I was prepared for anything they'd throw back at me.  
   
"We're done?" Rory asked me as I propped myself and sat at the edge of the bed.  
   
"Unless you think you could use more work..."  
   
"I've had enough life and death questions for today, I think we can relax." She smiled and sat next to me, setting my papers on the nightstand, and I was able to relax for the first time in a bit. I still felt a bit stressed though because having to hide from Mother was really wearing me down. She had expected me home this afternoon, but I told her before I left the _Franklin_ that I wouldn't be, which led to an argument, then an accusation from her that I didn't care about making a good first impression with anyone.  
   
 _Anyone you might know who'll undermine me_ , I thought to myself; I knew if anyone she knew was able to get their words on a references list, they'd call me anti-social and abrasive, prone to outbursts, all that petty shit others use in order to get their own undeserving offspring into my slot and leave me out. Thank God my dad knows plenty about contract law, because there's a hidden statement within the divorce settlement that gives him and I, and only the both of us the final say about how I'm getting into Harvard, she cannot interfere or add her own two cents, period. I refuse to let her hold her custody of me as a crutch to keep me sealed to Kappa Phi Omega for the rest of my life, and dictate my career line.  
   
I was still stressed from that and tried not to show it outside, but somehow my demeanor gave Rory a clue into the state of my mind. I looked down at my hands, trying to figure out my next move, be it going home or getting into debate with her over something to keep my arguments strong. I clasped two fingers to my temples, a headache rising from thinking about what my mother might be thinking of me right now, ignoring her to carry on with my own life. I know if it was up to Sharon I'd be in the Stepford template and only a high school graduate if her influence had been more than my thirst for learning was.

Rory looked down at me with concern, gauging my mood.  
   
"Hey," she prompted, bringing my attention towards her. "Anything wrong? You did a good job on the answers." I grimaced and tried to brush it off.  
   
"I'm fine, just thinking about other things."  
   
"Like what?" she asked brightly, plopping down next to me on the bed.  
   
"It's nothing, really. I'll probably take my mind off it in a few minutes."  
   
"Look, it's OK, I won't tell anyone," she promised, trying to draw the worries out of me. "Come on, I'm your girlfriend, and as such it's my job to worry about you."  
   
"It's just Sharon, she's a pain in the ass," I barked out, "nothing new there. She doesn't understand that I don't want to do the cocktail party circuit. I skipped out on her to be here and she'll probably be pissed when I get home."  
   
She shook her head and put her hand on my thigh, rubbing it soothingly. "You'll be OK, I know it, she just knows you don't like going out and that you're more of a homegirl."  
   
"Yeah, I know, but don't tell that to her." I groan, feeling overwhelmed. "Is it wrong, what I'm feeling about this? Even if refusing to do what she wants jeopardizes my admissions chances?"  
   
I thought she'd tell me to buck up and listen to Sharon no matter what, but Rory took it in the other direction, saying that if I wasn't happy I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do. She noted that she didn't really want to be a debutante and felt miserable through the whole experience, but she did it anyways because it would've disappointed everyone if she refused. She used a simple analogy of what may have happened if either she or I were ever asked by our mothers to become cheerleaders, and the hilarious image of both of us encouraging school spirit in the skirt and sweater as the guys wolf-whistled at us was enough to cheer me up. It made me cringe and thank God my mother had never asked me to get to the point of pushing down my IQ and turning on the slut to impress people.  
   
I was finally able to laugh a little, especially after she rattled off (from memory) at least two pages of all of my achievements without a pause.  
   
"And if you think you need a membership in the Rotary Club after all of that to impress Harvard, you my girlfriend, need an iron lung and a portable tank in tandem just to have enough oxygen to keep up." She moved a hand to my back, circling around the upper portion of it to get me unwound. "It's senior year, time to be just a little bit lazy. You can remain intense, but you don't have to say yes to everything. After you get into college you can ramp up the commitments again, but for now, just do what you need to. Trust me, you're fine."  
   
I started to feel at ease as Rory brought herself closer to me, her compliments soothing me out of the funk. I felt much, much better than I had minutes ago, glad to have her in my corner to keep me sane.  
   
Slowly, she eased herself behind me, continuing on a meandering convo trail about Francie's magazine idea, when suddenly I felt her two hands against the tips of my shoulders. The touch shocked me, though I should've expected it since her hand is the only thing keeping me from going all _Network_ up on Mr. Mercurio in Russian Novels.  
   
"Rory?" I questioned, wondering her intent.  
   
"Ssshhh, just relax," she said softly, and proceeded to start a massage over my sweater that curved around from my shoulders and along my back. At first it felt really good, very nice. But the combination of wool and rubbing obviously made my body disagree and pretty soon I was itching, which presented a quandary. I was wearing that camisole beneath, but I didn't keep my bra on for the trip to Rory's house. Call it lazy, or my dislike of wearing the stifling article past six every night, but I went without, and now I was in a situation where I wanted the massage to continue, yet keep the hormones cooled down. Trouble was, it's harder now to keep my urges under control; trust me when tell you, before I left for DCW Saturday morning, I made one last call to Rory. I managed to keep myself in control, keeping to myself that I ended up having a very hot dream about her and I skipping both of our obligations, meeting in a motel off the beaten path and expending some of that sexual stress with her.  
   
It would be clear, she would have to look at me like I didn't intend for her to during the AD rehearsals.  
   
 _But it's over now Paris_ , I was reminded rather excitedly by my giddy inner vixen. _Come on, you have a chance here, don't let it blow by. Ms. Gilmore isn't coming home for quite awhile and what else is there to do tonight, you're caught up homework-wise until December 6th. You've seen Rory tonight, and you know she's playing with you herself, those jeans she's wearing, wrapping tightly around her thighs, come on, that's not innocence playing into her clothing styling.  
_    
Hesitating, I tried to think about the cons, trying to figure out what to do. We were close and intimate, and I didn't want to ruin that, especially because the massage felt good.  
   
"Rory, uh, do you mind if I um, take off my sweater?" I asked nervously, not sure how she would exactly react. Hiding it under the excuse of a temperature might make it easier. "I'm feeling kind of hot with it on."  
   
"Of course not, makes it easier," she said neutrally. "The boiler acts funny this time of year because it's between the heating and cooling seasons, so I usually wear a shirt beneath just in case." I stopped in my tracks upon hearing that. "You did wear a shirt, right?"  
   
I nodded and then disclaimed. "Sort of." With that, I sucked it up and took off my sweater, wondering what was to happen next between us. It wasn't as if I dressed for seduction, it was for comfort's sake. I wanted to be comfortable around her, and what's wrong with that? And it sort of has a little support in the shelf, they're being held up. Really, if I don't want to wear a bra...never mind.  
   
I took off the sweater, feeling weird just wearing the thin pink undershirt in front of Rory. Setting it off to the side, I could hear her breath shallow as more skin than she ever saw on me was revealed to her. She pushes the hair in back over my shoulder, and then starts the massage anew, wordlessly.  
   
Shutting my eyes, I reveled in the feel of Rory's hands circling against my shoulders, the thin straps of the shirt no impediment to those magical fingers sending soothing tremors through me. I never actually had a massage like this before, the romantic kind. My nanny's younger son Enrique (who I totally think of as a brother and he thinks of as a sister, just killing that idea here and now) has given me the occasional rubdown, and of course my recharge sessions at the spa also help me out. I just haven't had one where at the same time someone is drooling over me. Figuratively of course.  
   
Rory soothed me further by complimenting my back, and moving down occasionally to spread the relaxation through the entirety of my back. Her hands all over me, it was such an erotic thought to me. She even would scratch with her fingernails where I would indicate in a breathy moan where I itched.  
   
"Mmm, that feels so nice Ror," I purred in a way unlike me. Her hands kneaded my skin, working out the knots that I usually kept no matter how tight I felt. It was deeper than the rubdown she gave along my neck taking off my marathon dress, and much more probing. I felt all the stresses I had melting away, and didn't care about anything else except Rory's thin hands having their way for me.

She continued to do exactly that for a few minutes, the feeling soothing and my defenses quickly falling. I had been denying my urges since I got up this morning, determined to get through the day in the usually non-attached way I had perfected before I fell for Rory. But I felt sensitized, and was thankful Rory was only looking at my back at that point. _I can get through this without anything ensuing_ , I commanded to myself, trying to stay strong. _I'm not going to do more than this, really, I'm not!  
_    
Then the unexpected happened. She could sense my relaxation, and I felt her eyes against me as she appraised my back. I felt my breath still as she stopped kneading, pulling her hand away from me. Suddenly my mind spun with what she might do next, but the cautious side had more pull, telling me she was about to try to cool things down, ask me to go with her to Luke's for food, trying to distract from what she knew she wanted.  
   
I know she's been eyeing me up much more, my guard having to be put up in anticipation of something. This morning for example in RN, she went lower on my neck than usual, below the line of my necklace chain. I felt her finger run along the collar, and then into the space between the tie and the blouse, she inserted the finger between, pushing the nail against the back of my neck through the material. The sensuality of it really got to me, and I had to bite my lip in order to keep my mouth closed. Still I let out a barely detectable whinny that I tried my best not to vocalize through the classroom, and she kept her fingers beneath my collar and tie for the remainder of the class period, making my mind empty and unaware of the subject matter (not a bad thing considering but still). Suffice to say I had to flee to the restroom before lunch just to unbutton my tie and the top collar button and cool myself down because it felt just that good.  
   
Everything was coming to a head now, the closeness we denied for the last few days coming back again. She brought her mouth to the back of my neck, and instigated a slow kiss over that started as innocent. Rory reminds me of that nipping she did while she undid the knot of the halter dress, and the allusion that she was enjoying every moment of the torture. It made my throat catch, the very insinuation that she derived pleasure from such a simple and routine act.  
   
I remember what happened next, though because of the events later on, a few details I forget. My apologies, I thought I could recall, but you'll understand how that could've ensued later on. The neck kiss starts slow, her hand clasped inside of mine, and the other free one concentrating on drawing me into her. She kisses the back of my neck, then drags her mouth along the nape, the already sensitive skin beneath overcharged. I felt weird, but in general what she was doing drew me in. I protested that maybe she should pull back, just in case.  
   
"She's not coming, I know it," she said to me, her voice soothing. Trying to assure me Lorelai always shouts she's home from the front door, she got up to ease the concern that Lorelai might butt in, shutting her door to give us more of a safety cushion. My mind tried to rationalize that Ms. Gilmore wouldn't interrupt us because of my acidic personality. She was scared that one time I came over for debate prep and blamed her for giving Rory dairy before we started, and surely that intimidation would put a cushion between catching us in the act.  
   
Rory closed the door, turned around, and started a slow walk towards the bed, catching me off guard. Her eyes raked over me, sitting along the edge of her mattress.  
   
"Lay back down on the bed," she asked me, then added an innocent "please?" to end the sentence.  
   
"Why?"  
   
"Because," she surmised, "I've never seen you that way before."  
   
"What way?" I didn't understand at all.  
   
"Casual," she pointed out. Which was true, even during the hottest days in the Howard dorm, I never wore such a scant top. "You have wonderful shoulders," she commented. "I've never really noticed them before."  
   
Wow, awkward. How do I respond? "Thank you?" A question mark is safe, undefined, no need to bring the reasoning to further fruition. I find the silk top preserving my modesty riding up and untucking from my jeans as I slide from the sitting position and into a recline resting on the pillow.

She's smiling, the 'Rory has a plan' smile. _Uh-oh_ , I think, my idea of stopping things before they could start falling away.  
   
Ror sits down slowly, at the side of the bed, curling up and looking directly at me, from my face and down along my torso. I try to tuck the cami in to stop the ride-up, but she takes my hand and sets it at the side, shaking her head and telling me not to. She slides a finger along the waistband of my jeans, hinting at something sensual to come.  
   
"Don't do anything," she whispers, and before I can even protest or refuse, she's atop of me, bringing me into a close embrace, then her mouth is on mine as she finally claims me in that slow seduction. We look at each other nose to nose, and I lower my eyelashes, dimming the surroundings naturally. Rory slides a hand behind my head, and with that my mind takes a smoking break in the back. My body is in full control, and it knows what I want.  
   
She meanders a kiss, her other hand still at my waist soothingly rubbing her fingers along my bared side. I push my arms down to her waist and instigate further, totally lost in the moment. The location, setting, and the details of how I got there all gone. All that's there is her. All that's there is me.  
   
All that's there is us, together, intimate, exploring.  
   
One of her legs slides against mine, a perfect fit in the space between. She cautions me that she just wants to sink in, not to do anything more than that. I nod and agree, for I'm not ready for that step yet. First base is quite a comfy bag right now, thank you. We draw in closer, her index finger winding around a cluster of hair strands near the left side of my neck. She tugs at the tendrils, a push to increase the power of the kiss. It's not enough for her.  
   
I'm already fargone enough, so I push further, our teeth clashing, my mouth desperate to wrap around. The Jewish Star dangling around my necks scrapes the skin in front, causing me to cry from the irritation. But it's just a minor scratch, nothing bad is happening. God, I like this girl, and I show her that by trying to force the kiss deeper.  
   
Finally, she opens up her mouth and we can take the kiss from horseplay to deep in seconds flat. I feel her slim weight against my body as we play around, trying to find just where the French kiss would be perfect for in the future. We settle on my left-her right and before I know it, I have to take a minute long oxygen break to recover my respiration.  
   
No time for idleness, she keeps on touching me, one hand rubbing from the top of my head all the way to the line of my camisole, the other busy along my side with one hand inside the waistband of my pants, flirting with the thin elastic frills that made up the waistband of my panties.  
   
This is where I start to lose track of things in the chaos that would ensue in the next few minutes. Somehow the kiss instigated even further than we had before, and the reservations I had about turning a night devoted to study into a makeout session had disappeared, to the point I ended up taking control and asking Rory to move her hand to one place or another. I couldn't stand it anymore, just having to ignore my urges to keep my modesty, they needed to be sated.  
   
We ended up so close together that before you can say 'Eleanor Roosevelt was hiding something' (yes, I'm all _X-Files_ on that conspiracy theory), I was atop, kissing her flush and without rhyme or reason. Her hands were gripped beneath my underarms tight, and I felt for the first time that tempting little nag that maybe she'd love to see me shirtless. I knew where this would lead, what the consequences were, that in the heat of everything we were about to take that first turn around the basepaths.  
   
However, you forget that this is my life we're talking about here, and whenever something great is about to take place within it, like Sisyphus the weight of what happens becomes too much at the crest of the hill, you let it go, and you're back chasing that damn boulder back down.  
   
I was just about to bring my thigh between Rory's legs at her pained urging to bring her off, when the silence of the evening, only our sounds interrupting the peace, was broken by the twisting of the doorknob. I heard the lockset slide against the plate, the footsteps of high heels in the path of the doorway.  
   
"I see Paris is here babe, you want me to order pizza--" The door opens, and before I can react, I realize I'm lip-to-lip with Rory, and that our positioning tells the story more than words or excuses could ever do.  
   
Like the stupid inexperienced lover that I am, I turn my head around, face whitened in fear and a large shot of adrenaline flowing through my heart. My hands are at Rory's side, and thankfully all of her clothing is still on. No matter though, for my eyes met Lorelai's.  
   
"--for you both?" I don't think I'll ever forget the look of another mother, one moment smiling asking us we were hungry, and the next with her eyes, the same shade passed on to the daughter beneath me, widened in shock. Her mouth was dropped down, and all of the sudden having to deal with a revelation all three of us hadn't planned on by any means.  
   
"Oh my God," she said numbly, looking down at the floor. Our original plan in three weeks of a dinner where we'd come out to Lorelai in comfortable circumstances, with a simple handhold telling her all she needed to know (and all we wanted her to know!), of a long convoluted explanation of the events that led us from enemies to lovers, it was now blown out of the water. This was a Japanese plane sneaking into Pearl Harbor and sinking the USS Arizona; now a day in infamy.  
   
Rory and I were about to come out in the way we were least expecting. I felt a panic attack begin, Ms. Gilmore's gaze weighing down on me, a mix of shock and disappointment coloring her.  
   
Still, she found an opportunity to say the absolute worst thing to say at the wrong time. Not in a bad way, just weird placement of her words.  
   
"Well, it looks like you're already eating," she said, trying to use humor to numb herself from a lash-out. Rory got up from her laying position, her brain trying even now to reel back and react.  
   
"Mom!" she shouted, her voice laced with worry and a hope these weren't the last moments of her life she would be living at this house. "I...well I...uggh, you're home...early...this is surprising."

"We hired a cleaning crew, work got to be too much for the staff," she explained rushingly. "Umm, wow. Hello kiddo." She then brought her gaze to me, her face looking very funny. "And a big hello to you too Paris, and I do mean...big."  
   
I didn't know what she was going on about at first, still numb and trying to hold back the stroke I knew was about to come from mortal embarrassment. That's when she brought her eyes down and tried having me focus on something else.  
   
I was definitely out of my body, out of my element, and way out of being able to have a normal reaction. I looked down at myself, and only then did I realize that when I turned around to face Lorelai, the right strap of my top, barely hanging on to my shoulder had slipped down, and the loose silk fabric that it was holding up went with it. The strap was now just below my elbow, and well, guess who got an unexpected and certainly unneeded glance at my right breast, nipple and all?  
   
 _This is like a bad episode of Degrassi, this can't be happening!!_ my mind screamed. As if watching her daughter's competition in bed with her wasn't enough, Lorelai also had to deal with my accidental exposure! Leave it to dysfunctional me to ratchet up the crazy more than I meant to.  
   
I wanted to turn so fucking pale that I could become a ghost, the panic attack just growing from there. I tried to find a blanket surrounding me, but we were sitting on all of them, I found my head shaking and shaking, both Rory and I in the worst situation we had ever found ourselves in. I wanted to start crying, just get the fuck out and let Lorelai dress Rory down as she made it clear that this day was her last at Chilton.  
   
"Umm, here, take this, geeze!!" She held her hand to her eyes as she yanked at Rory's robe hanging on the door, then tossed it towards a very thankful me. I knew it certainly wouldn't fit, but I propped the still sliding cami strap back on my shoulder and draped the robe along my neck so at least I wouldn't have another _Girls Gone Wild_ moment.  
   
I was right in the middle of it all as Lorelai and Rory tried to make sense of this all, her discovering the both of us together. I was so scared, despite her demeanor as 'the cool mom', the one who let me come to the Bangles concert with them so we could bond together, and who always made jokes behind my back about how focused and serious I was about everything. We were both in the ultimate cookie jar moment, and all of the excuses and lies in the world couldn't cover up that Rory and I were on Rory's bed, we were kissing, and as Lorelai opened up the door Rory made a contented sigh as she seemed to want me to get off with her help.  
   
Lorelai stood there for a minute, trying to gather her bearings and stop herself from saying anything that she might regret. I felt as if time had stopped, my world was off-axis, and there was a large fear that the next words out of her mouth were that she was going to call my mother and ask for an explanation for why their daughters were fornicating in her house.  
   
"Mom?" Rory asked, her voice bare and worried. "Are you OK?"  
   
She brought her gaze towards Rory, and decided that going witty and funny wasn't the best line; she had to be direct with her words. She breathed a couple of more times, and with her voice tight, responded. "Am I OK? I have no idea right now, because I never prepared for this."  
   
"Oh." Rory's gaze dropped down, and the awkwardness had begun to peek up. "I didn't mean for you--"  
   
"--to find out this way, I know," Lorelai said with some agitation. "No one ever does." She wrung her hands up, trying to focus. "I just...I don't know what to say right now. I'm at a loss for words, and I don't have a joke that would be at all appropriate for this situation. I mean one moment I'm asking for pizza toppings, and the next I'm walking in on you," she pointed at me, "on top of my darling daughter."  
   
That did it for me, I couldn't dare stick around at all. I didn't want Lorelai to lose her temper with me, and blame me for dragging her daughter into a life that wasn't appropriate. For my own good, I had to leave. The faster I fled, the more that Rory could just excuse it as experimentation and the less trouble we'd be in.  
   
"I think I should go--" I said, getting up from the bed and then being stopped by Lorelai's held out hand. Before she could say anything though, Rory decided to throw her heart on the floor.  
   
"No honey, don't." She paused, looking up at her mom. "You're not going to go because I'm going to take this like a woman, I'm done lying." She pushed closer to me, and took my hand into hers, in her lap. "Mom, I'd like to introduce you to my new girlfriend."  
   
The last word she said went through me, and swelled my heart. It was finally vocalized to someone else, the g-word. It put a hammer of finality that this wasn't just Rory testing the waters anymore, she was headed for the deep end. I felt myself calm a little, though prepared for the possibly of anything about to happen.  
   
"G-g-girlfriend?" Ms. Gilmore stuttered, trying to get over all of this shock.  
   
"For the last two weeks, one day, and four hours, that's what she's been to me," Rory said statistically. _This is not the time to be turned on!_ I nagged myself, really liking the geek touch she was putting on this coming out.  
   
"But that would mean..." Lorelai lost herself in thought for a moment, going over the chronology before she came to her conclusion. "...before I got home from Nashville? While I was still in the air towards Detroit?" Rory nodded.

"And before that?" Rory hastily explained that we weren't together, but were inching closer towards romance with each day.  
   
"And Dean?"  
   
"That was fractured long before the summer," she noted. "I should've broken it with him months ago." She looked down at herself, and all I wanted to do was take her into my arms and hug the hurt away from her.  
   
"Oh, wow." Lorelai couldn't believe what was being thrown at her, she didn't expect this. I certainly didn't and I was now in the middle of it all. "So...does this mean you're...that you identify as a...are you mixed between the two?"  
   
Rory looked up at her mother, and with power I didn't know she even had, finally confessed what she had been holding back since I said it would be nice to kiss each other all those days before.  
   
"I am Mom. I...I like girls."  
   
"Are you...you know, that word?"  
   
"I wouldn't classify myself as so, but yeah, you could say that I am a lesbian."  
   
Rory stops, and then pre-empts any attempt for Lorelai to ask if she was definite and sure that she liked the same sex more. "Dean never made me feel things that Paris has," she confessed, forlorn. "I can't like a boy, I really, really tried through the last year. He wasn't into me beyond simple lust, and I wanted more than that, I craved for closeness, a mental connection, someone who matched up with me." She then brought her gaze to me, her eyes starting to feel with tears, her voice sob-choked. "And to me, it didn't matter that who I felt those sparks with was missing an important part. We connect physically, mentally, and spiritually, and for the first time, I feel truly content going out with someone. I never did with Dean, but with Par..." she smiles at me. "I do."  
   
There was a period of silence after that, tension hanging in the air despite the calmness of Rory's coming out. I had nothing I could say, for my mind was a empty blank. What could I really say, except that I liked Rory? This was between her and her mother, and if Lorelai wanted me to go, there was nothing I could do but comply. My fate was truly in her hands, and she could say whatever she wanted to me. I felt torn now, because all pretenses and excuses were out the window, we were now out to Lorelai.  
   
She gestured at us, but nothing seemed to come from her. She lay back against the door, completely confused as to what to say. It was as awkward as the both of us feared, and I was mortally embarrassed it was all revealed this way. She kept looking at the both of us, trying to understand why her daughter, the one she gave up everything for back in 1984, was now throwing another curve in her life. It was almost as if Rory had just revealed she was pregnant; only this time all the preparations, lectures and warnings she gave over the years were all for nothing. Her mind had always been on Rory not having sex and ending up with a baby. Now though, she was completely on her own, there was no help in this.  
   
Just as expected, she finally brought her line of questioning towards me. "I didn't know you had it in you," she accused. "I knew you were trying to outpace her for valedictorian, but I didn't expect that you would use her heart to try to soften her up--"  
   
"Now wait a minute Mom!" Rory screamed.  
   
"No, I know this is just a way for her to top you in grades, she's using you Rory, why can't you see that?"  
   
"I am not," I said softly and sadly. Somehow I knew the first explanation for everything in her eyes would that I was trying to fuck my way to the top of the academic food chain. "I wanted this, but I didn't pursue her Ms. Gilmore, that's the truth."  
   
"But you have ulterior motives--"  
   
"MOM!" We were both stunned to see Rory get up from the bed and stand up straight, ready to defend me.  
   
"Kiddo, I don't usually question your love life, but this doesn't look right to me."  
   
"Well it doesn't if you go in and just accuse her of something she never did, damn it! Listen to me..." Rory stood with arms crossed over her chest, and then with the same precision she had earlier with the fake AD answer, went on to explain all she did to win me over, about how she knew about my insecurities and that I wouldn't ever make the first move. She defended every move she made in order to get into my closest circle, from the field hockey fiasco, the sense that she knew Jamie and I didn't work at all because she felt he wasn't my match, all the depression she felt the two months before having to watch me from the sidelines and how Dean just wasn't working for her anymore. She went on and on about how truly special the dance marathon was to her, and the night I crawled in begging forgiveness for my over-reaction to her compliment I didn't take. I just watched her on fire, hammering into each and every point, stifling down Ms. Gilmore with her every objection.  
   
Her tearful description of our date last week just got me; she described my chivalry and how composed I managed to stay despite it falling apart in front of us with the movie and the restaurant not at all like expected. Rory just wasn't defending me; like the fortune said, she was being steady, strong and brave, defending my blossom from all attacks, not letting me inflict the thorns on others when she could shield me just as well.  
   
She was certain; this was a definite, and Ms. Gilmore would have to learn to live with me as her girl from now on.  
   
Bringing fingers to her temples, Lorelai knew that this was an issue that couldn't be solved with me in the room, she had to talk to Rory about this, alone. I knew they needed the privacy, but I just stayed silent so I could take Rory in defending us.  
   
Ms. Gilmore held up her hand and stopped Rory mid-thought. "Hon, can we talk in the living room? I think we have some things to talk about without Paris here, like the fact you've been shielding me from your life for the last month or so."  
   
Rory knew she was in trouble for that, no way to deny it, and knew there were some things she needed to clear up with her. "Sure, let's do that, I feel like I need to say a few things." She sighed and headed out, as Lorelai looked towards me.  
   
"Uhh, you stay here, somehow I think you need to recover a little Paris," she asked, reminding me of only minutes before. "We're going to talk, me and you, after I get done with Rory. I just want to understand both sides of the story." I looked up at her, feeling shame and humiliation for the situation she caught us in. God, this was not the way she was supposed to find out at all! It was supposed be all happy, set up, around an _I Married Joan_ mock-a-thon or whatever shows they watch...  
   
I watched Rory leave the room, our eyes meeting and the care she showed still present despite what had just happened. She wasn't running away from me after Ms. Gilmore found out; that was a good sign, right?  
   
Lorelai noticed my pain, and tried to reassure me before she left to have it out with Rory. She bent down and put on a weird smile.  
   
"Hey, I promise you that I won't be like your mom, OK?" I nodded, still scared that she was about to tear me down and make sure I would never see her beautiful daughter again. She turned and left, shutting the door behind her, leaving me alone while mother and daughter had a talk that had been waiting for weeks to been had.  
   
All I could do was try to block out the fact that I was found out a lesbian in a way I wouldn't wish on any girl. I got out _War and Peace_ and decided to use the awful content to block out the fear building inside of me; anger always beat fear, and I was certainly pissed off at this book.  
   
As much as I wanted to, I didn't eavesdrop, mainly because the thick walls of the house sucked up the speech within the room and Rory's door would definitely be heard if I opened it. I said a prayer, looking for guidance in the situation, and a hope that Ms. Gilmore would be benevolent, and not want me to leave forever.  
   
I kept reminding myself it could've been a lot worse; it could've been a State Patrol officer watching us neck at a truck stop, a teacher at Chilton as we snuck a kiss before we got out of the car.  
   
Or it could've been Sharon, at the Manor. Two words; blown gasket. Three more words; Rory in coma.  
   
Yeah, better Lorelai found out than anyone else. She had to understand, she just had to. You can't help who you're attracted to, and I hope her of all people understand that...  


* * *

Twenty minutes into their talking to each other, and I was totally bored, the book open but hardly regarded. I didn't have my laptop with me, and I wasn't the type to use someone else's without their permission, so I didn't use Gilmore's, scared that I'd breach her privacy. _You couldn't have a TV in here?_ I thought, the idea of some _Jeopardy!_ appealing to me. The comfort of Alex Trebek is like a nice soothing cup of tea to me...  
   
However all I had in there was a radio, and I wasn't up to hearing the blatherings of the _Savage Nation_ , so I lay down on Rory's bed, trying to take myself out of my fearful mood by cuddling her chicken animal like I did my Cheer Bear occasionally (yes, I own a Care Bear, OK?! It was a fad but I still love the damned things!), and letting my mind wander back to minutes before, prior to Ms. Gilmore's inconvenient walking in.  
   
I still had my sweater off and looked myself over, Rory's touch still very fresh in my mind, and how in such a small period of time she instigated me in such a way I ended up atop of her. I keep thinking of her using those innocent eyes of her wooing me in closer, her teeth dragging across my neck in such an agonizing and raw sexual way. How despite the way we are, in the end all exploration remains academic. I remember back to just three days ago, after school, Friday evening. Rory decided to tell Lorelai that she'll meet her at the Gilmore mansion in Hartford's Blue Hills neighborhood, explaining to me that she kept clothes changes there just in case and I could drop her at Emily and Richard's, claiming _Franklin_ work...  
   
 ** _Her hand is at my side as I drive looking both ways into Mill Pond Park, a preserve two miles south of Chilton in Newington. It wasn't known as a 'make out park' by any means, and that I was thankful for. It's just a little piece of land near a VA hospital where you don't find many people; no kid wants to play in a park without any playground equipment since the advent of Nintendo. Wonderful for me though, for I'd sit near the Mill Pond in an isolated place, enjoying my lunch on a quiet fall or spring day when life was just throwing me bitter lemons. Since it was close to sunset, no one was out there, and when I pulled up in the parking lot leading to the path leading to the pond, I was glad for it.  
   
"What are we doing here?" she asks, and I quiet her with a soft shush._**

**_"You'll like this." I get out of the car, forcing Rory to leave her books behind as I lock them in the car. I open the trunk, taking out a plaid blanket, and not giving her any clues into my state of mind, she follows me down the thin dirt path I know so well. Her hands in the pockets of her jacket, she struggles with the walk, to be expected on unfamiliar territory. She trusts me; I hold her hand to help her over a medium-sized tree trunk in the path. It's only a quarter mile, but when I arrive into the clearing where the pond and a small field unfold before us, I know this side journey was well worth it.  
   
I watch as her eyes widen and she looks at this pastoral setting, a little country in the middle of the McSuburbs.  
   
"Paris..." she looks around and around. The pond, not really for a mill at all but named so by the early 1900's developer who built this area, is great, a small shore leading into a shallow body of water, in which I dip occasionally on the hot June days at the end of Chilton terms. Routes 9 and 15 pass near, but they're barely heard above the rustling of trees and sounds of the animals. The temperature was in the mid 50's that day, cool but not enough to chill my bones.  
   
"This reminds me of home," she mentions, and I recall the way Stars Hollow's pond is, almost the same layout but a little more rustic and out of the way. But this is still nice...  
   
I find a spot beneath a hulking old oak tree near the pond, and I spread the blanket out beneath the shade. It fits both of us, and I ask if she wants to lay next to me and just watch the sun set in the ripples of the water. Rory is a simple girl, and a sunset appeals to her. I remember once saying to her that I hated the sunset. Mostly the truth, I'm more of a sunrise person because it means the start of a new day, but when the mood and the atmosphere is right and I'm not stressing over a test score, a sunset is a perfect capper.  
   
I lean my head against the tree trunk, as does Rory. I wear my long Chilton overcoat; she's still in her unbuttoned school sweater, not another layer, her blouse of course untucked and socks drooping. I lean my head against her shoulder, my hand around and playing with her collar. We kiss softly a little, talking about little school things and life in general, a mention of Washington's newest scandal. Again, talk only seductive to us.  
   
"Paris?" She asks me a question. "Which anchor would you sleep with if given the change?"  
   
"What do you mean?"  
   
"Like on CNN or NBC, if you had a chance to have sex with someone behind the desk, who would it be?"  
   
"Hmm..." It was an interesting question, I had impure thoughts of those who inform all of us, but I would always keep them to myself and never order them from 1-5 in sexuality and such. I had to think on it a little. "You first, and somehow I'm going to say it's your idol, Amanpour."  
   
"You'd think that, but no. After watching those Paula Zahn ads with the zip sound, it sounds appealing."  
   
"Zahn? You can't be serious, she's the journalistic equivalent of a Pop Tart!"  
   
"But she is a little bit sexy."  
   
"Pretty much all she has. Thank God you didn't say Barbara Walters." I laughed at the very idea of that.  
   
"How about Katie Couric?" I cringe and shake my head furiously. "Come on, I know we've seen way more of her than we ever did and she's like a stewardess, but her legs, they're nice."  
   
"She has nothing upstairs--"  
   
"But plenty downstairs," she says without shame. "I know I should mention a few guys, Lester Holt, Bill Hemmer, Bob Woodruff over on ABC, they're very bright, young and sexy."  
   
"Anderson Cooper all the way for me," I admit. "Gotta have old-school richie solidarity, part of the Vanderbilt clan. He sure knows how to make a report look very good; I admit my sexual maturity was started with late night viewings of 'World News Now'."  
   
"And female?" I don't want to admit, but scared she'd laugh at me, I warn her my choices are unconventional.  
   
"I sort of kind of have a crush on Candy Crowley. Yeah, she's no Liz Vargas, but she goes after the story pretty well, she'd be great to hear a few campaign trail stories about. As for shameless...Soledad O'Brien. Just a great voice, a nice face, beautiful eyes, any network's lucky enough to have her."  
   
"It's the tan, isn't it?" She brushes a kiss along the side of my face, and I nod, moving my hand along her neck, trying to work at her school tie. "Perhaps a certain ideal you've taken with you and found within me."  
   
"That could be it." I clasp at the button holding the tie together, then unsnap it, my fingers playing with Rory seductively. She groans as I brush up her neck, and work the collar button of her blouse open. We work ourselves into a laying position on the blanket, and we work ourselves into romance, kissing and just taking in the atmosphere of that small public park. We end up spending a half-hour in that position, just talking about so small things, my hands playing at her waist, hers at mine. I feel great, sharing a secret spot with Rory I've never divulged to anybody else.  It's unbelievable how much I'm a hopeless romantic in her sights, when I think of myself as the extreme opposite outside of her proximity.  
   
We have to force ourselves to pull away when my cell phone alarm vibrates, signifying 5 o'clock. The sky is a dark blue, and night is starting to peek. We get up from the wrinkled blanket, our skirts covered with a slight layer of dirt, and I feel like I have to come here much more often. Rory looks at me, seemingly lovesick, both of us still shy about anything too public.  
   
"Someday, we'll have to go to the pond in my town, by the bridge," she said pensively. "Water has a calming and tranquil effect, and sitting by it here was so relaxing." She straightens her sweater, and slides her hand into mine as I fold the blanket up.  
   
"I know," I agree. It's certainly too cold for a swim, but just watching the water with her was something that gave me a sense of relaxation. We made our way back to the front gate of the park, getting there just as the last remnants of day had passed. The ride to the Gilmore mansion continued on that track; things that relaxed us. She mentioned of course her love of a nice book, sitting alone at parties, a nice soothing bubble bath. I laughed when she mentioned that, because that was one of my best stress relievers too.  
   
She had a mischievous look on her face, and I knew she was ready to say something not Rory-like. I tried to stop her, but it came out anyways.  
   
"You did say that your bathtub in your private bathroom seated two, correct?" I nodded automatically, and as I drove, I had to keep my mind off her fingers at the hem of my skirt. "One day, I might just have to see that, and perhaps test it out." Hearing this from Gilmore was such a surprise, but somehow I kept my heart rate in control, discussing the interest in quilting and sewing that I had. A long tradition in the Gellar family, it's about the only thing I'll admit appeals to me in homemaking. We have a long tradition of both arts, along with knitting, however Sharon has discouraged me from taking them up, calling them 'antiquated' hobbies. It disappoints me, and I have to make do with watching my Gellar relatives create wonderful things from yarn and fabric.  
   
"You should talk to my mother, she loves all that stuff," Rory reminds me. "Without her, I might've attended kindergarten in the nude."  
   
"I remember the dress, Winter Formal. It certainly looked beautiful on you, brought out your eyes," I offhand, surprising even myself. "She did a great job on it, you could tell she spent hours crafting it."_ **

**_"I spent nine hours being fitted for it," she noted. "Your mother picked that gown you wore, didn't she?"  
   
Groaning, I recalled how hideous it looked. "I felt like someone skinned Kermit the Frog and made me wear his skin." She laughed out loud and shrieked at how hilarious my comparison was.  
   
"Still, you looked nice, that's the first time I found out what you usually hide." Her eyes drifted towards my chest. "I have to admit I was 100% straight at the time and had zero thought of anything involving you, but I was jealous of you, how you looked."  
   
"Really?"  
   
"How could you not, you looked classy and beautiful, I was glad for your date. At least until I found out you shared blood, then it was a mix of 'Oh God', 'No don't go there mind!' and 'Poor Paris'."  
   
"And back then I thought it was the end of my world that I had to be escorted by my cousin." We pulled into the gate of the Gilmore house, and I drove around to the circular driveway at the front entrance. "Looking back, it was funny, but I care not to repeat that experience again with any of my family."  
   
"God willing, you won't have to ever again." We got both got out of the car, since after I went to the door with her Saturday night, it had become habit to accompany her to the door, whichever it was, before I leave, because she thought it was nice. I followed her to the door, and she rang the bell.  
   
"So 9:30pm tonight on MSN?" We had been mixing various messaging services lately as we talked online because Madeline and Louise's conversations were overtaking at one time or another, and both of us didn't want to be dragged into a private chat with them.  
   
"It's a date." The door opened at that time, and behind it was Emily, her grandmother. The regal woman was smiling at the both of us, surprised to see Rory this early.  
   
"Why Rory, hello!" She exclaimed. "Paris, how are you, it's a surprise to see you here."  
   
"Sorry to come early Grandma, we had paper work and I thought it pointless to go south to put on something else and come back north when I have clothes here. I'll just meet Mom here, if that's OK with you."  
   
"Just fine for me, your grandfather wanted to give you a few new books to read." She brought her look towards me. "Paris, how are you?"  
   
"Well Mrs. Gilmore," I responded. "Rory's a real firecracker on the Franklin lately, very impressive. It's amazing how much time she spends in the newsroom. She stays so long I give her rides home and to school now, and she helps me with a lot of things."  
   
"That's wonderful, it's good that you two are such great friends." We sent a secret look at each other, the oddity that we were really 'great friends' hopefully remaining a secret to her. "Are you staying?"  
   
"I'm afraid I can't," I said sadly. "Mother has me working a DCW event this weekend and I have to go through the plans, you know how it is."_ **

**_"Of course," she groaned with hidden disdain, I knew how Emily as a DAR'er loathed the competitive new direction of DCW. "I wouldn't want to keep you from that."  
   
"I actually don't want to do it, but you know Sharon, dedicated." I laughed shyly. Rory pulled at the cuff of my jacket, giving me a 'wrap it up' signal. "So dedicated if I'm not home at six she'll have my head."  
   
"I should let you go then, good luck this weekend," Emily said as her and Rory went in the house. "Maybe I'll see you around more often now that you and Rory are so close."  
   
"I'm sure you will." I waved at Rory. "Have a good weekend Gilmore, don't forget to brainstorm this weekend, those weddings should give you plenty of time." She said goodbye to me, and the door shut as I turned around to go back to my car.  
_**   
Thinking about Friday evening, I think of how well things have gone...maybe a little too well. I mean without Ms. Gilmore interrupting, I don't know if I would've been able to stay in control of my modesty. I daydream more about that for awhile, trying to think of how in just the matter of a few weeks I've gone from looking at her from afar, to so close we've almost brought ourselves into very close intimacy. I hold off at an outright dream about what may have happened, thinking it bad form to think of my girlfriend in a naughty way on her own bed. The book lay at my side, still unread.  
   
After a few more minutes in deep thought, I looked at the clock radio one more time, which now read 8:02pm, meaning that Rory had been talking to her mother for at least forty minutes since we were discovered. I felt very uneasy, keeping one eye on the clock and the other on the opened page in the book, reading one passage over and over again, just wanting to get this over with. I hadn't heard any banging or anything odd, something that would cause some kind of alarm between the two. Still, until Lorelai entered the bedroom, I was in limbo. For all I knew she had just told Rory to pack her bags for Boston, that she was moving in with Christopher and Sherrie because she wouldn't want me anywhere near her.

It had been a long time since I was sent to the corner for doing something wrong, and being stuck in that 12'x9' space (yes, I counted the ceiling tiles and made a measurement that way; remember, I was bored) for the last hour, I kept putting down the book and walking around the room, holding back so much to go through Rory's things. I saw the blue RN notebook still sitting on the desk, the book that held her secret longing for me for so long. Then I looked at the pictures of her, Ms. Gilmore, and Ms. Gilmore's friend, her chief chef at the Independence, Sue Lee, Selena...I forget her name...oh yeah, Sookie. 'Wacky small-town residentspeak' for Susan. In those pictures was the Rory that everyone knew, the one happy with Dean and willing to settle for less. That brunette who regarded me as a pest and hadn't even put any kind of tangible picture on her desk yet at all of us together, not that we've had the opportunity to pose for a picture as a happy couple yet, I thought the pic that Kentucky boy snapped was the only happy one of us.  
   
The guilt weighed down as I looked at pictures on the other side of the desktop with her true best friend, Lane. To say she wouldn't be happy with the idea of her buddy kissing another girl would probably be an understatement, considering her mother's strict Christian upbringing of her. Not that it's important, the girl will probably kick my ass the moment she finds out because I've been more intimate with her friend than ever expected. This town looked pretty, but it was going to suck stepping out and telling everyone that the both of us were more than buddies.  
   
"Paris?" the older voice asked. I folded page 564 into 566 (no way my $100 personalized gold bookmark is going to remind me where I left off in this Donner Party of a book), and shut the heavy volume closed.  
   
"I'm fine, you can come in Ms. Gilmore." I sucked up all that I had, preparing for a line of rebukes, accusations and screaming matches to come. The Other Mother was about to give me The Talk, and hopefully it wouldn't end with 'I don't want you to see her again, please leave.'  
   
She opened the door, finding me sitting on the bed, looking down at my fingers, scared to establish eye contact with this woman who was Rory's age halved. I still can't believe that the girl I had fallen for was from someone so young.  
   
"Hello again Bareshirt Contessa," she tried to joke, a jab at the state she caught me in only an hour before startling me and throwing me off-track. I narrowed my eyes towards her, very annoyed at the reference.  
   
"Ms. Gilmore," I warned, "I never meant to do that."  
   
"Paris, I'm making fun of you," she pointed out. "Just laugh and go along with it." She slid up next to me and we started the heavy talking. "And thanks for aging me twenty years with the matriarchal Ms. Gilmore greeting."  
   
"I have to have manners," I explained to remind of why I didn't go first-name with her. "So I can't just up and call you Lorelai."  
   
"But I don't mind it," she said. "Better Lorelai than 'She who had your girlfriend at sixteen.'"

 _Was she going to take any of this seriously?_ I needed her to just acknowledge how she felt about me wanting her daughter unless she was going to Phyllis Diller her way through this talk.  
   
"Look, do you have a point?" I said, very annoyed. "I've been stuck in here for the last hour waiting for you to talk to me, and frankly you think this is a big joke."  
   
Finally she straightened out. "This isn't a joke to me, I'm trying to deal with the fact that I walked in on all of this." Her voice wavered a little. "I'm still not believing that I come home from work, open the door, and walk in on the two of you the way you were. I mean, I walked in on her and Dean a few times last year, but I could trust him to never take off his shirt or bring his hands below the waistline. I at least had warning about them, a few hours only, but still, quite a bit of notice. Then I see you and Rory together and you're doing a hell of a lot more than Dean ever did."  
   
"What do you want me to say, I didn't mean to do it?" I wrung my hands, trying to will myself through an answer. "Look, if you want me to leave right now, I will, no questions asked. Far be it from me to dissolve your perfect world so suddenly."  
   
"Paris, don't--" She moved towards in front of my path to stop me.  
   
"Ms. Gilmore, I have not taken advantage of your daughter by any means, we're going slow, very slow, Ice Age slow. I know how scared you are of her going too fast into things, and I'm scared to do that before we've gotten to know each other. Not like you're ever going to let us get to that point anyways."  
   
"Hey," she said, taking offense. "Don't be assuming things."  
   
"I read people Ms. Gilmore, and I know the first thought in your mind was 'Oh God, look, it's my daughter and her worst enemy together.' Then you probably thought if she was going to experiment with girls that she could've picked someone better and less neurotic than me, like Louise or Summer, or a girl who's prettier than me."  
   
"I never thought of that at all--" I continued on the defensive.  
   
"Come on, I know you were just waiting for this moment Ms. Gilmore, you could finally rescue your daughter from the Big Mean Classmate and have all the proof you needed for that reasoning." I felt my eyes tighten, tears threatening. "You don't think Rory confides in me, that I know you don't exactly think of me in the best light? I exposed you and Mr. Medina, I've made your daughter cry on so many occasions, I bitched about your wonderful dinner last year. Get real ma'am, I'm a realist, and I know I'm the last girl you'd ever want to see Ror with, and I know you talk about me all the time as crazy." I know, I was irrational, but I was in huge panic that was turning into an attack quite quickly, only I would amplify an argument this way.  
   
I watched as Lorelai sat back down on the bed as I lay down on it, trying to stay sane and my blood flowing just in case I talked myself into a fainting spell. She never usually had to deal with something so life-changing, I was sure, her biggest quandary so far in Rory's life going for the Chilton loan and re-establishing her life in Hartford with Richard and Emily.  
   
"You're certainly ready for battle, aren't you?" she commented calmly, holding back anger I thought she would have. "Paris, please, don't talk like you're girding yourself with a debate, just talk to me, woman-to-woman."  
   
"How can I do that?" I asked. "I'm going to say the wrong thing and that's just going to make things worse."  
   
"You won't, do you really think that little of yourself?" she asked. "When I was talking with Rory a few minutes ago, she was telling me about the strong and driven woman she wants to get to know more, not this sullen self-pitying girl who makes Fiona Apple look like Amanda Bynes." She sighed and hesitated. "I was ready for a nice deep talk with you about your intentions with Rory, all this that's been lain on me like a ton of bricks so I can understand more why this is all happening."  
   
Shaking my head, I tried to tell her that I wasn't trying to crawl into a hole and hide. "I...I just can't explain things well, and the way you just went off on me, throwing an accusation that I'm trying to use the girlfriend card to get the V slot, it hurts me. You think I'd ever be that low? Excuse me if I'm offended at that assertion."  
   
"You're excused," she said. "Now come on here, talk to me. Make me understand how someone like you managed to push the waterboy out of my daughter's thoughts."  
   
"Waterboy?"  
   
"My alias for Dean, for he changed the water bottle before what I've learned three weeks ago was Rory pushing off to the side and going full tilt for you."  
   
"Oh, right." I laughed, thinking that Lorelai thought very little of him that all he was good for was for keeping her hydrated. "I'm...I'm...auuggh, sorry, I'm not usually at a loss for words, either English or Portuguese. I mean you never think until it's too late that you're...what's the term I'm looking for here--"  
   
"Being walked in on?" Lorelai finished. "God, do I know how that feels, and seeing you tonight, it just reminded me of Rory's dad and I being walked in on by Emily in almost the same exact position; very awkward. I mean she was just lost for words and the only thing she could say is 'Lorelai,'" she imitated the older woman's haughty tone, "'Please come downstairs as soon as possible, and Christopher I think it's time for you to go.' To say I was mortified would be like saying Hurricane Andrew was just a little rainstorm."  
   
"We didn't mean for you to find out this way," I said still shy and scared to death. "It was meant to be a lot more...clothed."  
   
"At least I found out first this time, unlike when Mrs. Kim let me know about Dean and Rory at Doose's from Lane." She nervously laughed, telling me that the Christian woman wasn't pleased to hear about the love life of her daughter's best friend. "Unlike Mrs. Kim however, I heard Rory's side of the story first this time before it could be mashed up into something else."  
   
"Do you believe her side?" I asked, trying to make sure I was going into a good talk or a bad talk.  
   
"Well, she left a few holes for you to fill in, so I need some help here." It was strange seeing Ms. Gilmore only talking at a slow calming speed. "I've had my suspicions for the last few weeks to be honest with you. One day you show nothing but disdain for Rory, and the next when she tells you to jump, you go beyond that and leap."  
   
"H-how did you know?" I stumbled out, trying to think of how transparent my excuses might have been to the elder Gilmore.  
   
"Let's see here, you come in through the window on a Sunday morning to apologize for something that I could tell was lame, and I was totally right about that, no one ever has a late-night apology over journalistic ethics. Mistaken body compliments seems to be more of the reason."  
   
Asking her to explain more, she cleared up her worldview of the entire 'flat' controversy. "Considering she spent twenty minutes yapping on and on about the conflict as we went to dinner at the grandparents before I pointed out that she sounded like she was pissed off about Dean, that was a good sign. Then she clams up the rest of the night and through the weekend until after you two wake up on Sunday morning, probably not to say something that might reveal facts she doesn't want me to know."  
   
"But it was a stupid argument--" I tried to claim.  
   
"To you it was a reality check that she was noticing this, because the way you are shows that you don't know how to take 'you're beautiful' as well as I could."  
   
She then pointed out the true warning bell that screamed out to her that there was more to us than met the eye, Rory and Dean's end, a hasty retreat over her being saved by Jess from the sprinklers.  
   
"She would've wasted pounds of oxygen before to defend the fact she still loved Dean. But she sees you in the distance and thinks that it's time for a change, that this is the window she needs to make a move on you after not having an excuse to dump him before. Thus Rory leaves him and after winning the marathon, you finally admit under pressure, and she's happy. There's just all these things I've been noticing and been ready to bring up over the last few weeks, and the fact you two were attracted to each other was not breaking news when I entered this room; to me it was a developing story."  
   
That made an impression on me, while being surprising all the same that the signs were clear I was more than friends with Rory. I thought we were very secretive, but somehow, Lorelai managed to read between the lines so well I didn't even know we were sitting ducks and she was waiting all these weeks for confirmation of the nag she had.  
   
Lorelai continues on. "The rides in the morning were the first clue. You're smart and thrifty, even I could see that, and I couldn't understand why you were making two trips down here a day when Rory can get on the bus and make it to school in the same amount of time. Then I remember that I was a teenager once, and guess how Rory's father lured me in?"  
   
I think for a bit, and it comes to me in a quick flash. "Pulled up in his Corvette, called you beautiful and told you to hop in?"  
   
She smirked at me, and the talk started lightening up. "You really do have a good lover's mind, he was my ride to school from then on." She moved a little closer and told me some of the other signs. "Rory was more distracted after the marathon too, a little more secretive and withdrawn, like she was holding something back. She ate a little less at the diner, looked much more often at her phone, and I kept thinking 'does she miss Dean'? You have her go to your mansion and nothing curious spins me, but then..." she stopped, trying to wring something out. "...she comes home, not with you, but with your chauffeur in the limo. From her voice and the way she walked, it seemed like she enjoyed the study session, if not for going over the facts she needed again, for the refreshments." She smirked at me and shook her head. "Care to explain that?"  
   
I sighed, sucked up my pride and admitted that we shared that bottle of wine in celebration of our coming together, thus her going with Henrico instead of us driving home. She was happy that I didn't drive her home, but she was hopeful that it wouldn't happen again. I reassured her that it was a one time thing, and that the alcohol usage would stick to holidays and special occasions, which I noted this was.  
   
She continued noting those clues which lead her to knowing that I wasn't just being more friendly with Rory, like the fewer times she got to talk to Rory during breakfast because we were too buried in our own conversation as I sipped my wintergreen tea, an aborted game of 1-2-3 one day outside of Doose's Market because Rory wasn't in the mood to find out that her #3 would be a redheaded bombshell tourist from Maryland instead of the square-jawed hunk from Albany, the avoidance of any mention of Rory finding another guy when they would talk. It set up a pattern that led to Lorelai keeping an eye on her daughter all weekend through the double weddings as she tracked our text-tag conversations at any time Rory could flee from the ceremonies.  
   
"I just checked my cell phone bill online this afternoon at work, which you might note, Rory's phone is under that account." It was then she noted something important. "Rory had been averaging twenty text messages and fifty calls a month to Dean. Now last month she gave him only fifteen calls and four text messages, that's a huge reduction, don't you think?" I nodded at her math, wondering what she was alluding to.  
   
"Meanwhile messages for or from you, which only averaged two in the months before, are now at forty-five, most of those in the last two weeks. And calls...at least every day and every night you've made a call. Thankfully we're on a bundle which includes a lot of messages and minutes, but somehow the math adds up that no matter what you and my daughter could've done to hide from me, I would've eventually found out, be it through my bills or finding out the way I did."  
   
I directed a funny look her way, the lie built up through the last few weeks seeming that much more porous through what she mentioned. I knew there was probably one more sign that told her all that she needed to know.  
   
"You must have thought something else was amiss when I used the Porsche to pick Rory up." She nodded and told me of her theories before Rory confirmed the date.  
   
"At first I figured you two were using the Wesson cover as a night to go out on the town, paint it red, relax as you hit on guys 80 IQ points dumber than you. I would've definitely been fine with you two just going out cruising, both you and Rory spend so much time between the spines of a book that a wild night out was just fine, and I knew you were covering something up, I just wasn't going to say anything unless I got called up for an extradition hearing." She smirked at her own nervous joke, then stated her conclusion. "I just didn't know that there were no guys coming into play, period."  
   
I defended the reason I went all out for the date. "I wanted her to feel special, she didn't seem to get that from Dean and I've heard her trying to bluff off all the 'How are you two lovebirds' questions from Louise at lunch, it's like she was ashamed of going out with him because he treated her so...so..." I tried looking for the word, thinking about when I saw those two together. It came to me, but in a phrase instead. "Like he took her for granted. He gives her a cheap bracelet and occasionally throws an expensive trinket her way, listens just enough to get her the right gift, and does just enough to show how much he wants her. Just enough." I wring my hands, feeling all I want for Rory unhinged. "Rory isn't a 'just enough' kind of girl, why would Dean get such a wonderful girl such as her and just regard her like he did? I would spend my last dime to impress her and here he is with his budget cakes and cheap dates, and the car...the car! When Rory said that she was shocked her grandfather found it unsafe, I didn't blame him because that thing looked put together with duct tape, poor-quality welds and a shoddy exhaust system that wouldn't get through the first step of emissions. I just wanted to give her a good time--" I stop as I realize I've gone way beyond the answer I had in mind; I was now in an unfocused ramble telling Rory's mom that from afar, I worshiped the ground she walked on and couldn't stand that Caveman wasn't treating her in an acceptable matter, at least to my standards.  
   
I look back down, and try to minimize what I just said by going back into my hidden cocoon. "I'm sorry, OK Ms. Gilmore? I don't think you'd understand how it feels to know the person you like, really deep, deep down is in your grasp, and you're--"  
   
"Becoming a rambling wreck?" she interrupted. She shook her head and stopped me in my tracks. "I just dealt with one in the living room, and I'm just beginning to truly understand what's been going on between the two of you." Lorelai looked at me, trying to figure out why on earth Rory was so infatuated with me. Weird, because I still can't fathom that Rory likes me so much myself.  
   
"They certainly write up a chapter about this in the _Mother's Encyclopedia_ ," I off-handed. "I mean when I'm with her it just seems so right, like I'm not who I usually am, scared that 96% equals a failure in the eyes of my mother and Harvard admissions. We've had screwups aplenty, but yet we bounce back stronger than before."  
   
"Maybe that's just your conscience nagging you that this is right," Lorelai surmised. "Rory is a good kid, but in turn she has the Gilmore gene of stubbornness that I know I have and Emily has a mutated form of it. That's why she probably keeps with you hon, she thinks there's something in there that I can't see, and..." She looked at me straight-eyed. "She makes good decisions, takes all the time in the world to make sure what she's doing is right. It's unconventional, but for a girl like her, it seems to work."  
   
I then asked if Rory mentioned the pro/con list where I found out her true feelings for me; Lorelai seemed to take this as a piece of new information that was just breaking to her.  
   
"No way!!" Where I thought her feeling was going that of being angry at being denied certain information, instead she was excited about it. "A pro/con list?"  
   
I nodded, unsure now if I should've divulged the RN notebook. "It's how I learned she liked me. More of the final clue actually."  
   
"So cerebral my daughter, she told me about the long plan she had to draw you closer, but I didn't expect the payoff to be so, dull. Here I was thinking fireworks and parade music, but it's just so Rory instead." Laughing at the way I was taken to Rory, the older woman still couldn't believe the way we came together, along with the mere fact we had two full weeks logged without a major international incident.

She was giving me a look, telling me that she wanted to read the RN notebook, somehow just not for parental concern, but for blackmail material. Rory would kill me for sure if I ever showed her mom this notebook because though without the hearts and unicorn drawing of most proof of crush admission, the way she talked about me in several aspects was kind of in the way you never share with any authority figure, ever.  
   
"I'm not telling you where it is," I firmly stated.  
   
"Aww, please Paris?" Lorelai pouts and I try to avoid her trying to get to me. I shook my head firmly and stood my ground.  
   
"We have a right to have a few secrets, as Rory did with Dean."  
   
"There's no way to bribe you? Not with a _Franklin_ story of some kind involving this town? How about macaroni and cheese, Rory said you love the stuff--"  
   
I smirked. "My lips are sealed."  
   
"Damn you." The confrontation I was expecting to happen, well, it wasn't coming, because she was humored by me more than thinking of us as the worst thing in the world. "I guess I can live without the behind the scenes dirt, for now."

I asked to make sure that indeed, all was well. "Wait, does this mean...that, that you're OK with us? Us in a together kind of sense?"  
   
"Maybe," she hinted softly. "Talking to Rory, talking to you, it seems like there's a connection here that no grounding or restrictions could break. Your IQs are even, you respect adults and authority figures, as far as I know you have no felonies, and despite your surface grouchiness, you're a good human being. Everything I'd look for in the perfect mate in my daughter, minus one part and plus two others, emphasis on plus." With a smirk I found myself annoyed at her continued teasing about my sudden undress.

"Ms. Gilmore," I growled, rolling my eyes, though trying to hold back some mirth at her hidden bust compliment.

Lorelai was non-chalant about it. "Hey, if you got 'em, flaunt 'em."  
   
"Oy, please, not another joke." I brought a couple of fingers to my temples, trying to deal with the suddenness of this all. "Look, I know that I didn't want this at first when the feelings started to come, I wanted to run far away from them because I'm not supposed to think about her like that. But I just can't connect with anyone else so close, in such an intimate way, and she understands me more. The kissing and cuddling, a nice bonus, yes. But with Rory, I feel safe and liked for what I am, not what everyone expects me to be. It's different to be with her, it's not like a guy where you constantly have to find a comfortable topic. Anything with Rory," I smile, "is something she wants to talk about. That she even regards me as a friend is wonderful. But as the girl she likes..." I wander off, feeling afraid that Lorelai might think it too much to describe her daughter the way that I am. "I still can't believe it."  
   
"I can't either," Lorelai repeats. "Being in that living room, next to Rory as she went on about how her 'girlfriend' was, it was just so jarring, at every opportunity I wanted to jump in and say 'don't you mean boyfriend?'. But I couldn't, because that girlfriend is you, and she seems like she's going to devote all she can to the idea of a you two. I mean when she was talking about Dean, she wasn't at the point of describing the romanticism of a date, the simple gestures you show to say I care, how this all built up so slowly through the summer until she realized that she wanted something else." The older woman looked at me and smiled, nervously playing with her hands and still trying to wrap her mind around this shock.  
   
"I guess I should be thankful that she didn't repeat my mistake," which she quickly disclaimed like she always did, "the best mistake of my life, but still. It's not as if I could ever know things would be like this, there's no parental crystal ball and I don't have that Raven girl's psychic vision thing going on. And it's not as if you're Pinky Tuscadero, ready to corrupt her away from her life as she knows it. You're a smart, well-raised, good read and nice girl, I should be thankful that Rory is with someone like you, a perfect match for her."  
   
"Well, not so perfect," I said. "I have a short fuse and somehow I make your relationship with Emily look happy in comparison to my mother." Rory had admitted sharing some specific details of my home life with Ms. Gilmore, but not enough that she knew every single thing about me.  
   
Laughing, I was surprised to hear Lorelai start talking about Sharon. "You know, I always clash with her at the parent meetings, she's so stubborn and against anything that might push Chilton into the 21st century. I remember a few months ago the motion for a PowerBook for every student that eventually passed? Apple was going to pay for everything, yet here's your mother, against the entire deal. She called Charleston a corporate shill and said he just dropped an opening for pedophiles and terrorists to get at the students."

"What?" I was shocked, Sharon never talked about parent meetings, and if she did it was usually to complain about the dress of the 'new money' parents. "Why would she be against it?"  
   
"I don't know, she's just...I don't know." Thinking she had to stop in front of me, Lorelai tried to reel back. "I don't mean to say anything bad about her, I know--"  
   
"Ms. Gilmore, it's OK, I understand how it looks, and you're right, she's not the best cheerleader for my life, I'm just learning to admit that." I assured her nothing she said would get back to her. "I was thankful the computer motion got through, Miss Peters helped write out the plan after your daughter noticed one of the scholarship students having problems getting lab time since she had nothing to use at home to write a paper. She definitely came up with a great plan, and a persuasive letter that helped Apple make the offer."

"Really?" She smiled, and I nodded.  
   
"Your daughter doesn't think for herself, she sees the big picture of everything and goes from there, the only selfish thing she does around me is ask for a little bit more column space. There are so many things I like about her, and she knows where she came from. That's why I crave your approval, and want your trust, because without it, I might as well be adrift, and I don't want you mad at me." I felt myself compromising for the sake of Ms. Gilmore was the best thing to do, no matter her terms.  
   
Thankfully her _laissez-faire_ parenting style worked in my favor, because after a few more minutes of talking about what made us come together and our plans for coming out, she thought for a bit about the rules she wanted me to live under as I dated her daughter. She didn't give me a full endorsement; in other words, I'm now under a 'Gilmore dating probationary period', where Lorelai would be judge, jury, and executioner, and any violation of her rules, there would be consequences.  
   
"First of all, she's not going in your Porsche anymore," she stated.  
   
"I'm a safe--"  
   
"Driver, yes, but after last week, she will not go in your Porsche. I know she drove it," she shook her head and smiled. "She got it out of her system, and now she goes back in your sane Jaguar from now on."  
   
"Fine." I half-smiled and listened to her other regulations.  
   
"She will keep her grades up, and you will not exchange any answers or write reports similar to hers. It's hard enough you two are together, but being 1-2 at Chilton will raise some eyebrows. Third, curfew is now hard at 9:45pm school nights, 11 on weekends, my darling daughter needs sleep."  
   
On and on she went, giving me some more rules, including paying 50% of treat and rental costs on Gilmore movie nights if I was over, a call before I came over on the weekends, that Rory's bedroom door would stay open from now on as long as I was over here, and I was to eat dinner with them at here at the house once a week and catch her up on our lives, and I would have to pass any dating plan by her.  
   
A couple more rules would be listed, as Lorelai made it clear that if I slept over I could sleep in Rory's room, but only in a sleeping bag at her bedside, and that hands were to be kept at waist level when we were near each other in the house.  
   
"Finally," she clarified, "You break her heart Paris, I will break your kneecaps." Taken aback by her serious tone of voice, I asked if she was serious.  
   
"Damn right I'm serious blondie, you've just taken on Stars Hollow's #1 citizen as your girlfriend, this town protects her like the Palace Guard protects the Queen. I don't expect either of you to come out right away, both Miss Patty and I will give you a huge security blanket to build up your relationship without town interference." I never saw Ms. Gilmore this serious before, except when she searched wildly for Madeline and Louise in the New York apartment building when they went off during the concert. It really got to me though, how she was protective over Rory. "However, this town is porous when it comes to gossip and seeing anything that looks funny, trust me when I say you must be on guard at all times. They're already watching you like a hawk, ready to jump on you if something doesn't look right. I will accept everything in time, but only, if you accept my rules. I don't ever want to carry out my last rule, I really don't." She put a hand to my back and rubbed my hair. "You're a good kid, and Rory is absolutely enchanted with you. I really want to accept this, but in turn Paris, you need to help your cause, make it clear to me that you're doing this for the right reasons."  
   
"Ms. Gilmore," I said softly, "I know this is right. I never have doubts about things, and that includes Rory." Looking at my hands, I ran one of them along the quilt and afghan atop Rory's bed. My thoughts wandered to her, wherever she was.  
   
"Where is she?" I asked, because it seemed strange for her to not be here.  
   
"I had her run out to Joe's for the pizza I was getting for all of us; no cheese, right?"  
   
"Of course," I responded. "I guess this means, you're letting me stay?"  
   
Lorelai nodded, and slid her hand down my back. "Why would I have you leave?"  
   
"I don't know..."  
   
She rubbed my back, trying to calm my nerves. "You're my daughter's friend, one who happens to have been mothered by a woman who makes mine a Nobel Peace Prize candidate by comparison. I can't stop you two from seeing each other, I know that, and I won't, because the way she talked about you, it seems like you've had a hard life so far. Not _Burning Bed_ awful, but still, I can relate to you so much." She went on to theorize that she saw parallels in me, the way I didn't want to stay within the society template, my quietness and the way I went on with my life that though not an exact match with her teenage years, was a stark contrast. I'm leading more of a quiet rebellion against her, while Lorelai against Emily wasn't just burning bridges, as the ESPN president quoted about Keith Olbermann's job status once, she napalmed them.  
   
"I just want Rory to be happy," she concluded, "and if that's you who's giving her the happiness, why not? You're perfect, just a girl, that's all."  
   
I hated to bring up the most obvious line ever in the history of 'romancing the product of a teenage mother' couplings, but the lead-in was too perfect to not broach it.  
   
"By the way, I was telling the truth earlier when you thought we were on the fast track to having sex Ms. Gilmore, I'm going to take things at her speed, her way. I know you're thinking that just because I can't get her pregnant that I'll take advantage of that, but I'll hold off, for her--"  
   
Surprisingly, Lorelai cut into my monologue and reined me in, giving me a check into reality and what poetic imagery can do to mess up the mind.  
   
"Paris, I hate to break it to you, but relationships don't have rules or boundaries, so I don't want you to make promises, just let me trust you. You're both going to do things you didn't expect, do things that you think are out of your character, and get distracted at the wrong times because you're all moony for each other. I'm talking from experience; I didn't go into my relationship with Rory's father thinking I'd do what I did and end up with her, but before I knew it, the promises I made at the start to not go too deep didn't mean much."  
   
"So you're saying be careful, but just let things take us where they might." I looked at Lorelai's mother, and though her expression didn't read that she was totally accepting of me as of yet, I was off to a fine start with her.  
   
"You've found the wisdom, oh young one," she intoned. "That's exactly what I'm saying."  
   
"Probably might help if I wear a bra here from now on, right?" I shook my head, but after all of this, self-depreciation made things much easier on me, it's good to joke about myself from time to time.  
   
"A lot of help, geeze, don't you need a license for those things?"  I blushed, and we continued to talk things over for the next ten minutes, moving into the living room as Ms. Gilmore got ready for dinner and the massive amounts of pizza to be had.  
   
"No, it's OK, I'll go after I eat," I tried to say, thinking that she didn't want my company. "You probably have to catch up with Rory, and I don't want to be in the way..."  
   
"Paris, please stay," she pleaded. "I'm not mad at you, and I'm not mad at her, really."  
   
"It's fine, don't worry about it..." I frowned as I saw that Ms. Gilmore thought it sad that I wasn't staying, her eyes reflecting that she wanted to get to know me more than just the intense girl who's trying to capture her daughter's heart. Here I was, a fun night laid out in front of me, and I was being what I think they call a 'buzzkiller' because I didn't want to stay. She pointed out my mother's friends and their lack of fun, calling them the 'Beardstown Ladies' and making fun of them in a way that was dead-on and made me laugh.  
   
"I suppose she'd probably get over it and have fun with her ladies," I surmised.  
   
"Besides, I have the perfect movie for you, Rory, and your newfound gaiety..." she smiled as she decided not to reveal this information, but from Ror's description of her first date night with Dean, I had a guess.  
   
" _Willie Wonka_?" I couldn't stand that movie in actuality because it was Madeline's favorite movie, used for every sleepover at her and Louise's from five on. Those weird short people with green hair were fixtures in my younger years nightmares, and the day her tape finally broke five years ago was on of the best days I ever had.  
   
Too bad two years later, she found it again on DVD at Tower. Damn you, digital age!  
   
Lorelai thankfully shook her head. "Actually, something a little bit more appropriate, and it's perfectly cheesy, horrible, awful, and guaranteed to make you either laugh out loud, or cringe. Trust me, you're gonna like this one."  
   
"Not the _English Patient_ , I assume."  
   
She shook her head. "Do I look like I could sit through that for three hours?"

"Probably not." Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, which startled me out of my skin. "What on earth--"  
   
She sprang up out of her seat and got giddy. "I think Rory needs help with the pizza." I settled down a little. "Why don't you help her out?"

"Me?"  
   
"Yeah, it's time for you dear, to get to work and grovel down for my acceptance." She sat back down on the couch and propped her legs onto the coffee table. "Come on, up, up, up, we're both hungry!"  
   
"Fine." I shook my head, and prepared to face this 'hard work' I would have to do. At least through this hour with Ms. Gilmore I learned that she'll be tolerant with us and accepting. She's not quite at the point of wearing rainbow shirts and putting a 'proud mother of a lesbian' bumper sticker on the Jeep, but I just need her to know I intend to treat her daughter well, and hope that she fully accepts us, in time. Rory is a wonderful girl with a strong mother, and I need Ms. Gilmore in my corner if I'm going to be with Rory full-tilt.  
   
Smiling and relived that nothing bad came out of our talk, I walked into the foyer, and feeling totally relaxed, opened the door for Rory, who was holding three medium pizzas in her hands tightly, boxes stacked atop each of other. She was looking down at them, but instead of handing off the boxes to me...she looked like she had something planned.  
   
Oh brother, did she ever have a plan.  
   
"I have three pizzas here for a Paris Gellar, one works, one sausage-mushroom-pepperoni, one with extra sauce, no cheese. Are you Paris?"  
   
"Of course I am, what are you doing--" At this point, I wasn't on to her plan.  
   
"That's $21.63, plus tip. Are you paying with cash, or a check?" She sounded just like a pizza delivery girl.  
   
Flabbergasted, I felt like she somehow lost all her brain cells on the way back from Joe's. "Uh, you just bought all of that, I don't have to pay you anything."  
   
"You expected a free pizza?" She scoffs in indignation. "Do you have any money?"  
   
"I'm not paying for a pizza you already bought," I argued back.  
   
"They just made this pizza, I'm delivering it." She smirked at me, trying to think of something. "So you don't have the money?"  
   
I tell her that I have the money, but I'm not repaying for an already paid-for order of pizzas.  
   
"You have a good point," she said cutely, smirking. "I'm still afraid I can't give this to you unpaid however, so I have to think of a way you could fulfill your end of the obligation." Lost in thought, I still was wondering what she was doing, telling me I have to pay for something I expected without cost.  
   
"I know!" Her face brightened as the idea bulb in her head came on. "You can kiss me, I'll take that for payment."  
   
"Kiss you?" I was puzzled by her suggestion. "But you just said it was a $21 order, how does that--"  
   
She backed me into the foyer, placing the food on the hall tree's shelf, then placing her arms at my wrist. "You weren't kidding when you said you were somewhat of a pop culture dunce, were you?" Rory smiled down at me, her thumbs brushing the hair on my arms, making it stand on end. Again, I ask if I have to pay for the pizzas or not.  
   
I guess I learned that I didn't have to when she brought herself closer, then slowly kissed at me tenderly and softly, her plump lips making it clear that she knew she was in her house with her mother a room away, but she was more than willing to show her affection for me in house. Quickly the pizza argument was forgotten, and I was able to clasp my hands inside of hers as I fell more into the kiss. Up against that hall tree, I felt an ease I hadn't for the last two weeks, not having to be scared about having to hide what I really felt for Rory around someone, especially the most important person in her life.  
   
Free...that's how I felt. I couldn't describe really how much that minute-long embrace made me feel, but the kiss felt as powerful as our first when we admitted. It told Lorelai that this is us, Rory and I, the couple. That we felt things beyond friendship for each other, that there is a bond here we can't deny.  
   
We're not afraid to show affection, and that's the most surprising thing. When I released from the kiss, I felt winded, yet kept my hands within Rory's, and kept this silly smile on my face that strained my facial muscles, and I didn't want to let it go. My brown eyes met her clear blue, and I didn't have to hide it from Lorelai, who was watching it all from the doorway of the living room.  
   
Oh, I forgot she kind of made a wolf whistle and said 'Down girl' towards Rory, but I have selective hearing; we won't let that detail ruin this picture of us.  
   
"I liked that," Rory said softly to me, her hand along my index finger on the right side. "That was great."  
   
"Yeah..." I was still shocked about all that went on tonight. "Do you need anything for the pizza?"  
   
She rolled her eyes and sighed. "I paid for it, do you not know the 'pizza delivery' routine that's been in many a movie?"  
   
Baffled, I said what she had done didn't remind me of any movie I ever saw.  
   
"Paris, really, what other thing can be used to pay off a service worker if the consumer has no money, and is usually seen initiated with Ron Jeremy in the service worker role?" Smiling, she offered another look at my chest, and it was finally then that I connected the dots. I think I'd be right in saying the payment form wasn't a promissory note.  
   
"Ooohhh...I got it now," I realized. "You mean..."  
   
"That which shall not be mentioned in the presence of my mom?"  
   
"And cooled down to fit a PG rating?" Why were my hormones suddenly feeling a huge sense of disappointment that I couldn't do exactly what the role of me as the 'non-payer' could do to my 'deliverywoman'? Somehow I see myself having a dream about this in the next few days. "Is it wrong that I feel like I still have to catch up with you a little?"  
   
"Of course not," she said. "Mom's picking out the movie?" I grabbed my pizza as Rory took her's and Ms. Gilmore's and we headed into the living room, where she was getting a DVD from the shelves. My eyes then landed on one right on top of the shelf with a familiar yellow brick motif that makes me sick to this day...  
   
"OH GOD!!" I shrieked, pointing at the offending title. "Please don't make me watch that, please, please, can you hide it? Don't make me look at that cover!" I cowered in fear, that longtime feeling back in my stomach stirring it towards vomiting and certain fears.  
   
"Are you OK?" Rory was taken aback by my sudden behavior. "It's just... _The Wizard of Oz_ , what's wrong with that movie?"  
   
"What's wrong with that movie? Everything's wrong with that movie," I cried. "Mother made me watch it when I was two and said if I didn't behave, flying monkeys would throw me beneath a airborne house and squash me, and she said that her garden was full of those talking and moving trees, so don't go near it! I cannot watch _Oz_ without fearing for my life!"  
   
"But it's a magical story--" Lorelai tried to interrupt my thought track, but I had to get out my fears.  
   
"I couldn't go to the apple orchard on a field trip because when I did I got scared that the trees would stone me with McIntoshes, and I still have nightmares about those midget people." By now I was hyperventilating and scared; I really, really, really never got over my fear of that movie. "I even gave Louise a black eye because she tried giving it to me as a gag bat mitzvah gift, that's how much it scares me! I'm so sorry, but I just can't stand that film, and the black-and-white-to-Techicolor transition..." I shuddered, settling on the couch as thankfully Lorelai quickly ran the DVD from the living room and into a junk drawer in the kitchen.  
   
"So I guess the _Dark Side of Oz_ won't be on the schedule next week," Lorelai yelled from the kitchen.  
   
"Mom!" Rory smiled and draped a blanket across the both of us as she sat next to me. "I think we found your _Frosty the Snowman_ , I'm sorry."  
   
"That's the movie that scares you the most?" I asked.  
   
"I can't take a melting manifestation of a human, too much for this girl to take." She settled against me and smiled. "At least we know you fear something, Mom was convinced you were made of lead."  
   
"I still am as far as everyone else is concerned," I threatened, "Not a word Gilmore." I felt so comfortable that I couldn't take my most threatening tone with her talking to me this way; telling her all these fears that I haven't even told Birmbaum, she'd think it was so silly to be afraid of a kid's movie. Truth be told, most of them just scare me, taking me to this other world where all is unfamiliar and there's always an unexpected thing. I'll stick to literary versions of film, as long as it isn't Dr. Seuss.  
   
Thankfully, Ms. Gilmore had a little more eclectic choice of film, and five minutes later, we were basking in the cinematic mess that is _Switchblade Sisters_. With a popcorn bowl between Rory and I, all three of us sat there and started to watch this movie from the 70's that somehow got distribution, and made Tara Reid shine in comparison. Twenty minutes in, I saw why Lorelai chose it for movie night; all of these girls were token everything; you had the innocent girl with the heart of gold, the battle-worn gangster girl, a bunch of minor thugs, and of course, the token 'butch girl'. Of course back in those days you couldn't scream the word 'lesbian' out, so you just put some brunette in a Fonzie jacket and let the audience draw the expected conclusion.  
   
"Why does this seem like Chilton's production of _Hair_ last year?" I commented, knowing my mocking skills were somewhat undeveloped. "And that guy in the suspenders, he looks like Robin Williams circa _Mork and Mindy_!" This movie was just awful; but awful to the Gilmores equals gold. I couldn't help but laugh, what with Rory's running commentary about the innocent girl who would later end up pregnant and then cut in a knife fight or something, the irony just being delicious.  
   
It's just strange sitting here next to Rory all those hours later, and where I thought my life was over the moment the door whipped open and I'd be home by now being bitched out by Mother for 'this pathetic and self-loathing life path you chose', everything is fine, all is normal. I finally have a sanctuary, where to a point I can show how I really feel about Ror, and nothing will happen. Maybe an odd look from Lorelai because this is so odd to her, but besides that, I can be sweet, I don't have to be so bitter and caustic.  
   
Really, I don't know how to feel right now, like I've gained an ally, or dodged a bullet. Treading carefully is the way to approach things for now, careful to take how Ms. Gilmore wants me to treat Rory. I think I can do it...  
   
And that's the problem, that I can only **think** , not fully devote. That there's still so much within me that wants to do more than cuddle and hold hands, as what we're doing now. But what we did before, behind the door, before Lorelai walked in on us, it still spins that only a couple hours before, Rory's hands were at my bare waist, her eyes were raking me over erotically, her voice so sultry and tempting. I mean God, I was taken into second gear, and then the brakes were applied in such a jarring way. I can't forget that had Ms. Gilmore not opened that door, that instead of watching a movie with her in the room, I could be in Rory's bed, beyond reproach, numbed, my heart just beginning to slow down. That perhaps Rory and I would be in that bed, with but a layer between us, just eyeing each other up, whispering small things only we know to each other until slowly, reluctantly, I dress slowly, wanting to soak in that for four hours, we just shamelessly made out with no one in the way to stop us except for the occasional ringing phone and Morse code of 'S-M-S' from one of our cells.  
   
I admit it; had Ms. Gilmore never opened that door, I probably would've dropped my resolve and let Rory go further, let her slide the camisole I wore off, just do with me what she must. In turn, I would've fallen deeper into her, and let her self-gratificate against me like she begged to do. It was shocking to hear "I want to get off" from her, but that she even brought me into that state of seduction, it was telling me she finds me beautiful. She was rambling on about my shoulders of all things, my shoulders! Everything is telling me that I need to stop this before it gets deep, that I need to slow down and apply these brakes, because despite my plea to Lorelai that I was taking things 'Ice Age slow', I also have to take in mind that the Ice Age started with a quick bang.  
   
Damn it, I want more, OK? I want to be able to be in a room alone with Gilmore and do whatever I want, not have to self-edit just for modesty's sake. It felt nice being drawn in from that academic Harvard session and right into her arms with just a simple massage, nothing broad or grandiose. As I look at my girlfriend, it's great to know in at least one house in the world and with one other person, I can say that word without having someone get all Jack Van Impe on me. That I can relax and not have to put up a self-imposed shield around my heat.  
   
That I can just smile and enjoy the delicious pizza, wonderful company, and overwrought acting unfolding on the screen. Now this is how a date should be, even with maternal supervision nearby. _Two out of two so far_ , I think to myself, _you never thought you'd have this record back in the 'taking your cousin to the Winter Formal for appearances' days_.  
   
Suddenly, I feel Rory's hand playing at my waist; her left hand, because her right is next to my left in the popcorn bowl. She looks all innocent above the blanket to all appearances from Lorelai, but below it, that hand of hers is awfully wandery. I startle, looking at Ms. Gilmore, too buried in mocking the movie to look towards our direction.  
   
"Par?" she whispers.  
   
"Huh?"  
   
"I talked to Miss Patty while I waited for the pizza, she gave me a few pointers." Her voice is detectable to no one but me, since I'm leaning against her shoulder.  
   
"It's...it's fine," I say, truthfully. "But your mom..."  
   
"Is too distracted to notice as I do this. Follow my lead." I see her retract her right hand, and bring her left hand away from me. She lifts it out from the blanket, and then into the bowl. Not knowing what she's about to pull, I retract my left and pull my right out and into the popcorn bowl. I kept an eye nervously to Lorelai, too busy mocking the horrible lack of authority at the school setting for this film, as the gang members ruled the campus with an iron fist. If that ever happened at Chilton, the parents would behead Charleston.  
   
Imagine my surprise when her hand doesn't move back to my waist; instead she moves it slowly from my side and up around behind my shirts, the cami and sweater, until it rests on my back, where she starts to scratch below the bra line slowly and seductively. Somehow there's enough space for her to maneuver around, and once again, the innocent small town girl I had taken as not having many surprises, is so shamelessly within the sight of her mother, seducing me even further into her clutches.  
   
My eyes widen, and there should've been some suspicions by Lorelai, but when she looked towards us, she just saw us as having a blanket above us and close like a couple in a toothpaste commercial, nothing more. She went back to the movie, and that's when Rory turned me from stone hard and stiff, to liquid and calm, her hand at the middle of my back, no bra to stop her.  
   
"You know..." she says in a deep hush. "I would've taken off my shirt had we gone further. I just love massaging you Par, you're so soft, so smooth...so beautiful."  
   
"Th-th-thank you," I respond back shakily. "It feels real nice."  
   
"I know it does." She smiles, and then I made a move of my own, deciding to startle her and give her a taste of her own medicine. Carefully, I place my hand on her thigh, lower at first, running my palm along the soft denim of those blue jeans that somehow formed against her ass just right.  
   
Yes, I just complimented Rory's rear end, I'm allowed to be shallow once in awhile!  
   
For five minutes I keep my hand there, and as I feel myself on the inside moan from the flittery and soft touches from her fingers and nails, up to and including scratching my name and hers in my back, including what I think is a heart shape, I decide it might be fun to test her out, see where she is as far as intimacy. _She did let me rip her shirt off, albeit accidentally_ , I think.  
   
Slowly, I work my hand higher up her thigh, first towards the middle. No reaction yet. She still concentrates on the movie, lazy circles and figures on and just outside my spinal column making me start to tire. Higher again, much more than last month when I was soothing her in the car, I'd say I'd be two inches into her Chilton skirt if she was wearing it. Again I look at Lorelai; no suspicions. I shift my palm higher, higher, higher...  
   
I feel the bottom rivet at the pocket of her jeans, and she starts to react. I feel her shift in her seat, but unlike Dean she's not acting as if she wants me to retract, she pushes closer, in turn her hand moving more to the right of my back. I shallowly breathe, wanting to whinny out her name, yet holding back, keeping my lips sealed. It's becoming like a game, how risky can we get before Lorelai turns from friendly and stern. Both of us, pushing the envelope.  
   
She makes as if she's leaning on my shoulder, in reality her hand is moving to wrap around me completely beneath the blanket. I push higher, more inside of her thigh. Her eyes in the dim light darken as she stares at me, and I do the same to her. We know exactly where things are going, keeping just enough concentration on the movie to describe things, but not into the plot.  
   
Her right hand is now at my right side, I hold back the first impulse to say things are getting too hot. I'm definitely violating Lorelai's touch level, but she can't notice that, not with the layer between us. I'm now above the Mendoza line of indecency, the back of my hand touching the seam of Rory's jeans pocket. Her face is contorted between normalcy and sensuality. I can tell, she wants to give in. I move inside, she moves outside, her fingers playing almost at the point where my breast meets my side, she slides beneath the thin band of the shelf of it. My mouth is wide open, and I try to hide the reaction I have with a handful of Jolly Time, able to hide the reaction of a moan behind the buttery taste.  
   
I move in closer...closer...closer. I'm in no woman's land now. My fingers run along the pull of her jeans zipper, and all she's giving me to go on is our secret signal; that smile that says 'go ahead and play'. _She wants this...oh my God_. What a surprise this is.  
   
I was supposed to stop by now, put on the brakes. But I don't want to, and somehow I think Gilmore doesn't want to. I mean here we are, sitting on a sofa with her mother three feet away, and she's completely ignored because we're falling so completely into each other, that we can't keep our hands off each other. Her hand drifts higher and deeper against where my breast starts, and my fingers slide across the teeth of her jeans zipper. My index finger and thump clasp the zip, and I work it down, softly, so it isn't heard. Just enough to do what I need to do.  
   
Her hand finally brushes my breast, and I moan quietly, thankful for the popcorn. I'm not letting her win, Rory is going to have to take my silence for now. She then moves her hand down, innocently brushing her fingers across the sensitive bottom until she reaches my stomach, where she finally rests her hand.  
   
I slide down the catch of her zipper just enough to be able to brush inside with my index finger, and I slowly, watching her eyes and her mouthing for permission, to dip it in. I play with the material as she grabs a bit of popcorn to eat; soft cotton, as I expect. Her breathing is shallow, her speeded heartbeat a guarantee to me. Slowly, I run my finger along the right side of the zipper teeth, imagining what she might be wearing. I can't believe she's letting me get this close, so close that I know Dean hasn't even been at this territory.

 _Ice age slow...Ice age slow...ice age slow..._ The words to describe our relationship, suddenly feel like they're changing over from the truth, and into a lie. I'm not going to do anything but toy a little, but there's a tight pull here that I can't help. I'm seeing more in myself the aggressor that turned Rory's chopstick lesson into a makeout session than the shy girl I was around Tristan. I push my finger closer, closer, pushing her panty material along her lips. She's not relenting, she wants me to do this. I keep thinking about her touch along my breast, how at this moment, an immediate change of panties will be needed, perhaps a cold shower, I can feel myself contract even though there's nothing sensual happening down there.  
   
I can sense the outline, and I push the material up in a torturous way, just as Rory puts the popcorn in her mouth, the pad of my fingerprint can feel the line of moisture start where I am...  
   
"EhhoohhhhmmOooouuuccchhh!!" This moan from Rory gets Lorelai's attention, and quickly I feel Rory's hand retreat from my side. We've been caught...somewhat. I move my hand back to outside her thigh as Lorelai's attention is turned towards us.  
   
"Kiddo, you OK?"

A very apparent blush registers on Rory's face, one I damn well know I caused. She fakes a choke, and then with the most innocent look on her face, explains herself.  
   
"Yeah..." Rory says, as she lets an unpopped hull fall from her mouth and into her hand. "Bit down on one of these, I need to do a better job avoiding them." She puts it back into the bowl, and I pause in fear, wondering if I have indeed gone too far and if Ms. Gilmore did actually notice anything.  
   
She shakes her head and makes a quick quip about unpopped popcorn hulls being devices of evil, and then gets right back to the movie. Rory then leans on my shoulder again, and after two minutes of silence, she wraps her hand around my back above my clothes, and softly notes what just ensued.  
   
"Thanks a lot, I'll be thinking about that all night." Her whisper is soft and wanting, and teasing.  
   
"As will I," I respond. "I can't help it."  
   
"You know how hard it's going to be this weekend without you?"  
   
"I'll be going kicking and screaming, but that's why I have all those cell minutes and the PowerBook." We start to watch the movie again, and she lets me know with a snuck kiss when Lorelai looks towards the window as a siren in downtown sounds that she'll be missing me too.  
   
God, I'm going to hate Florida this year even more than usual; ever since the divorce the new tradition is that Mother drags me down to Ormond Beach for Thanksgiving to see her side of the family, and I hate them all. My aunts and uncles are stupid and annoying, and let's not even mention the kids, dirty and noisy. Every year despite my advanced age and disdain for the young, I sit at the kiddie table, having to take care of the little brats that are usually the result of the condom breaking or too much drinking, while eating the worst turkey and trimmings south of the Mason/Dixon line; do I even have to note the 'cranberry sauce' is cranberry Jell-O, and I get picked on by everyone because of my stubborn Jewishness and refusal to violate dietary guidelines?  
   
The tradition of the DeBartolo and Martinez men around the screen watching football is only matched in inanity by the women of the family talking about their latest marriage chances like they're in the NCAA basketball tourney pool. Then the annual tradition of everyone going down to Disney World on Saturday, of course bankrolled courtesy of Sharon's high holiday time alimony payments, which I feel should be nothing considering all she put Daddy through. About the only advantage of the whole thing is being able to work on my tan while down there.  
   
Oh, and Mohegan Man will be there. The Lord giveth (Rory), thus he's gotta take something away (respect for anyone on the maternal side of the coin).  
   
Rory looks at me, and I know she'll treasure all the time we have until Wednesday early dismissal, when I have to leave. But at least I know leaving Hartford, that I have Ms. Gilmore's blessing, that gave me a big boost that I can take the relationship into something more, which I want, and certainly from tonight, Rory wants. She's going to give me all the trust that I have, and I'm going to do my best not to blow this. Knowing me, I'm going to need more than a four-leaf clover to keep this lucky streak going. Lorelai is only one person of many that we have to tell, and both Rory and I know that someone is eventually not going to be happy with the idea of us as a couple.  
   
I want this to work, and I'm going to devote all I have to being the best girlfriend that I can to Rory. I can't think of the future right now, I have to build things up for now in the present.  
   
Then again, it's an admirable goal, working to be Ror's first, then **last** girlfriend. I hope things end up working out to be that long, but judging from her playing footsie with me right now, there's just a good chance I might get that far...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	13. All the Crazy Gals Come Out on Monday Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory has to convince someone close to her that she's making the right choices when it comes to Paris, and realizes that her feelings for the girl are far more than innocent as she brings her sexual side out to play throughout the night.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Thirteen | All the Crazy Gals Come Out on Monday Night  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Rory POV  
 **Spoilers:** Closer towards _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_ , though none of the episode events are mentioned in this set of chapters.  
 **Rating:** R (swearing, sexual actions and allusions, nudity, self-pleasuring); FF.net version not edited.  
 **Disclaimer:** Geeze, I'm gone eight months with this new chapter, and suddenly the show's creator goes nuts, everything changes about the series, and I have to learn about some new network called The CW run by Les Moonves, who thinks renewing a dead preachy show which ended with three girls knocked up in the same family twice over was better than _Everwood_? Let your minds ponder that one folks!  
   
OK, I got that out...breathe, breathe...anyways, even though Amy Sherman-Palladino lost her sanity around let's say...December, she somehow still owns the characters of _Gilmore Girls_ , and we still have Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund Polone and Warner Bros. Television also owning them. But you know what, this guy named David Rosenthal? He runs the show now, and whatever his production company is named also owns the show (probably not _Heidi Klum+Me=4EVAH! Inc._ due to several court orders in New York State's Superior Court), plus you know Les Moonves slips a note by the show these days occasionally from his CBS offices. If one of those notes are 'Paris is boring, take her off', Les, I'm taking you out back, believe it!  
   
Same copyright disclaimers from chapter 12 apply, along with an added NFL reference. All other trademarks within are the property of their respective owners.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Rory has to convince someone close to her that she's making the right choices when it comes to Paris, and realizes that her feelings for the girl are far more than innocent as she brings her sexual side out to play throughout the night.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** Hey there, you remember me, Nate? Hello? Said I'd have the next chapter out by April, May, June and July? Uhh, obviously that really didn't happen and it's now August. Let's just say that real life sucks, ASP's ruining of the show had me convinced to stop writing for awhile there, credit cards from the past bit my ass and took my inspiration with it (along with my never ever having a loan, I'll be paying a lot for the next three years), I got a little down, and some stuff with the family killed my writing drive for awhile. But now I'm back, and feel free to throw water-filled tennis balls at me next time I take an entire pregnancy gestation period to put out a new chapter.  
   
I'm going to probably have different betas from now on since my original two and my newer one have decided to take their lives offline because of the things in their lives, which I fully understand; thank you Raven and Cinn for all your help to start out with, and hopefully Erin will be back next chapter. For now though, I still have help look over things, and now who I'm convinced is now the #1 Liza fan, Danielle gave me the big spelling/grammar help this time. I would definitely recommend looking up her work on RalSt and ff.net (under _UbiquitousMixie_ on both services). Trust me, her Paris/Rory fics are some of the best out there, and she has a mile-long imagination when it comes to our favorite blonde and her brunette hanger-on. That, and she has such a wonderfully dirty mind ;).  
   
Again to the ff.net readers, please don't bother to read this if you don't like femslash. I'm not changing it to another couple, and no matter how much you plead and beg, there are no plans to bring in Finn. Though I like him and Rory, really, he's the only LDB guy I can handle. But since he's not in the show until season five, he's not going to be here. Feedback is like Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper to me, my current favorite drink. Also the chapter title isn't calling Rory or Paris crazy; it's just the last line of Hank Williams' _Monday Night Football_ theme changed around to create a witty title.  
   
Oh, and Sinclair? Thanks for keeping the CW on Channel 18, I would've hated it if you would've forced it to go on another channel I might not have gotten until next year.  


* * *

After eighteen years living the life that I lead, I know after all of this time there are hard truths that I can't change, they're stubborn and won't let go. That I can rebel, but I won't do it for long because what would happen to my grades?! I couldn't let them go.  
   
I'm always going to be seen as weaker than I feel outside, no matter how much exercise I do or try to prove that I'm strong without questions. My mistakes will be seen as those of my mother's, a failure for which she should receive the blame rather than me. That I will never figure out how the hit songs of today, no matter how awful and sucky they are, are spoken about as glowing reflections of today's society, no matter that we're on the tenth top 10 hit on the old 'Hey DJ, play that song, that'll save my life' theme.  
   
The hardest truth though, is that I can't get into trouble. I just can't, no matter what I do. Sure, I get a stern talking to, some kind of punishment, a warning not to repeat my mistakes, but trouble, I hardly know thee. That outburst I had at being ten minutes late for the Shakespeare test was very small drama, and it worked itself out in the end. I got into that accident with Jess behind the wheel, but things eventually calmed down after I explained it was a squirrel and not him trying to damage the one large thing keeping me bonded to him.  
   
OK, there was this one time in eighth grade just before Christmas break. There's this girl, Samantha Petersen, that lived to make my life at Stars Hollow Junior High very trying. Remember after the sex ed talk that everyone started to turn their back on me because my mother isn't supposed to be respected, but reviled? Sam brought it all up to begin with, asking the instructor what should be done if a girl gets pregnant at a young age.  
   
"I'm not in the position to answer that," the instructor noted, obviously wanting to toe the line and keep his beliefs neutral, "you'll need to get other guidance."  
   
"Like from Rory's mother?" She leered towards me, buried in the loose-leaf materials from the class. "I bet she knows one position...spread eagle!" She laughs, and of course being a popular girl, all the fawning boys and girls who follow her every word join in.  
   
"Ms. Petersen, that's enough!!" he cried out, offended. "You will not tease your peers like that, it is unacceptable."  
   
"You're right, Mr. Eldridge," she agreed. "I wouldn't tease the product of a tease herself." Everyone in the class makes that sound you hear in the audience after something bad is said on _Saved by the Bell_ , and I had no idea how to respond. I go with my own advice to ignore and continue looking at my work, and eventually both Sam and the instructor move on.  
   
Of course, even after classes end and I'm with Lane, the teasing doesn't stop, with Sam and her clique following me around and being general pests. They never brought up the garden shed before that point, but then as I got a couple of books from my locker, the bitchy blonde (who looked nothing like Paris, thank God), decided to tear that wall down.  
   
"So Gilmore, how did it feel to live in an outhouse for three years?"  
   
"It was a garden shed," I pointed out. "and it was fine."

"Yeah, if you love sleeping with a gardening implement. No matter you're such a loser."  
   
"Samantha, quit it--" Lane tried to defend me, but Samantha got even more into my face. She shoved Lane into a locker off to the side and came towards me.  
   
"Stay out of this Kim. I'm surprised you're the friend of a mistake." I was stopping myself from doing something I'd regret, and even though I was ready to cry, I held back the tears because I was above this. "Why even bother getting good grades, Gilmore, you know where you'll be in three years: it's family tradition!"  
   
"You better stop, Samantha, or I'll tell the principal on you," I threatened.  
   
"Oooh, I'm so scared!" She faked being intimidated, then rubbed salve in the wound by humming the _Jerry Springer_ theme right in my ear. "You're gonna find some rich loser with a big dick and a hate for condoms, he's gonna knock you up, and all the A's will mean nothing at all because you'll be a whore..." she then whispered the last four words so that no one could hear them. "...just like your mom."  
   
What happened next was something no one expected from me at all, but I was pushed to my limit. Tease me all you want, but don't you ever bring my mother into the conversation, and don't you dare try to reduce her achievements because she had me earlier than expected. I dropped my books into my locker, and then backed into Samantha, making her lose her concentration and bearings for a moment. I slammed my locker shut, took her by the shoulders with strength I never knew I had, and slammed her back right into the lockers, very hard. Her friends watched in shock as I pinned her by the collar of her $30 Liz Claiborne Outlet shirt and gave her the most angry outburst I've ever had, even worse than when I yelled at Paris in the conference room.  
   
"First of all, unlike you, I like to keep my legs closed, Petersen, so that rich guy's going to wait a bit before he gets to me." She struggled to get out of my grip, but she wasn't moving. "I also had a fine childhood, and sure I didn't have the huge birthday parties you did, but you know what? I don't need them because my friends actually care about me, and so does my mom, who is the **manager** at the Inn. She's not a whore, she never has been one, and you know what? She doesn't consider me a mistake. You on the other hand, are a slut, you have no heart, and you get off by teasing people who go to school to actually learn something, not just as a boring version of mall slacking! Don't say another thing to me, Sam, or else next time I slam you against this locker you're going to have a few pretty blue bruises mar that thing you call a face!!"  
   
She stared at me, stunned silent by my outburst. Lane looked towards me, proud of my backbone. I had stunned her silent and hopefully made my point quite well enough that it would suffice. I prepared to back off and resume school threat and slur free.  
   
Then she tried to get in the last word; big mistake.  
   
"Don't worry, I won't bother with you anymore, dyke." She said it under her breath, but it got my attention quite well.  
   
"What did you just call me?" I asked, seething. She brought herself closer and said the hated word right back in my face once again.  
   
"Come on, you should have a crush by now, Rory, instead you dream of eating out Jane Austen the way you bury yourself in moldy old fiction." It sparked something inside of me. "No one finds book reading attractive except for lesbos like you--"  
   
I finally had enough of Samantha's belittling attitude, and to call me a name like that was the final straw. Acting on pure adrenaline and little logic, I felt rage take over my thirteen year-old self, and before I knew it, I pushed her back into the locker one more time, and then felt my right hand rise as I slapped her hard on the cheek, then pushed her down to the ground with my other hand. I felt my face tighten into pure anger and I could hear Sam scream as she crumpled to the ground.  
   
"What the fuck?!" She rolled onto her side as she looked at me above her, at first victorious that I had taken out a girl who had teased me for so long. I had defended myself, but much more than that, I defended my mother the best I could. She was crying on the ground, and around me, a crowd of my fellow students gathered around me in a semi-circle in the hall.  
   
Then just as I was ready to retort she dare not mess with me anymore, I remembered why I never thought violence the solution to anything.  
   
"Rory!"  
   
That was the voice of my fourth hour Spanish teacher, Mrs. Halverson. _Uh-oh_ , I thought to myself. _What did I just do?!_ Suddenly I looked down at Sam on the ground, and I started to feel sorry I had slapped her and pushed her to the ground.  
   
"What did you just do?" she asked, taking me by the shoulder. "Samantha's lip is cut open and she's crying in pain, what happened?" I explained she was making fun of my mother and calling me names.  
   
"That doesn't justify you beating her up," she scolded, as Lane brought herself into the conversation with her worries, mentioning that I was about to get in very deep trouble. Everything hit me right then and there; if I had ignored her like I usually did, Samantha would've eventually backed off. But I let her get to me, and in turn, things, which I thought would've been taken care of by the slap, got a little bad.  
   
OK, a lot bad, in truth.  
   
For the first time ever, I ended up in the principal's office, and I had to hear as the secretary called Mom at work to discuss what I did. Then I had to talk to him and tell him my side of the story. If I expected sympathy from him, of course I didn't get it because he never gave it to me in the past. I just looked at him with fake attention as he went on with the lecture that violence wasn't the way to solve any kind of problem, and I should've known that from the bad Sunburst videos the teachers occasionally showed us. He even threatened to give me a three-day suspension!  
   
"No, you can't do that!!" I cried out; I didn't want my perfect attendance streak to die on such a stupid decision. By the time Mom got to the office, I was an emotional wreck, begging him to not do anything because this was my first incident ever. He went on about his zero-tolerance rules and that I would be suspended, or else.  
   
Thankfully Lane told him exactly what Samantha had to say, and then Lorelai...she was disappointed in me for taking the action that I did, but appalled that Principal Meyers was going to suspend me and give Sam a slap on the wrist. "She hasn't done anything in eight years, and you're going to suspend her? Look at my daughter. Does she look like she'll be a _Maury_ regular anytime soon? She's said she's sorry and she even said she'll apologize to the girl she slapped."  
   
"Ms. Gilmore--" He tried to interrupt, but my mom stood her ground.  
   
"No, my kid is good, my kid has been ignoring this teasing you've done nothing about for the last year, and your response is 'girls will be girls'. You know 'dyke' is an inflammatory word; it should give anyone who says it an automatic two-day suspension. I know if someone called me that in spite I might not be responsible for my actions. Please sir, she reacted, she vented, she's sorry, she's done. Don't suspend Rory, she loves school and she'll hate having to be cooped up at home the next three days."  
   
I again apologized, and even though it pained me, promised I would say sorry to Samantha just to get out of trouble. He thought for a moment, as if to probe that I was actually sorry for my misdeeds. My mother begged him one last time to reconsider. He looked at me, and finally...  
   
"Rory, four days afterschool detention." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Next time this happens though--"  
   
"It won't happen again sir," I assured him, just wanting to move on. After a review of the incident, I was finally free to go home with Mom, who would ground me for a week as I well expected, no TV or music, but even worse, no books that weren't assigned reading. I'm not kidding...she said I couldn't read for fun for the next week; you know how that is to a girl like me?!  
   
OK, so it was only a week and I learned my lesson pretty well, and the punishments fit the crime. I got through detention scot-free and I never again saw Samantha anywhere near me. Eventually I got my well-wanted revenge unexpectedly when Samantha's grades took a precipitous decline at the start of her sophomore year when she started to date the JV football center, and guess who didn't take the sex ed advice given in seventh grade?  
   
 _Karma bites, doesn't it Petersen?_ I thought when I read the birth announcement in the _Gazette_ of 8 pound, 1 ounce Justin Lance Petersen. Two guesses where she got the naming inspiration from. Sure, I wouldn't have wished that fate on her, but if she had concentrated more on her grades than making my life hell, she wouldn't be where she is today, would she?  
   
Still, the point of rehashing this event in my life is if I can, I don't want to get into trouble if I can help it. If it were up to me, I'd still be paying for that stupid trip to New York to see Jess on Mom's graduation day. It was stupid, pointless, and worst of all, it blew my perfect attendance streak away, all because my hormones got into a tizzy about a boy like him reading Hemingway. My mind was telling me to stay behind and just worry about Jess later, but no, I needed to get closure. If I'm not thankful for Paris' making me vice president and this summer in Washington where I fell for her hard, I certainly got an earful the next day back when she sat me down in the _Franklin_ office and scolded me for skipping school for a guy.  
   
"Gilmore, you're not stupid, why would you do this?" I couldn't explain of course, and after she laid into me for ten minutes with statistics and stories of other Connecticut girls who instead of meeting their beloved, found their end on the banks of the East River, she made it clear that if I ever skipped again I could consider my _Franklin_ position taken by someone 'without her head in the clouds'.  
   
"Don't you ever do that again Rory," she said in her worried, yet annoyed tone of voice. "A guy isn't worth losing grade points over, or your mind. Picture me, if I wasn't over Tristan, going down to North Carolina just to make sure he still had me in his mind. First of all, welcome to 135th place academically Paris because I just can't leave, no matter that I can't get past the gate. Second, I'm expelled for not attending school. Third, I get four years in prison for stalking and loitering outside a military reservation. Oh, and my degree? I hope I enjoy the Daniel Kondo's Charlotte Career Institute three flights up from Sung Ho's Palace that I heard about while watching _Jenny Jones_ , and my future job as a medical transcriptionist--"  
   
"OK, OK, I get it, I get it. I'll be here everyday, Paris, cross my heart, promise!" The imagery she projected really got to my head, and she was right; if Jess didn't choose me, it wasn't the end of the world.  
   
"Thank you." She looked at me, and smiled. "Now let's get to work." And it was all done, in the abrupt way that's a trademark with her. It was also a window into her mindset with me. For even through the competition we had for each other, we kept each other's back and stopped one another from making a bad choice, me with Jess, her with giving up on her campaign with a sad whimper, scared she'd lose. It was back when I was still in a cloud between going with Jess, or trying to push closer to the acidic blonde classmate I now romance. Without each other, we're half of a whole, and through these two years with her, I understand her more for who she is beneath the layers than what she projected.  
   
That I'm now seeing these layers close up is something I'm only beginning to treasure as we've gotten together, especially tonight. How tense she gets when she thinks someone is about to find out, and how she feels afraid I'll slip away from her whenever she gets a wrong feeling about us.  
   
She certainly had those feelings tonight, and more. Sitting next to her while we watch a movie with Mom, with a somewhat mixed blessing of our relationship that she found out about in a way the three of us never expected, a night spent trying to explain that I'm changing within the space of a month, that I like this girl in a way reserved for a guy, and telling this to my mother, my soulmate, my best friend.  
   
Not to take away from my mother's experiences, but tonight? I felt like it was a mirror image of her discovering the strip on the EPT turned pink, confirming my existence to her.  
   
Only this time the indicator was my girlfriend, and she turned pink and red and purple...pretty much every embarrassing shade under the sun in her own unique and embarrassing way.  
   
Yup, I'm now out to Lorelai, and surprisingly, she thinks it alright. Recalling what led up to all of this should clear the picture up for you on why things ensued the way they did...  


* * *

"It's time to get with my program, Gilmore."  
   
"I won't approve of it, because it was a stupid idea! I will not accept us as a glorified puppet for the administration." I stood my ground in the bathroom with Francie as she chastised me for shooting down her idea to fundraise with teen magazines right in front of everyone. It was a stupid idea when she suggested it, ad it was a stupid idea Wednesday afternoon when she brought it up.  
   
"Everyone's bored with chocolates," she tried to reason, "they'd subscribe to a magazine instead."  
   
"Yeah, until they find out they're charged full cover price after the discount runs out. Unlike you, who gets bored reading anything with type smaller than twenty points, I read the fine print. You'd have to give them a credit card and they would be free to charge it at the end of the year, and you know where those profits go? Certainly not into the Chilton coffers."

"Rory, you're getting to be a liability," she sneered. "You better approve something of mine in the next three weeks or I will expose you. Or maybe I'll have Beth give you some initiative." Her eyes darted towards the corner, where Beth Kozlowski was making sure no one got into the restroom.  
   
"You know what?" I implored. "If the idea isn't completely stupid, I'll approve it. But this time, get ready to sell some chocolates, Jarvis." I looked around, wanting to get the hell out of that bathroom. "Can I go now?"  
   
"Whatever." Beth pushed open the door as Francie reminded me what was at stake for being her lackey, and again I had dodged another bullet when it came to her. Thank God she didn't make another homophobic crack this time, but having to face that redhead is wearing my patience thin. Is it wrong that I just want to tell her to be quiet and happy she's even the senior class president? After learning from Paris of the _Boston Public_ -like plot where she gave Tom Hammond a blowjob in order to get the job, I figure everything she learned about politics she learned from her father. His experience with under-the-table politics has spread to his daughter, and it's a pain in my ass right now. It's sad that she holds a grudge with us over the Puffs, and that really was our fault in no way at all. I still remember that night, looking at Paris, reading the disappointment on her face as her attempt to get back into Sharon's good graces by joining the Puffs like she had years earlier, and not being able to.  
   
I hate to see her disappointed, or sad, and I know she will be once she finds out that I did this to her. But you know what they say about politics, that it's a dirty business. Hopefully it doesn't become so dirty here that a certain group will be shut out because of homophobia.  
   
Just thinking about the last week, I realize that where Paris and I are now in terms of us together has been faster than Dean and I were. There's been an instant connection between us, nothing that had to be built up with awkward meetings in the back corner of my yard away from Mom's eyes. There's a trust between the both of us that we have, and the good thing is that it can be hidden in hand caresses, body brushes, and secret looks within Chilton. I mean the small things about her that I didn't notice before, they're getting my attention, and in the whacked way my brain decodes them, they're secretly sexual to me.  
   
The way she types at her _Franklin_ desk for example, looking at the various articles spread through her desk and the LCD screen in PageMaker. She can easily just sit there for an hour looking at the words, occasionally calling over Ms. Peters for a faculty opinion, her tongue slightly pokes out from her mouth as her eyes scan the pieces, pencil braced in her left hand. Her legs draw me in closer to this picture, perched on the bottom of her stool, curved out, the skirt pooling perfectly just above her knees. It gets me every time how beautiful she looks doing such a menial task, my mind wandering towards massaging her stressed back as she wishes her writers all knew how to proofread. It makes me want to break the 'no kissing' rule we set so badly, but I keep in control, for her.  
   
God, is it just weird that I want her most when she's doing nothing that involves kissing or caressing? Watching her when she drives, my eyes just scan her as she concentrates on the road ahead of her, the way she's so different around me, less prone to acidic outbursts or criticism. To be fair, she still gives it to me, it's just the phrasing is much more complimentary than her usual 'this needs work, you know how to fix it' kind of phrasing. Somehow I see it leak out with other people, that being with me has balmed her worst tendencies, where even if she loathes Madeline's writing style, she complimented her style of handwriting.  
   
Despite all of these things, being with her physically and with nothing between us, she's just amazing. When I actually carried out my thought after our first date to wear the chopsticks from Lady Sing's in my hair the Monday after, she couldn't keep her eyes off of me as we ate at Luke's. I saw it in her gaze, that it took all she had not to do anything untoward to me in such a public setting, my mind concentrated on the food in front of me and the ideas in my head building as I felt her foot against my ankle. The secrecy and pure illicitness of what we've been doing in town, the sense that just outside the town limits, she pulled over into the county park and we proceeded to...well, make out like teenagers, and she undid those chopsticks and played with my hair so wonderfully, her slim fingers against my scalp seductive and alluring, my mind spinning with just how perfect she feels against me. It's such a 180° from Dean, who got it into his head that kissing against the bottom of my jawline was somehow seductive in some way, and pawed at my arms like he was hyperactive. Paris is slow, caring...just in general all-knowing, and willing to learn what makes me tick. She takes her time to know me and what happens with me, and she actually listens when I talk to her, be it face-to-face, on the phone, or in the text form via AIM or through the small spurts of text we exchange through our cell phones.  
   
In the meantime, this weekend was long, a double wedding where I had to help Mom out both Saturday and Sunday turning the ballroom at the Inn into the dream days for two separate parties. The fact that Paris wasn't there brought me down a little, but to know that she was stuck in the hell of a DCW event made things easier, in that we were both too busy to come together that weekend. But that didn't mean we were incommunicado, for her observations kept me entertained as the originally sane Sunday bride became a Bridezilla, no thanks to her overbearing mother. About 2pm, I learn the boy who crushes on her a little too much is trying to get to her;  
   
 _Vance just said I had nice legs, then hinted he'd like to open them! Would it be too much to punch him in the eye?  
_    
Yeah, I can see exactly one of the reasons she finds me attractive; with guys like these in Hartford who wants to be sexual in Hartford society? I came back with a suggestion that she throw a deli tray at him. I learned that's not such a good idea though;  
   
 _I don't want him talking about meat in ANY context, that invites his commentary.  
   
_We continued to text back and forth whenever I could duck out of the ballroom, and the commentary on her end went from Vance to annoyance at the event, how she was now holding a secret that Viola Frentz was doing one of the drink servers, and Sharon thought she wasn't paying enough attention to details for the event. I tell her about how the wedding barely came off after the bride got a good talking-to from her dad that she do this since he paid a lot of money for the ceremony. During the reception, I texted a description of my purple dress, so she could have something to take her mind off how deadly dull her event was.  
   
My surprise when she texted back a description of what she was wearing;  
   
 _Red cocktail dress, hi-heels killing my soles, slinky beige slip and matching lingerie, hair messily done up.  
   
_I warmed up thinking about her in that classy ensemble, and with my fingers working the keypad quickly, I voiced how I'd rather she'd be dressed;  
   
 _I'd rather it be down hon, with no dress; you have nice feet too ;).  
   
_A minute later;  
   
 _You'd love my legs in this # Gilmore, I'd say I look better than last week on the date.  
   
_I smiled and texted back, starting to fall into our own little world.  
   
 _Don't you have a camera on your phone, I need to compare.  
   
_I didn't know if she'd do it or not, but she was game.  
   
 _Let me get to the cloak room, I can't believe I'm doing this...  
   
_At that point, Mom calls me into the kitchen to help Sookie and the help bring out the wedding cake, and I have to wait a bit to check my phone again. After watching the couple do the cutting and mashing as everyone cheered, I brought my phone out, and saw the screen showed three picture messages awaiting me. I told Mom I needed the restroom, and after she told me it was OK, I headed for a lonely corner of the lobby that was just out of Michel's sight and opened the first picture.  
   
Paris isn't a very good photographer, especially when she has to take a self-portrait of herself and hold the phone out with one arm so that her entire profile can be in the picture. But I wasn't looking for Annie Lebowitz, just a visual of how she looked. The first picture was a regular profile shot of her face, a bunch of coats in the background as she tried to hide from Sharon and the party. She just looked so worn out and annoyed, even though she was smiling, her eyes were tired and I could just sense she'd rather be at the Inn helping me out and talking to me than at that Hartford supper club being a part of an organization she loathed.  
   
I scrolled to the second picture, a weirdly taken photo of her legs and her feet, the shoes taken off and off to the side. I saw a bit of the skirt of her dress, and it was looser than the leather skirt, but her legs still looked very sexy. Is there anything she doesn't look good or cute in?  
   
I thought she couldn't make me feel any luckier for being her girlfriend as I scrolled to the third picture, which I expected to be of maybe her arms or the back of her head to illustrate the messy bun her hair was in.  
   
When I saw it though, I couldn't believe it, she was taking a shot of her dress from her neck down, and oh my gosh, did she look amazing. From what I could make out, it was a slim dark red number that fit her so perfectly, from her shoulders to her knees. It flattered her so much, and she looked ravishing.  
   
The surprise was that she had an abundance of cleavage bared by the dress, and the positioning of the phone seemed to purposely amplify what she wanted me to focus on. The bodice plunged down just conservatively enough to pass Sharon and DCW's muster, but showed off her breasts in such a wonderful way. The low resolution of the picture also couldn't hide just a hint of beige lace peeking out from her cleavage, and I was taken aback at how sexy she was, but not only that, how she made it clear I should think about her only from even a half-hour away.  
   
I smiled, looking at the pictures of her again, and wondering how she was thinking of me while she was creating them. She knows me way too well, for when I saw there was text to go with the last picture below it.  
   
 _Call it a bonus; I know you don't say anything, but I see where your eyes wander.  
   
Par  
_   
You know I think of myself as the innocent one, right? Then how come I'm so transparent when it comes to her?! I shook my head reading that and responded back to her, my shoulder feeling Michel's icy and impatient stare from the desk. I don't need him to say anything to know that my heavy texting is bothering him, and that I need to move on.  
   
I do, into the hallway between the lobby and the ballroom, where I decide to heat Paris up like I was at that point.  
   
 _You got me, but that's not the only place I wander. I'll dress light in bed tonight thanks to that picture ;).  
   
Ror  
_   
I send, and I know I need to slow down sending texts because out of plan they're 10¢. Still it's so worth it to see the boringness melt away with her words.  
   
But if I know Paris, she is the true queen of the one-up, the ability to end something on her terms and thoughts known. I head back into the ballroom as the bride's friends try to go for the bouquet, and I feel the phone vibrate one last time. I take the phone out, and read what Paris has sent me...  
   
 _I won't dress for bed...at all. It's coming off when I get home, before a soothing bubble bath in my private tub.  
   
Wish you were there with me,  
Par  
   
_My jaw dropped at her audacity, and I know that she's sitting there at her DCW party, nodding her head and telling herself she got me. Did she ever! For the rest of the night, my mind was filled with that image of the dress and slip pooling down from her torso and down to her ankles, as that body slides into the bathtub, and I can hear her hiss as the hot water touches her toes then relaxes her...  
   
Immediately I was looking for an opportunity to get my own one-up on her, in a big way. She might be my girlfriend, but there was no way I was going to let her keep all the control in this. That, and the itch I have for her is becoming less emotional, and much more physical. I picture her hands all over in my mind now, wishing those slim fingers were there, unhooking my bra, caressing my cheek, her hands drifting down my waist and around to my front, where they bury against my curls...  
   
Geeze, sorry about that, my mind wanders off a little sometimes when it comes to her plus a state of nudity! I place most blame on the Chilton skirts and the fact she was in knee-high socks this morning due to cold weather. She knows how to push the right buttons, that's for sure.  
   
Okay, we're moving on now before I have to stop to catch my breath...  


* * *

I found her sitting at her _Franklin_ desk, somewhat stressed after everyone has left the offices. She wasn't looking over paper work, and I could tell her mind was somewhere else. I pulled up a chair from one of the other desks and asked her what was going on.  
   
She smiled at me, assuring me it has nothing to do with family. "It's really nothing, just going back over a dream I had last night." I brush my hand against hers and ask if it was anything good.  
   
"I would like to say it involved you and I, but no, it wasn't. Just me in front of the admissions director at Harvard blowing my interview like someone who blew the first question on _Millionaire_ ,and went home with nothing." She shook her head. "I know, I have like three weeks before, but you know me..."

"You want to be ready months before, and what's happening now took your focus off a little." Her voice sounded as if she was denying herself pleasure for the sake of her dream school. "There's nothing wrong with that, sometimes taking your mind off things is good."  
   
"But I feel weak, I just want everything to be perfect."  
   
"It will be though, you're prepared for everything."  
   
"So why does it seem like in my head, I'm not prepared?" She got up from her seat, and started gathering her messenger bag. "I feel like I need a rehearsal of some kind, just something keeps me in the game." Paris feels the nucleus of an idea build...while I start to sense another opportunity to seduce her.  
   
OK, so I'd have to do academic things to get things going, but it would work well. I'd get some time alone with her, but at the same time build my Harvard chances further. She asked if I wouldn't mind helping her with question lines, and I couldn't help but be excited and willing to help her with it. I kept myself under control as we discussed the specifics of what she was going to do, but somehow I think the both of us knew that we'd be doing more than Harvard questioning tonight.  
   
We stopped at the Manor so that she could change, and I wandered her room as she did just that, feeling a little disappointment that she's not comfortable enough to change in front of me, even with my begging and pleading for her to wear something thin and flattering. She has a good excuse though, a large walk-in closet and her own bathroom to shield herself.  
   
 I wondered what she would come out in as I checked my email on her computer, finding nothing but a few spams from financial aid places wanting to offer me forty years of debt in exchange for four years education. For some reason I also ended up with an inane forward from Dean's friend Kyle with a bunch of bad blonde jokes, and I quickly hit 'delete' on the stupid email. I still see Dean lately around town, but he's been very distant, nowhere near the diner at all and if we happen to see each other in the square I don't even look at him. There's no point to it, since he accused me of cheating on someone I wasn't interested in at all. I never thought it would be so easy to drop two years of history in the snap of a finger to go after what I wanted.  
   
I heard the door open as I confirmed I wanted to trash the forward, and swiveled in the chair to remember why Dean was no more. I look at Paris in her basic sweater and an old pair of Calvins, and I know for once, she's trying to be casual with me, taking the interview practice seriously, but still wanting to be alluring. Her look gets my attention, and I yearned to get close to her.  
   
It's surprising to hear her voice as I kissed her on top of her forehead, and then beckoned her on tiptoe so I could be mouth-to-mouth to her, complimenting her wonderful hair. Paris tries to keep me focused on the reason she's changing, but the only thing in my mind is how nice she tastes. I kiss her, hearing her try to complain, but it's coming out not at all how she wants to. I shock her by insinuating a dream that's reoccurred of her in the broom closet with me, but she doesn't want to bite, instead suggesting an elevator for a mid-school tryst.  
   
 _Gah, she's so unconventional_ , I think to myself as I respond I'm not that much of a fan of elevator sex, though not using those words exactly. There's just something about the way we flirt that gets to me, it's not what I ever expected from someone like her. She's shy, yet when I get suggestive, she's more than willing to bite, and we leave the Manor unconsciously touching and brushing each other's hands, the both of us in our world, insulated from everyone else.  
   
That continues as we get to my house, and for once I'm thankful that Lorelai isn't there to distract me from doing things I might reconsider otherwise. Paris seems at ease without her there too, and she decides to help set up things while I go into my room and change out of my uniform. This time though, it takes longer than usual, because what I would usually wear doesn't lure Paris in.  
   
I mean I wanted her to be at ease, of course, but at the same time, her eyes fully on me, concentrating on not only the questions, but perusing my form. I decide not to minimize on her behalf, and change into an old Harvard t-shirt I picked up from the Army that seems to be from the early 80's (and also a good luck charm), and low-rise jeans I usually consider for a late summer date.  
   
 _But this isn't a date_ , my conscience tried to remind me, _you're just studying_. I could use that excuse to throw on some old sweatpants, but I won't, because Paris' eyes are meant to be on me, I want her to think about what I'm wearing when she goes to bed later in the evening, and think about her trying to get those things off in a dirty dream...  
   
Oh my God, I really **am** turning into my mom! I never thought like that around Dean, but with Par I have no limits! But it seems to be worth it, so against my normal idea of 'after school wear', I came out of the bedroom in that, though with my tank top still on beneath because it of the odd behavior of our old oil furnace downstairs before winter really kicked in, I didn't want to end up freezing from the heat not kicking in at the wrong time.  
   
Not that I really needed it, eyeing up Paris throughout the night seemed to keep me above 98.6°, especially when I got a certain view trailing behind her. I love her breasts, but I'm finding a growing appreciation for her butt...  
   
Right, tangent again, I have to stop doing that, you know how I see her already. Again, turning into my mom...  
   
She smiled at me, telling me I looked nice, but went right to work on me, asking the questions I prepared within a notebook I've been using to keep track of my interview process, which I practice over the phone with Mrs. or Mr. Springsteen once every two weeks, just to make sure I'm on track. I know it isn't the same without someone directly in front of me trying to get a feel of who I was. My ad-libbing has needed some work, so I try to put the rehearsed answers out of my head and go right from memory for each question. Each inquiry becomes tougher and Paris moderates me to male sure I answer with speed and precision, not just perfect word choice…or something along those lines. When she asks what I think of singular-sex classes in public schools, I struggle and pause for an answer, and she's right on me.  
   
"Gilmore, if you want to regard yourself as who you think you are, you need a faster answer," she tells me. "The AD's going to see that indecision and think you're really not thinking of public school, you're just thinking 'what would Chilton do'."  
   
"But I do try to think of it that way--"  
   
She sits down, holding out her index finger to make a point. "Look, I understand you moved to Chilton because you felt suffocated at Hicksville High over there, but you can't let that leech into what you say. Ignore your freshman year, ignore that one month before you landed in the plaid. If you're a fresh-faced girl going in there with no preconceptions, how are you going to answer? Are you going to think a math class without the distraction of Pacey over there in the corner giving you the flirt eye picks up grades? Meanwhile over in English Literature, you want to know if losing out that feminine touch will affect Craig's ability to relate to the works of Jane Austen."  
   
Paris gives me a guiding point, to not think of my experience, instead that of someone going in with a like for public school. I think about it in this theoretical person's view, and I think about it for a minute as she gives me another question to practice on. She then comes back to it, and the coaching is perfect. I state that while I'm not opposed to the same-sex classes, that it might not be the best course for everyone, that the views of both sexes are needed, but that if a student felt comfortable with their own sex, they should be able to have that option. "Still, home ec and other domestic arts classes should remain co-ed," I disclaimed, "there's no excuse for boys to shy out of them."  
   
Laughing, Paris stated an un-ADlike point of why that should be. "They can hold a fire extinguisher a lot better than I can."  
   
"Personal experience?"  
   
"I swear, those crepes would've been fine if they hadn't caught fire." She shakes her head, admitting one of her few classroom failures. "I didn't know the class was taught in Imperial measurements; I'm a thinker--with the Metric system all the way, and I fractioned out the oil in the pan in milliliters instead of cups, I read it wrong. You know how it is, the intelligent have so much they have no need for cooking lessons!"  
   
"Thankfully we have the luxury of fire alarms and 911 in addition," I said back in response. "Ah, but we don't have to worry about that with an admissions director, do we? All we need to do once we get into Harvard is scan a card in a reader, and there's food, we love food, right?"  
   
"As long as we both don't make the meal, my version of cooking grows actual hair." I remember why I'm practicing for this, and why I never want to take a cooking class, because Harvard is more important. Having idle conversation to relax us, keep our nerves from flaring up. I know that we're wanting to be together, but it has to be at the back of our mind when we're thinking academically.  
   
She keeps asking, and I keep answering. I get into a good pattern where I don't miss a beat, it's almost to the point where she's Barbara Walters trying to throw me into a crying jag and get me off my game, but it isn't working, I'm staying strong. Financial questions, ethical quandaries, opinionated statements, they're all there for me to try to answer back, and my mother's genes when it comes to lightning fast responses are something I'm thankful for. Left and right, Paris is impressed with my responses, and I don't miss a beat, using my body language to make points as well as I do with my words. I'm a wealth of facts and information, shooting down any negatives into positives. Paris just watches me, amazed, her compliments giving my heart flutters. She compares me to that fast-talking guy that was on the Pee Wee show and the ads for Micro Machines, and I have to pause to think _do I really talk that fast now?_ It's true I listen to the WPM tapes more to speed up my speech, but it's also to carry on the candor and speed with Paris if we're in the middle of a debate. I try to pay attention more to what she says, and it seems to really help me out.  
   
I also take into account that my future in journalism is predicated on speed, whether it be chasing a disgraced congressman or try to write down a rambling statement from an extremist. Without this practice now I'll struggle to catch up, and I don't want to be left behind in a position I like well enough, but not stuck in for the rest of my life. Speed is good, speed is wonderful, it's always needed.  
   
Well, not always needed as we'll find out later. I expect Paris to keep up the pace as I go through with reversing the roles and interviewing her, but she doesn't seem to have herself within the full mindset. I know she's probably abandoned a mind-numbing night with Sharon to rehearse with me, and that guilt stops her from being into everything. However the distraction that is I in the role of the interviewer is something I keep in mind. I'm dressed to impress, and she's thinking of that as I go with each question. I involuntarily go into a pose where I hold the card in my right hand, and then I wrap my left arm across my chest, lining up right along the bottom of my bustline. The decal making up the faded block **HARVARD** letters lined right up with where the line of my cleavage ended, and I could feel her eyes struggling to stay at face level as she gazed at my tall form, trying to contemplate that indeed, I was hers to do with what she might. I tried to keep my arms straight down, not get into that position, but after I'd ask the question and she'd struggle through, my arm was back in that same position, defining what I had inside that shirt.  
   
I did my best to try to be a neutral bystander to her, but that fire that defines Paris...it wasn't within her. She seemed to be lost in distractions as I read off each card in her straight script. I'd wait a bit and she'd end up with an answer that sounded weak for her. I felt for her so much, seeing her shoulders hunch and eyebrows furrow with each new frustration that came to her with all the answers. The setting of the kitchen table was just fine, but the tension in the air was drawing pressure against her, affecting her game to the point that she was weighing too much down on herself, falling behind on her usually accurate answers.  
   
Apologizing for her demeanor, I watch her turn from confident and into Don Music, complete with "No, no, no, that's not what I meant," though for her brain's sake she held off banging her head against the table. My poor girlfriend was stressed out, and part of it came from hiding that we were together. It was a rarity to see Paris this way, but she's a human just like me. Even she has a bad day once in awhile.

I kept going over questions with her until she drew an almost complete blank, going with a response that in her words would be just enough to get Louise in without sexual aid. It was unacceptable to her, and I found myself wanting her to do her best, even in a fake situation.  
   
"I don't mean to be frustrating you, Gilmore," she said neutrally to me, not realizing her word choice. "Here I suggest a good idea and I don't carry it out to well."  
   
"Hey, you're not frustrating me at all," I responded, trying to hide the fact that I was holding back so much from standing behind her so I could slide my hand up and down her back to give her some relaxation. Another thought of asking her to strip off the shirt and what was under it was being pushed by my devil of an inner vixen, along with how she was looking playing with her tongue in her mouth. "It was great, but maybe it just wasn't the night for you to go over things."  
   
"That could be it," Paris admitted, her hand pushing hair from in front of her forehead. "I think I need to lay down, or else have a couple Motrins." Asking her if she was all right, she shook her head.  
   
"Would you mind if lay on the couch while we continued?" She had a good idea, for us to debate and ask in the living room, but I felt myself stir at the idea of her tiring on the sofa. She hates it, but I love the idea...at least the shameless ogling part of the equation.  
   
 _Then again_ , my mind noted, _what would happen at the end of the questioning and there she is, laying on there, all ready to let you play with her? Mom's still out at the Inn, but if she walks in that might be suspicious.  
   
_What was I doing to myself? Paris had made it clear tonight was business only, and I was trying to find an excuse to change it to pleasure. Looking at her tired and stressed, I knew she didn't want to be on that couch if she could help it, her back couldn't take it. That left one other option to go with, but I wasn't sure I should go with it.  
   
I mean she's seen my bedroom before, it's not a big deal, it's my room, I have nothing to hide. But to have her lay on my bed as I interview her...it troubles me that I could invite her in my room under circumstances most innocent, then there go the hormones into the wacky dance that they've done around her lately.  
   
I felt on edge as I shot down the couch and suggested that she come into my room and lay on the bed as I went over her questions; this was certainly the first time I was playing the aggressor in a relationship, at least in my own house. The Gilmore dating rules never really went to the situation of studying with another girl, so I had to go off the book with how to compose myself around Paris as we went further on into the night. I didn't want to lead her on, yet if she was open to more than studying, I wanted her to know that I'd be OK with her, at least after everything was done.  
   
Unsaid, I headed into my bedroom, leaving her in a position where she had to follow and lay down on the bed. It worked well, and though she expressed some doubts, once her head hit the pillow beneath my made bed, I think I made a good case for her de-stressing in there. She flopped onto the mattress, then spread out with a notebook and pencil to the side, propping her head on her hand and watching as I made her comfortable by giving her a pep talk to get herself back into the lines of questioning.  
   
It was a night and day difference; once I started with the questions again, her grey matter sparked and the fluid brought back the impassioned Paris I knew would blow away the AD during the interview. By the fifth question her hyperfocus was back and she took only moments to respond to each query presented to her, no matter how complex that it might be. Relaxing her head had the desired effect, and moving from the harsh fluorescent lighting of the kitchen and into the calmer and dim illumination of my room really helped. It helped that we both knew the offices in administration also had the same kind of lighting, so it brought her into her comfort zone once again. Her only problem, mentioned with a laugh? "I feel like I'm gonna nod off any minute here." She smiled, and I shook my head.  
   
"I guess I'll just have to pinch you awake again." I made a motion with my hands, and watched her shut her eyes, sighing.

"Just watch where you put those fingers, Ror." Her voice was a whisper, and her monotone had that hush that always got to me so badly. _So she isn't completely into the questions_ , I thought, deciding to goad further.

"Who said I was going to do it in a place where you might want it?" I disclaimed with a bit of mischief and a laugh.  
   
"Like you'd just go for the wrist, I know you, you want my full concentration, and you seem to always get it in a certain place." She was saying all that in her studious voice. "Just a reminder, if we win a debate, don't go near there."  
   
I just looked at her, amazed that in her dry voice, she was trying to get me off-track even through her flirting. I couldn't help but look at her the way she was, feeling so relaxed and carefree in my sight. The session has new life to it with her laying on the bed...not to mention the mind track that's been thinking of her as something else besides a classmate.  
   
Her eyes are closed as she answers what I ask, and I looked down from the index cards looking at her figures, which for the life of me, is one of the beautiful things I've ever laid my eyes on. She can hide it all she wants, but Paris has me hypnotized, from the way her hair lays along the pillow, to how her feet are crossed together in slimming jeans that highlight just how much her long legs truly make her figure something to stick in my mind. I have to hold in my mind that I'm not even processing her answer, but instead I'm daydreaming that we're having a night alone, where I tell her not to worry about bedclothes and she just lays down wearing nothing but a thin shirt and creamy silk underwear, the way I've dreamed about often when my mind is alone and undisturbed.  
   
Adjusting often, Paris pulled at her sweater, trying to hide what she was wearing beneath it from me. My mind wandered more as I helped her with each question, the mystery of what was beneath the wool getting into my head. I found walking around the room to be another distraction as I created a nude mental picture of her in my head, staying serious on the outside but wanting to just slide against her on that bed, toss the question cards around the room and have a little fun with her. Her smile as she touches on a point about Mother Teresa and sainthood, she describes the woman as a trailblazer to the less fortunate, and all I can think is _this is foreplay, that's what it is_. She gets me into a debate about the question though I agree with her, and we bounce our arguments back and forth, Paris not losing one single step as every counterpoint hits her cerebellum at the exact moment it's needed. There's a spark between us as I ask her seven more questions to finish off the practice session, never a sense of boredom coming in, or anything stopping us. No love/hate one-upping, or her trying to force her talking points through, it's just Paris using her persuasive and combative personality to tell that stuffed shirt up in Cambridge "Yeah, you took Natalie Portman, so she wrote a few good scientific papers that got published. You know what though, Harvard is in by blood, it's in my genes, it's what I live for. You take me and I'll be the best damn student you've ever taught, my full attention is on you, all the time, period."  
   
OK, maybe not all of her attention, I still want a little. But you get the picture...  
   
After we finished the questions, Paris let out relief that she had let me pick her brain, and was well prepared for all that was going on, refreshed and renewed. She sat up on the bed and we were both thankful that all was well with that. But I had a feeling she was holding something back because her posture was still tight and imposing, still weighted down upon her.  
   
It was like she wasn't supposed to be here, that she took the respite of escaping the Manor Sharon-free, but because of that she would have to deal with the lady and her imposing questions later on. Looking worn, I could see in her eyes she felt again like a disappointment because instead of staying on the straight line she had come to know so well, Paris's detour into my heart was keeping her from straying too far off the path. Leading her into reassurance, I tried to get Paris to admit what weighed down on her. It took a bit (as it always does with her exoskeleton-like inner thoughts), but she admitted to me that she thought Sharon would be disappointed in her for missing a not-so-important benefit where Sharon would meet up with her beau from Uncasville once again.  
   
There was also fear in her voice that by not going to that event, Harvard would end up messed up because she missed an opportunity to meet up with an important contact who just happened to be there.  
   
 _She really doesn't know when to quit_ , I thought, appalled that Paris would think this way. Parties were meant to be fun, not work, but Mrs. Gellar does all she can to turn even my girl's most fun moments into chores, I could just see her be the type to stop Par from having a slumber party because it would shake up home value, or God forbid, have a party she wants because that odious woman would want to make it all about her.  
   
"How would it jeopardize Harvard?" I asked, seriously. "It's one night, you see these people all of the time."  
   
"Louise lost a few points with Vassar because she accidentally sent IM transcripts listing it as her safety to her college coach." She started raising her voice. "I can't make any kind of impression that might make Harvard think I'm slacking off."  
   
"For one cocktail party?" She nods.  
   
"I'm a disappointment, I know this, okay? I excel at the schoolwork and extracurriculars, but my social skills resemble Gallant on a good day, I'm a complete wreck at social situations."  
   
"Hey, I am too," I noted, taking her hand into mine. "You know how silly I found the debutante thing? It was ridiculous, cheesy and over the top, yet I did it because hey, it works its way into the transcript and Harvard knows that I have proper table manners. Would I do it again? Probably not, but it certainly wouldn't change any admissions officer's mind about getting me in if I did it or not. They look at character for these things, hon, not how many alum and faculty you impress with anecdotes and obscure facts."  
   
"So I probably shouldn't tell my AD that the founder of Victoria's Secret committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and that inspires me?" Paris off-handed darkly. I smiled a little, shook my head and recomposed.  
   
"Maybe if you're applying for the necrology department, otherwise I wouldn't." I continued on. "Paris, how many summers have you sacrificed on behalf of organizations that need your help? The hours you've spent in service clubs, volunteering nothing but your time and effort and for nothing more than a thank you at the end? There's so much time you've given up for Chilton to make things better for students, not to mention what you've had your father and your grandparents do at the Free Library, create a reading room devoted to the state's Jewish history, because not only did you want all your study materials categorized in one place, but you wanted to make sure everyone else could find them too. It was a simple idea when you suggested it seven years ago, and no one gives you credit for it because you didn't want to take it."  
   
"But Ror--" She tried to speak, but once a Gilmore starts talking, she doesn't finish until her point is made. It's in my blood.  
   
"While everyone else is talking about helping, you're actually doing something about it, there are seven families in Hartford right now with a roof over their head because you didn't want to be a camp counselor in the summer. You saved your father from paying so much more to Sharon, thanks to you finding ways within the divorce settlement to force her to give money needed by charities more than her Prada collection. Every day you walk into that school and you don't leave until you feel you've done something right, and you write opinion pieces that challenge the 'norm', expanding viewpoints and changing people's minds towards the right direction. You don't think Democrat or Republican, you think you, you think us, you think everyone. As long as an idea isn't stupid, you take it." I couldn't believe how many targets I was hitting, but what I was saying was striking the right chords within Paris. "You have a caring heart, a kind heart. You never think about legacies and traditions, you just want to make things better, and I admire that in you." I wrapped my thumb around her index finger, trying to finish my point. "Now if that Harvard guy is there, at that party, I know he isn't thinking 'where is that Paris, why is she slacking off this event?' He knows you're working on being the best woman to have Gellar blood, and that you're here, bettering yourself, proud of everything that you've ever done, and that you don't need to be there to be accepted by him. He'll look at your file and he already knows for sure, that you care, even if you don't show it or boast, you do care."

Listing a few more things that I admired about her, I finished the argument that there is no way that a cocktail party will determine her future, because it should be known that by not going, Paris is busying herself with work rather than inane topics. That she needed to relax, that she's the girl I look up to the most at how to be within society, and beneath all she uses to hide herself, I see her, and only her.  
   
"You really believe that of me?" She asked, trying to make sense of things as I moved to start rubbing at her back. I nodded, trying to bring her into a sense of security.  
   
"Well you are a girl who treasures her milk chocolate, right?" I hinted at the little stash of candy bars she keeps in a computer drawer in her room, her favorite indulgence solid Godiva chocolate, which just happens to go well with red wine.  
   
"Sharon says it gives me pimples," she admitted with bitterness. "What are you leading to?"  
   
"Just that it would've been a personal defeat to see magazine subscription forms rather than pallets of Nestle in the supply closet, I was thinking about you offended by Francie's idea."  
   
"You have no idea, it was outrageous what she suggested. Food is meant to raise funds, magazines are meant to be hung up on walls, yellowed and then forgotten. I can't enjoy pinups, that's an insult to my intelligence. Chocolate gives you a spark and ideas, it's what runs newsrooms around the world when the coffee pot's not working!"  
   
I was starting to find the perfect place to start the distraction that I wanted, what I planned in saying yes to getting Par here. I wanted to study, but there was nothing to study but her now. There was a want to see her in her most unguarded state, and with Mom not about to interfere, I wanted to take advantage of the time I could get with her. No matter that I was inwardly scolding myself for trying to move a study meeting towards something else, but I couldn't help my attraction. A weekend away from her just makes Paris all that much more wanting.  
   
I lowered my eyes, letting them wash over her, and I could still sense that despite the pep talk, she was still wound up from other factors, be they stress or desire. I could feel her look me over, her gaze again stuck on the freckling of my arms. She was trying to push herself away from the kind of things she wants to do. She's distracted, ready to go...  
   
"You can't forget Francie goes for Page Six if she ever reads a paper, she doesn't take the world seriously," I noted as I pushed closer to Par, and then moved myself behind her so I could have unencumbered access to her back. Still talking, I got all where I needed to. "Trust me, she might think she's smart now, hon, but in the real world, she's going to be unprepared, and that's the best thing that can happen to her. I just look at her ten years from now and she's still a petty bitch who's never gotten her way. While the both of us..." _It's time,_ I thought, spreading my fingers out and softly whispering as I lay my fingertips atop of those small, defined shoulders of hers, hidden beneath the heavy wool of her sweater and what I think are bra straps. "We'll both be respected."  
   
The reaction I wanted was there as I started to rub her sore body, a mix of shock and want. She couldn't even think of a reaction to my answer as she was surprised that I was drawing her in with my fingers. She was fighting to keep in control, but I knew I'd easily overcome that. She softly calls out my name in a hushed voice, and I explain she deserves a massage. Tentatively, she gives in...  
   
My mind spins as I take in her soft scent, her shampoo mixing with a bit of cinnamon body spray she applied along her neck; Paris is so plain, yet beautiful. I moved my hands higher to take in more of her shoulders, and she gave up resistance to me doing this to her. I'm amazed that she lets me do this for her, be it in a private place such as my bedroom, or in the public setting of Mr. Mercurio's classroom. I take it as a trust that I'm the only one allowed to calm her down with touch rather than words, that she doesn't mind me easing the pain that she usually keeps hidden in her life from everyone else.  
   
I rubbed both of her shoulders slowly in a circle pattern, feeling the tension within them quickly fade as I help calm her down from having to stress over Sharon. Paris is open to everything and I know she loves what I was doing to her. At the same time, I knew there would be a place to get her even more open with me, since I knew her sweater was probably itching her as I worked my hands faster to soothe her. _Yeah, come on, this is going to get things interesting_ , I prodded to myself. I stared at her neck, veiled by her hair a bit, so slender and wanting.  
   
Slowly I moved myself closer and closer to her, trying to heat her up, make her just a smidge uncomfortable. Who would've thought, me trying to find an excuse to disrobe my lover? I was wound up and wanting of Paris, the way she tortured me with the cameraphone pics and the insinuations she leaves in passed notes about dreams from the last few nights, including a mention of her wanting up my skirt in the middle of Life Sciences. Paris knew how to push my buttons, but now, even more in order to get me to do things unlike me in the days before my attraction to her.  
   
With a little more effort, and a thankful kick-in from the temperamental boiler downstairs, I soon had Paris asking me if she could dispose of the sweater. It took all that I had not to smile at the idea of having almost unencumbered access to her upper body. I had to wonder if she was wearing a shirt beneath for modesty's sake.  
   
Imagine my surprise when she said that she sort of had a shirt on, and then took off the sweater. My eyes were on her midsection as she slipped off the dark red shirt, and instead of some kind of undershirt barely shielding from view a bra peeking out from beneath, she wore a pink silk camisole. Static cling made it stick to the sweater a little, giving me another view of her belly as she tried to straighten out the undershirt. My breath deepened as everything went into slow motion, watching her disrobe getting to me as her face was shielded, allowing me to watch her take off the sweater without her self-image getting in the way.  
   
 _You are amazing_ , I complimented silently, seeing Paris in what was her lowest form of casual dress getting within my mind and flaring my libido higher. She looked so understated, yet beautiful, her hair a bit of a mess and the camisole draping loose across her torso, flaring in just at her bustline where she needed it, but otherwise the undershirt left little to the imagination. Her shoulders were now fully exposed, and I could see where her shoulder blades met the clavicles, causing me to gasp about how beneath all her layers, indeed there was a body ready for ravishing. Her necklace dipped low, the six-sided star pointing down towards deep cleavage more spaced out without the usual support of her bra squeezing her breasts into a small space. Obviously the camisole was loose on purpose, with Par having to immediately go for both straps to prop them back onto her shoulders as they fell down her arms.  
   
Definitely, I was flush and goosebumped looking her over, trying not to stare but unable to help it. She was distracted complaining about being itchy, letting me get back behind her without an acknowledgement. I palmed my hands across her back and restarted the massage, nothing stopping me from taking things further. She's so soft as I knead her trouble spots, little bits of moles and marks here and there across her sun-kissed skin.  
   
"You have such a nice back, Paris," I complimented as I happened to hit the spot I knew her bag and bra straps always were laid upon (the indentation of her bra and the adjustment piece still a little red where it was); I took the heel of my hand and worked it up and down vigorously, making her vibrate in her seat. Her breathing relaxed and the stress started to melt away.  
   
"Right there...move your hand down a little on the right, I have an itch right about..." She navigated me towards to where the irritation was, just along her spinal column. "...almost there, average...temperate, a little warm..." Lower and lower with my right hand, my nails scraping until she reacted with a gasp. "...oh, that's just the right spot, right there. Ohhh yeah." I started scratching slowly, drawing her relaxed as I tackled the itchy spot flaring out a little red. She audibly voiced her appreciation, wondering how she got by all of these years without someone helping her out with something as simple as an itch, at least without having to pay a professional at her spa. She looked so relaxed as I continued to give her this simple therapy, her voice hushed down to a low octave to tell me she didn't mind my making things deeper.  
   
I alternated a full massage with scratching her back, following her every command and wish to cure what ailed her. Paris was so willing and open to do all of this with me, and to hear her pleasurably state how much she loved this put a smile on my face that the effort I took to woo her was being rewarded so much with such intimate gestures as this one. She would look back occasionally to make sure I wasn't getting any kind of funny ideas, but I'd look back at her innocently in return. Again, like a game between us, me trying to push further, her holding back. I rubbed my hands all along her back in a vigorous manner, trying to hold back from the one thing that was clear in my mind, that she was without a bra, and God, I just wanted to drive her crazy, the way she looked on my bed so carefree, yet beguiling.  
   
My heart kept a fast and steady pace as I kept playing along her back, the sight of her flesh getting to me so much. Truthfully I was somewhat tense and nervous, surprised with how much my mind was drifting off the original track of her visit to my house. _Don't forget, this is an educational visit only!_ My mind tried keeping me on a clean track...  
   
...But Paris' neck was leading me somewhere else altogether. I parted the hair on each side so I get at it for a rubdown, and looking down from where her gold necklace chain hung and then down her spine, where it drifted beneath her shirt, oh my God. I stopped and just stared, trying to wrap my mind around this heavy attraction and pull I felt for her. There was just a want to seduce her, to draw her in; she just looked like the very definition of desire, no matter how plain she might look to everyone else.  
   
I also missed her so much over the weekend, it was like a piece of me was with her while she couldn't see me. I thought internally about the ramifications of drifting her towards making out, wondering if it was worth the trouble to do it. She looked so kissable, yet I didn't know if she was thinking of things beyond the fact we were girlfriend and girlfriend. I found a doubt in my mind that she's not open to exploring with me beyond what I had with Dean, that she protects herself from doing more than she wants to for the sake of my innocence.  
   
Trust me, I can understand that, I didn't get here in the first place without the loss of my mother's innocence (that and Dad's reluctance to wear a condom; like I needed that sealed in my head when I first asked where I came from!). I've also been the one watching with her as various couples impede our access to our lockers, reveling in each other instead of grabbing their books. She's never going to be a public romantic, nor is she into the entire ideal of romance as a whole. But I know that Paris is still a romantic no matter her allusions, she loves spending time with me, and how much she puts in to be the kind of girl she is in front of only me, one willing to share all she thinks about without having it dismissed as a pipe dream or 'girls don't do that'.  
   
Paris isn't a girl; she's a woman with fight in her. But at the same time, she has a softer side she also brings out when needed. I look at both sides, and see a amazing woman in one small, blonde package. And in turn, I want to just show her how much I yearn for her in my life.  
   
 _Aw, to heck with it_ , I determined internally. _The worst she can say is no!_ I was going to go for it...be the aggressive one and show her what's been on my mind all night beyond getting my Harvard interview tailor-made. There was no way Paris was leaving this house not knowing that even I have sex on my mind every single moment I look at her.  
   
"Rory, why did you stop?" she asked breathlessly as I slid my hand into hers, and then smirking, kicked off my sneakers with the help of the bed, straddling behind her. God, I hope she wasn't looking at my heart-filled socks!

How the hell I do it, I never know, but I was able to play femme fatale with my shaky voice. "Stop?" I brushed my face along the back of her head, the tone of my voice calming and wanting. "I'm not stopping...just pushing things along." I softly planted my lips along the back of her neck, her fragrance overwhelming my senses.  
   
"Stop...we have to concentrate," she argued rather futilely, "I can't be doing this right now." Coughing she tries to get back into game mode, but I stop her by dragging short kisses along the periphery of her neck.  
   
"No more homework, and I'm bored." I pushed myself closer to her, deepening the kisses along her neck and scraping my teeth against the nape of her neck. "I also want to do more of this."

"I do also," she acknowledged, "but what about Lorelai?" A justified worry that I needed to help her overcome. It cooled things down a little to be reminded of Mom, but I wanted Paris to be as comfortable as could be. Her breath was deep, her voice laced with want and need for us to come together.  
   
I gave her a look and a smirk, sliding off the bed and reminding her off all the cleanup still to be done at the Inn. I headed over to the door to shut it, my full attention focused on her and a building case of nerves. We had done this before, but the sense that she was in my house instead of the safeness of a floor and three rooms between her and Sharon at the Manor was giving her some trepidation. A buffer needed to be created that showed I cared for her so much, that I wanted her without anything getting in the way.  
   
"There, the door's shut. My shade is drawn, and I don't own a webcam." I tried my best to play seductive, watching Paris, through her eyes, look so turned on. "Nothing but you and I here." I looked her over, my mouth watering from how she looked. An errant strap from her camisole kept sliding off from her shoulder, her hair down and a little bit of the upper part of her breasts exposed thanks to the angle of the shirt. I command her to lay down, soothing her with my voice that she looks so sexy outside of the plaid and any of her normal clothes. I was catching her off-guard, and she knew it.  
   
I put a hand into hers and slide onto the bed, positioning myself above her. This is so new to her, something unknown, being the prey rather than the predator. She feels nervous, trying to hide her body from my view even with all of my compliments. She tries to tuck the camisole back in, but I stop her, asking her to still and let me do what I want. Her breath deepens, and her chest rises, the top flattering her breasts so well. Her eyes close, a silent signal that she'll comply. I move my free hand to prop up her head, and then I bring myself closer slowly, basking in the feel of her body against mine. So full, wanting, beautiful.  
   
We both come together and kiss, slowly and full of want. Soft lips against mine, her smell in my mind, a slight taste of vanilla, I'm fargone and wanting of her. I instigate the buss further, trying to bring her into the mood, softly working my way around her lips and along her cheeks. I play with her stomach, brushing my hand against it, wandering around the soft olive skin that only I for sure know, and then along her back. _So beautiful_...  
   
Paris starts getting into it, sliding more against me and wrapping her arms across the small of my back, pushing me closer. I pull her hair a little, the feeling of the silky locks in my hand giving me a calming sense despite all of the heat between us. Before I know it, we're not only involved in a deep kiss, but closely positioned. My experiences with Dean tell me this is the time to bring things more to a boil. My body is tight and wanting, my light weight against Paris' smaller form just perfect for what I wanted to do. I slid my left thigh against her, looking to get comfortable. Of course this meant her right leg was pressed right against a certain part which I've been taught to protect like the Crown Jewels.  
   
Both of us are nervous about this. I mean, two weeks with each other and we're already doing this? I didn't move into this phase with Dean until last February. Still, God, I wanted it, my center feeling tight and wanting to be filled, yet I knew I'm not ready.  
   
 _You are_ , my vixen asserted, but there was no way Paris was at all. I might have the experience, but I had to tread carefully around her, the last thing I want is to do something wrong and have her curse me out for going to far. I heard her concern clearly as she asked what I was doing.  
   
"Nothing you don't want, I just want you to relax."  
   
"Rory, I don't mind this at all. I'm just...you know, this isn't the time yet."  
   
I brushed my fingers through her hair and gave her a soft kiss of reassurance. "I'm not going to rub, don't worry, just feel you against me, this is all I need." The other hand was along the waistband of her jeans, flirting with the waistband of her underwear. I was dizzy with want for her. "How's this?" I brought her into another kiss, this time much more aggressive and wanting of her. She pushed even closer to me, and asked for more than that. She wanted me to touch all over her back, along her neck as we kissed, even to the point where I felt her grab me and then in a surprising move, let me move it to palm against her butt. Reason is gone with the both of us and now we were just moving along to each other's urges, the chance of anyone interrupting us seeming to fall away with each new minute of making out. Her voice, hoarse with want, my body so tight, the tank top I wore beneath my shirt tightened against my chest, my lip gloss seems to be ruined and our hands wander ever lower, right up to the point where she has both her hands on each side of my ass and is looking up at me, not only laughing and with a wide toothy smile, but her demeanor had totally 180'ed from nervous and unsure and back to how she usually was...except this time in a good way.  
   
"Gilmore, you shouldn't be having all the fun," she husked, gathering all the strength she could to push me down onto the bed. "You're driving me crazy...those jeans should be a lot more loose than they are!"  
   
Smirking, I made her try to eat her words. "Hey, I can't help it, I love tight jeans. Unless..." then in my best little-girl voice. "...you want them loose for another purpose?"  
   
She bit her lip, trying to hold back the urge to hasten things further. "You haven't been talking to Louise, have you?" I shook my head no as she rolled me onto the bed and became the one on top.  
   
"I love having an overactive imagination, blame that." With the new positioning, my eyes had a new viewpoint of my girlfriend which worked to fire me up further. Paris was above me, and the loose camisole dangled down clumsily, those two straps holding it to her shoulders not doing much to keep it reined in. God, it took all I had to keep my full focus on her face, filled with desire. Still I looked, and though my hands were nowhere near her chest, I felt like a glance gave me a mental feel for her physical topography that was quite good enough for me.  
   
Oh man, I wanted her...my mind was wandering off the holding off path, and towards bringing things further. My hands were now at her sides, just above the top, and we were brought closer together into a kiss that was just full of so much want. I felt so much for her, my heart feeling so close to the blonde girl from all the talking and physical emotions we've shared over the last month. That we're at this point is such a small personal victory for me, and my mind is so confident of things going well, that nothing can stop us now. That I wanted more, even though it didn't seem to be time yet, and that Paris was also going in that direction.  
   
Yes, I was confident, cavalier, and might I say, though it's a term girls rarely use with each other...cocky that I was going to get my way and move things further.  
   
But as Paris pushed her leg closer, about to ask my permission to take things to second base territory, I head some background noise that I attributed to the boiler downstairs, ignoring it and continuing on. The sounds pick up, but I'm too buried in my lust to acknowledge it, Paris' breath shielding it as she pushes closer within my grasp and I feel like I start to lose control of my emotions.  
   
The overload, her above me, her sexual want coursing through me...it was just building so much. I was never at this point before in a relationship, but to feel the power, the want between us, how much both of us were just beholden to each other rather than anyone else, I wasn't thinking of anything else, much less anyone else.  
   
 _Nothing is stopping me_ , I thought as I looked up at that blonde and my mind blinded to everything else, I was about to give the signal to take things further, softly stating I wanted more...  
   
The noise then picked up, and before I knew it, I found my eyes shifting over as I heard my mom walk into the kitchen, and then the worst possible fears that I had start to make themselves known. All of a sudden my heart tightened, I was kissing Paris deeply, and she was in the most undeniable position possible as I watched in shock, the doorknob twisting, and then the door as it opened.  
   
 _Oh my God_ , was the only thought in my mind as I heard Lorelai say something vague about Paris being here and if we wanted pizza, and then I moved my attention towards her as Paris continued to kiss me, for a moment unaware that the worst way we could possibly come out was beginning to occur. I was pale white, my eyes meeting Mom's as she tried to finish her sentence.  
   
Paris then turned around, hearing Mom's voice and pushing me to the bed in what seemed to be a protective move. Both of us looked at her, and within my grasp I could feel Paris' pulse speed up, her heartbeat seeming to get a scared push as she realized _Rory's mom is here...in the room...I'm kissing her and it looks like much worse_.  
   
That time I got home after the Formal at 5am to my mom railing against me ever being with Dean again? Quickly forgotten as the most mortifying moment of my life, that was small potatoes compared to seeing Paris atop of me. She repeated the 'Oh my God', staying still in front of the door as Paris didn't do anything for a reaction. Like a deer in the highlights, her emotions were stunted, and as I scooted myself out from under her, Lorelai and her stared at each other, both of them trying to figure out what to do next.  
   
Surprisingly, Paris didn't run away, or lose her emotions like she does when in a situation like this, she stayed calm and even, not denying what was happening between us, but not incriminating herself further.  
   
However, Mom was a different story, immediately going with an off-color crack that we were...sating our hunger as it were, I'm not going to say it! I still had Paris' taste in my mouth and I wasn't thinking straight, but still I was offended by how she tried to dismiss the seriousness of the situation with such a joke. I had to find out why she was home early. I wasn't expecting her for another hour.  
   
Of course she hired a cleaning crew after everything overwhelmed the Inn staff, I should've known that from all the damned rice and confetti thrown in the ballroom over the last two days! Seriously, newlyweds should look into laser shows, they're much more fun, cheaper and better for the environment!  
   
I wasn't prepared for what was next, Mom giving Paris a 'big hello'. _What? Huh?_ Why is my mom talking to Paris that way, I couldn't understand why at all. I thought she was crazy.  
   
Then my attention drifted down Paris' shoulder, where instead of a strap, there was nothing but flesh. And as I propped myself back up on the bed, I could see her side in profile...  
   
...Then remember that in the rush to heat things up, I had pushed down that strap and then with my blood-dizzied mind clouded, brushed my hand along her side, eliciting a moan from her as my palm brushed across her right breast, then over her nipple. I hadn't even looked at it at all, the stimulation of touch all that was needed for me to be turned on. She didn't say a word and I didn't worry about it, at least until the moment I had to watch in embarrassment as my mother tried to clue in Par that she was showing off.  
   
Mind you while all of this is happening, where I should feel so mortified about being caught, instead my mind is lusting for more contact with Paris and I'm turned on by being discovered mid-kiss by Lorelai, my breasts swelling and tight, along with dampness between my legs. No way I'm letting anyone know this, so I tried to block the thoughts out that Paris in my bedroom at that moment, caught in the moment, human and vulnerable, looked beautiful in my eyes. Especially with her shirt down, my gaze wavering from full attention and occasionally glancing down towards that profile view of her exposed breast, tender and soft and so close to me.  
   
Yet I was shaking as my mom's voice took on a tone not really used all that much. Her sarcasm was on high alert and she tried to her best to hide behind her words how she really was feeling, going with vague statements and tossing Paris my robe to cover her modesty.  
   
 _Disappointment_. That word describes how she looked as I held Paris' hand, trying to explain to my mom what's happened with Paris and I without inflaming emotions. My words were small and simple. I looked at Paris as she asked how in the heck we ended up together, instead of a guy of hers or someone she'd accept. I had to hold back how I felt, going with neutrality so Paris wouldn't be attacked. Just the way her body was and the way she was looking at Lorelai with so much fear, this was a different girl...she was scared for her life, unable to say anything to defend herself.  
   
Almost like her mom taught her to be defensive when it came to her academics, but when it came to real life, she was supposed to cower and comply, no matter what her heart screamed. Paris, instead of coming out right away to say she was my girl and she would fight for me, she wanted to leave, flee away as Lorelai asked for an explanation for why she was on top of me in an intimate way.  
   
 _She's denying herself happiness_ , I thought, watching her try to gather herself together, ready to flee my house before Mom could get an explanation. I knew it was probably a minimizing move designed to keep me out of trouble, to deny our relationship.  
   
There's nothing to deny though, I like Paris, period. I like her as my girlfriend, and there's nothing, not even Mom's past, that can change that fact. I'm prepared to fight for her, and at that moment, training was over. There was no way I could keep a secret anymore, especially about someone that I felt so strongly about.  
   
The ring is in the middle of Yankee Stadium, and the bell for the first round just went off. Time to fight for my love.  
   
I grasped Paris by the wrist, and threw a 'honey' right at her to stun her still, you couldn't get a more perfect term of affection than that in order to come out. Then I just said it like I was in an impromptu debate towards my mom; Paris is my girlfriend and I'm not going to deny it anymore in front of Lorelai.  
   
The word struck my mom unexpectedly, the way I said it not at all in the realm of the Ellen/Big Pete definition. She repeated the word, trying to confirm it true.  
   
"For the last two weeks, one day, and four hours, that's what she's been to me." I threw back the time we've spent so far together, and that just stunned both women; Paris with how much I was sticking to this, Mom shocked as hell that I was being so cavalier. Repeating her timeline of the Sunday two weeks before, she was stunned to think that the dance marathon was just foreplay to sealing the relationship deal.  
   
It led her to Dean of course, and wondering why I wasn't with him anymore. How I was so calm, I don't know, but I explained how things were going downhill on a fast clip since my arrival into Bradley in early August.  
   
"It's built over the months, the attraction to her, and it became so overwhelming, an obsession to know how she really felt for me. It started out as just a thought, and then...it just grew larger, until we got into that room together. Seeing her every day as just herself rather than the Gellarbot 5.0 (another one of her dumb Paris nicknames), it got to me, and eventually that friendliness I had for her grew into a strong attraction." I felt like I was defending Paris to the fullest, but I hope she was finding it heartening for me to keep her from attacks by my mother.  
   
I felt my voice waver with each answer to her question, trying to wear me out from what I was thinking and seeing things her way. What got to me so much though is that Mom wasn't comfortable using 'the word'. She tried to dance her way around it with vague terms, thinking by not vocalizing it, she could avoid me confessing to be one.  
   
 _Christ, I'm a lesbian, mom, just fucking say it. Les-bi-an, L-E-S-B-I-A-N...oh God, don't even think I'm bisexual!_ My inner monologue listened to Mom talk, and I was seething because she wouldn't bite on the term.She sees things in black and white, or in her viewpoint, pink and purple, as it were, too broadly and never touching her. Her pregnancy all these years later might be something she laughs about often, but those first years of my life were tough, and they still are. Glossing over the issue doesn't make it that much easier; terms like 'girl-liker' and 'lady friend' still taste the same as lesbian and gay.  
   
Finally I just said it, not wanting to be categorized by it, but not denying the fact I'm a lesbian. No need to dance around it, my mom needs honesty, I'm going to give it to her, no matter what. The worst has happened and all I could hope for was that she wouldn't take drastic steps against me. My emotions started to be lost as I described in frank terms how much Paris meant to me, that her unique personality drew me in, and that no matter how much I fought the feelings, no matter what I did to deny myself, it led me to one thing, that I was hot for the bitter little rich girl sitting next to me in that bed right now. There wasn't anything Lorelai could do about it, and for once I wasn't going to sit down, shut up, and do whatever she wanted me to do.  
   
I swear to God I meant that, I was willing to give up Harvard, my home, my community, everything for Paris. Mom wasn't going to win, deny me, do anything to jeopardize what we had. My words made that clear, and it stunned Lorelai silent as she tried to attack on another front.  
   
I tightened my grip of Paris' hand, cluing her in that since attacking me hadn't worked, she'd make Paris lose her temper and prove that my heart didn't belong to her. That she was a control freak only thinking of those four numbers making up her GPA, that she didn't have a heart. When my mom gets mad, she gets mad, and I know what she attacks first with her verbal skills. Paris' character was about to get taken down undeservingly to try to end this situation.  
   
Her blue eyes were intense with anger as her teeth clenched, and she got into a defensive position, pointing right away at my girl and slinging an accusation worthy of _Boston Public_ but definitely not Chilton Prep, that she wanted in my pants to distract me from my assignments, a way to get that gold sash around her neck on graduation day proclaiming her top of the class.  
   
 _Like she'd ever do that!_ Remembering that she lost her drive after her County Day competitor dumbed himself down, I knew right away it wasn't Paris. Yes, she used affairs of the heart to throw me off when it came to Tristan, but never for grade points, only for activity positions. Paris would never stoop that low to get her revenge on me, and she's regretted everything she's done to me in non-love matters, especially the Max thing and the fight over the non-existent PJ Harvey date.  
   
Paris tried to defend herself, but Lorelai has better skills in ad-lib debate, moving her focus towards me and trying to turn it around as not in my best interest. _Sorry, this isn't children's court anymore, **I** take **my** best interest! _Mom wasn't going to win if I had anything to do with it. Firm as I could, I shut her up, and then showed why I considered public speaking one of my most important subjects.  
   
"Why should I listen, Rory? There's nothing that's going to change my mind about this. She's using you. Paris is a wolf in sheep's clothing, don't you know her character?"  
   
"I'd like to think so, I kiss the girl every damned day!" I gritted out. "How the hell do you think you can say you know her, Mom? Can you really say that when you've seen her in the last two years, what, nineteen hours combined? I mean God, I spend at least ten hours a day with her, five days a week, it never changes, and then spent almost 24/7 with her between June and August, in a small little dorm room with a crappy AC and a lovely view of what is truly the dullest federal building in all of the District of Columbia! She's a soap junkie, she could tell you every plot development from _The Guiding Light_ since June of 1989, her hair color preference is Clairol, she can't go to bed without a glass of apple juice at her bedside. Her favorite cartoon is _Garfield_ because of how it makes fun of the dumbing down of television yet throws in educational lessons subtly. She prefers her news via the internet or C-SPAN, she just wants facts, not talking heads."  
   
I continued on, trying to prove that Paris was scared to go into this in the first place. "She's also such an introvert she didn't realize she had a date until two minutes later, and then when she did, it was panic city for her! She went out with this guy Jamie, nice boy, Princeton man, high GPA, dreams of taking a high profile job with a think tank when he's out. All I could think though, while she was out, was how jealous I was of that guy, how I hoped the date was a miserable failure. When she said it was, I was giddy and that's when I knew that I had a chance at her." Of course this startled Paris, but I knew she was glad that Jamie and she didn't work.  
   
"Moment I get home and I see Dean, I'm already bored with him. He didn't read any of my books over the summer and the first thing he shows me is some El Camino he and Todd rebuilt over the summer, like I'm impressed by an ugly car with a truck bed in the back! I tell him I miss him and want to spend time alone...'Rory, my sister's home, she'll be able to hear.' So go to my house....'What if your mom walks in?' That may have been cute two years ago, but I want more, I want someone interesting..." I dart my gaze towards Paris. "I want her, and there wasn't a thought in my mind telling me that it could be wrong. If she thought of me that way, she wasn't going to say a word because Sharon makes Grandma look like mother of the year. I know Par, she was scared to even bring it up. Worse, the way I am, the way I've been raised, it placed a shield in front of me that her being interested in me should never be revealed."  
   
I then confessed that it was all me. "She did nothing but respond in kind, Mom, that's all she did. It took me three months and so much to get her to know how I felt about her, and if she was the same, that I wasn't going to run away from her. I didn't have one second thought about how Dean would feel because there wasn't anything there anymore, all I felt was for her, nothing else mattered. I got involved in gym for one day just to share close contact with her, it was shallow but I attained my goal. We've shared a hate for _War & Peace _that gets us both riled up, and to be next to her in class makes things in it so much easier to stomach. She did nothing but have a crush on me; Paris was too scared to act on her feelings, so to hear from me after the dance marathon that I like her too, it was a validation of what we both share, that even though we didn't do much except hidden flirting and subtle touches, there was something there to explore." My voice was now strong and unyielding, Mom knowing that if she'd interrupt I'd just hammer down her newest futile point.  
   
Settling myself down, I knew I had to finish strong. "Look, I know this is a surprise to you, that you're feeling so off, that you don't know what to say, Mom, and I'm sorry about all of this. But it was hard for me to come to terms that I like Paris, and I wanted to kiss her, maybe more. This can't be easy for you, but it certainly isn't for me, nor is it for her." I looked up at my mom, playing with Paris' hand as I tried to make her sympathize with the both of us. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you to begin with or ask what you thought about the idea of this. But I was scared, and I knew you'd have misgivings about Paris being my crush."  
   
"I'm not objecting to it," she said, her voice tight with hidden anger. "Kiddo, I'm just trying to figure out why Paris? Why a girl?"  
   
"Because you can't help who you're attracted to." I looked up at her, struggling to put what I felt into words. "I can't explain it, it's just...right." Then with all the reserve I had, I decided to make it all the more real for Mom to picture. "Last week, she took me up to Massachusetts, and just hearing about all she did to plan what she thought was the perfect date and how excited she was to bring me out, it heartened me. She put so much into everything, and though there were some parts that didn't work, we both had fun, and we just talked and talked all through it, both of us talking about things we were both interested in, there wasn't a boring moment. Paris treated me good, and we found plenty of time to build things up further. I mean, she might look like she's firm and unwavering, but she's really a softie." I stared crying. "She wanted the night to be special, and it really was, Mom, honestly; I felt so much more after it, that she's much more for me than just being that thorn in my side. She was so sweet, and I wish you'd see that side that I do. she isn't just who I ranted to you about over the last couple years now. Paris is wonderful, and I'm not going to give her up easily, and I mean that."  
   
Paris brought her gaze towards mine, and our eyes met as Mom watched us. Her emotions were even, and much calmer than moments before, her face taking on a serene look, mouth with a little smile, and her eyes slitted. It was if she was trying to tell me without words. 'Thank you for being my girlfriend. I feel more confident about this.' She didn't say anything, only squeezing my hand as Mom paced a small part of the room, trying to gather her thoughts.  
   
"Mom," I noted softly. "I'm still your daughter, your Rory, nothing has changed about me at all. I'm just even more multifaceted abnormal that previously thought." That past description of me would hopefully clear her mind and make it easier to understand. I'm still that same girl with Harvard dreams and wishes for a correspondence in Tel Aviv, and the dream of going to Fez one day. Nothing has changed except who has my heart.  
   
After what seemed to be an indeterminate pause, Mom finally asked to speak to me alone, theorizing that she could learn more about us separate than together, that we would focus on ourselves in conversations rather than speak in one voice, as a couple. That, and hiding my lesbian crush for at least a few months was something she had to get to the bottom of. I could just hope that things were calm and even, that I wasn't about to be shipped on a bus up to Boston for Dad to take care of me...  
   
 _Don't even bring your mind to worst case!!_ My conscience chimed in. _She just has to see things your way, you're her world. Right now her world might be thrown off, but she'll balance things out slowly, just stay calm, hope for the best and don't let any kind of anger she has get to you, it's not personal_. Yeah, thinking positive had to be the way to go into this as I got up from my bed, pulling my hand from Paris at the last possible moment as she watched, white with fear as we were pulled apart for talks in separate rooms, hopeful she'd be leaving this house still with me, and not with word I was reenrolled at Stars Hollow High effective immediately.  
   
Both of us were scared, fearful for the worst, but I could see with Paris that she was also hoping for the best. As I left my bedroom, watching Paris try to get her camisole strap back up, I thought about how much I was starting to love her, that after two weeks the butterflies were still there, and I wouldn't know what to do if I would lose her.  
   
 _I hope you know no matter what happens, that I love you, Paris. I'm not ready to tell that to you out loud, but you need to know that, even if it's only in my mind. Don't lose faith in how much trust I have with you_. I looked at her one last time heading into the kitchen, then turned around, already feeling an emptiness from not looking at her.  
   
In the living room, I sat down on the couch, draping the throw blanket over me, and wishing that Mom would only have a fast talk with me and understand where I was coming from.  
   
But unlike the _Donna Reed Show_ , something like my coming out of the closet couldn't be dealt with in a four-minute scene within Act Three...  


* * *

Mom sat down on the chair across from me, still wearing her power suit from work, and she looked unsure for the first time since she debated whether to accept Mr. Medina's flower-filled proposal or not. And there I was in front of her, feeling like complete scum for hiding my sexuality from her view, worse than coming back from Brooklyn after the trip to see Jess. We were mother and daughter together, but we might as well have been on different sides of the ocean. She was still filled with the shock of catching Paris, and my mind was still filled with that 'what the fuck' stare with the girl's weight on top of me.  
   
How can my mom be so calm like this, to talk things over instead of tossing around vases and dishware? I can't understand why she's not going off on me about something I now know I shouldn't have done. It doesn't matter that I'm eighteen, for I'm still under her roof with her own rules, what few of them there were.  
   
What do you do, however, when the rule is 'No unsupervised girls in your bedroom', and you never even considered it for your book? That had to be what my mom was thinking.  
   
I have to admit to myself that I never fully considered what would happen when the coming out moment happened with Mom. I had an idea, which I shared with Paris, but it was probably something sugar-coated and more optimistic than reality. I know my mom, and when it comes to relationships of the same sexes in her life, her reaction has been somewhat acceptance, yet with some reservations. For example, Michel keeps his life purposefully ambiguous, but she still makes the occasional 'You have a hot guy tonight, don't you Frenchie?' joke his way, which he's never responded to. The night manager of the Inn, Tobin, is fully out and she's never really said anything about him, except he seems to regard some of the...let's say 'cuter men' with wake-up calls that have more energy to them than usual.  
   
Let's not even get into how she regards media; she's completely shallow on that front. Two hot guys intimate and she's giggling like a schoolgirl over it. But a normal couple, there's times where she can be a bit offensive. She also makes fun of girl-on-girl kissing in movies sometimes, and though she accepts lesbian couples with open arms on the outside and has never used any gay slurs, I get the sense she's not as comfortable with it, judging from her turning her head at kissing scenes in movies.  
   
I haven't been able to see her real reaction to a regular lesbian couple, as we only have three in the entire town, along with some single girls, and they usually regard the town more as a bedroom community than their town, they've moved out here for the sole reason of having a refuge from real life prejudices. I've never brought up the question at all when we talk (because asking that to my mom? Yuck!), so this is a whole new world for her. I sit across from her, feeling somewhat ashamed for hiding everything from her. She eyes me up, my arms crossed across my chest, my hair still mussed up from what just happened. There's also a dull ache in my stomach, arising from a combination of lust still within me, and the anxiety of Mom about to yell at me.  
   
There was also a fear that she was going to get out the Chilton directory, hand over the phone, and ask me to call Sharon over so I could let her know I was making out with her daughter, and also happened to be her girlfriend. I had to stay strong, however; there wasn't any room to cry and break down. I had to explain things calmly, rationally, make her see it as a normal point of view, that this wasn't anyone's decision but mine.  
   
It was odd to watch her speechless, trying to come up with a good opening line to start things off. This was a blindside to her from what it seemed, the very idea that I would be gay unexpected.  
   
Finally, she got things started on a nervous note. "So...Paris." She sighed, trying to make sure it was real. "Paris Gellar."  
   
I nodded silently.  
   
"Miss 'I'll make this school a living hell for you'...you were kissing her, in your bedroom."

"Yes." I was feeling petrified with my one word answers. For once, my mother, the champion of speed talking couldn't find the words to respond or argue. She sat there for a minute in the chair, trying to figure out where to go with her mom talk. She wasn't ever expecting this, I could tell. Springing a pregnancy on her, that I know she'd be ready for, but this was never a possibility. I could see it, that she never had thought I could be a lesbian, because I didn't have the 'warning signs' most media tell parents to look out for. I had some popularity at school, was outgoing in the community, and I sure wasn't developing a secret want for flannel shirts or rambling folk music. Not that those things are bad, mind you, I respect them both, but I feel fine in my current skin.  
   
"I can't believe it, you and Paris." She shook her head. "I thought you were going to be with Dean for years and years, and all of the sudden, you're here telling me that you've fallen for someone who doesn't have something that Dean has."  
   
"I was going to tell you--" quickly, I was interrupted.  
   
"When Rory, why would you hide this from me?" Lorelai was stressed, her voice showing that. "Kiddo, I thought we could tell each other everything, from crushes to shoe sizes, you know we've always had an open thing going on here."  
   
"We were going to have a movie night in two weeks and reveal ourselves then," I confessed, trying to hold it off. "I just wanted you to be in a position where we were all comfortable, not...well, catching her on my bed."  
   
With that, she twisted the knife of trust a bit deep, "Something you would've never done with Dean. I mean he was the perfect gentleman. You two are barely out of week two and already you're heading towards second base. Is there something missing here?"  
   
"Dean and Paris are two different people, Mom," I noted, "he wouldn't have done that because as you said, he was a gentleman. This has nothing to do with how I fast I want things to go."  
   
"I just don't want you to be seeing her for the wrong reasons," Mom argued, "you shouldn't be using her to circumvent--"  
   
Damn it, she was trying to assert the 'lesbian to get some' excuse with me; I couldn't let her do that! "Circumvent what?" I said through clenched teeth. "Oh my God, you can't seriously believe my wanting a girl is an excuse to get some without...you know, I'm **not** trying to do that."  
   
"I know, I know," she panicked, "I just have to completely rule it out, there's no need to panic. I'm not saying you're that way, but...God." She stopped for a moment, trying to focus her thoughts on what she needed to. "I definitely need to bring my mother's intuition in for a check up though. I thought you and Paris were getting closer and there were things I noticed, but I ruled them out right away."

"What are you talking about? " How could she notice, I left no bread crumbs behind to suggest to her earlier that we were a couple. "I thought...I thought you didn't know anything about us."  
   
"Rory, I'm your mother, it's within me to worry about everything, no matter how small or trivial." She smiled at me. "I noticed how odd it was that you broke up with Dean this time. First time it was over him saying 'I love you', and this time Jess helping you with Dwight's garden is worse than that?"  
   
I tried to defend myself. "He was jealous about me being Jess's friend."  
   
"He always was, kiddo, even with Jess hooking up with Mustang Sally; you knew that, I knew that, Luke knew that, it was an established fact. Lame criteria to break up with him compared to him jealous over the basket auction and almost knocking him out last winter."  
   
Thinking about it, I knew no matter what I did, she was right. It was a bad standard to consider something small like that a breakup-able offense. Then again there was still plenty of ammunition to the fire.  
   
However, it would reveal things I tried to usually keep hidden, ashamed to even assert control over my sexuality. Hesitating, I stared at her, trying to find the perfect way to phrase things, while at the same time thinking of a way to say it without asserting the reason I became a lesbian was solely out of sexual frustration.  
   
"It just wasn't that," I said softly. "Far from his jealousy or anything that he caused, there was more."  
   
"Like what?"  
   
"To put it simply, Mom...he was a gentleman." How very Scarlet of me to phrase it that way. Bemused, she couldn't wrap herself around the hidden meaning, so I filled in the blank. "Look, he was good, kind, perfect, that wasn't the problem. The major thing for me was we were at a standstill in other..." I stuck out my tongue and tried to say it innocently. "...certain areas."

Did that get her a little shocked. "Oh geeze, you don't mean..."  
   
"I don't mean that far, really," I disclaimed. "But I just mean in the usual 'making out like teenagers' kind of way." I then explained to her that Dean was fine, but to go through a change in my mind as far as sexuality had me curious to do things at seventeen that I would eschew a year before, heavy petting, deep kissing, groping and the like. How Dean didn't get the clues and would argue with me that it wasn't time to go that far, that he wouldn't ruin our relationship just to do something like ask how he dreams about me, and how he never bit. Last year as my feelings for Paris came to light, to block them out I tried to amplify how dirty I thought of my boyfriend to overwhelm them. I didn't use colorful language, keeping everything neutral, but I admitted going into my room sometimes, trying to call him on the cell or get him over IM to fuel my imaginary fire. I'd start a conversation with a hard flirt, and after twenty minutes of futility and his thoughts that he had a log program placed on his computer (are you kidding, his parents don't even know how to write a Word document!), I'd end it and go back to being innocent, my sexual needs bottled up for a long time. All the making out over the months ended at the bra line, never higher. That I tried to see myself with Jess as a panacea with my needs, but right after that play kiss, the first time I saw Paris without Tristan, her longtime ball and chain, that she was relaxed and more easygoing with the one thing keeping us from true friendship so, so many miles away and not to come back.

Where I thought it was going to be hard to explain everything about my attraction to Paris, the words came very easily in reality. "I found it abnormal to think of her that way at first, and I wasn't going to say anything about it at all, because what if it was just a silly phase for me?" Mom nodded. "But these thoughts, they wouldn't stay dormant and let me be who I thought I was. Once I saw past her persona, I started to see her as much more than she presents herself as, that underneath her hard demeanor, she's kind, willing to help, if not with homework of course, to make someone else's life better. I look at her, just another girl obsessed with grades, and started to see beyond that, her drive being one of the things that I admire, and that I wanted to replicate within myself." Brushing a stray hair, I continue on. "She's passionate and devoted to everything, and I saw that in every day of debate prep we did, and then the actual competition which I'd watch her at the lectern, and her eyes never even wandered down to her script. We competed in Bridgeport and she was asked by a stage manager for the competing school if she'd like her script fed into teleprompter display software." Like a fangirl for her, I sighed. "She turned him down and compared their team to the _Today_ show. 'I'm no fucking Katie Couric; you see me perky and teethy? No? I thought not. Your team members might have aspirations of taking over for Chuck Scarborough at WNBC, but if you expect me to read my speech off an idiot box, you're dead wrong. We'll read it from heart, and we will win, end of argument.'"  
   
"You both won that, right?"  
   
I rolled my eyes. "Cleaned the floor with them." Of course, that was just a small step to realize Paris=cute. It took someone else to make me realize who I wanted.  
   
Yes, the day Dad and Sherrie watched our debate with Hillside, that's when it all changed, and I can pinpoint the exact moment my feelings for Paris went from friendly to sexual. When I turned her down to celebrate the victory due to having to get to know Dad's new girlfriend, watching her walk down the hall, furious in anger as she whipped down the corridor upset that she was denied my company for the evening. The way she asked me, the hope she had, how it was crushed by the reality of my situation.  
   
"Instead of being annoyed by Paris though, I was more annoyed by Sherrie," I admitted. "I was looking forward to celebrating a well-earned win, and as I watched her whip down that hallway, that's when I realized something, that I was feeling more than empathy for her." I stared at my hands as I admitted to Mom how I really felt. "I was turned on by her anger."  
   
"Turned on? By Paris throwing a hissy fit?" I nodded. "Usually the caveman act has you running."  
   
"Not this time, I was thinking about her all night, getting to know Sherrie was the last thing on my mind--" That's when I got the held up hand from mom, the TMI signal to stop things before I got into the freaky territory.  
   
"OK, I'm just going to assume things I don't need to hear about happened after that." All I did to answer her assumption was nod my head, because there was no way she had to find out more than that...no need to share my fantasy life.  
   
From there, things turned serious as we got to May and how I was trying to shield myself from the conflicted feelings I had for my classmate, that I shouldn't feel the way I do. Admitting to Lorelai that I knew Jess took my Dean bracelet and that it was the easiest assumption that I could make, and that I really didn't feel like it was a big deal, that her and Dean pushed me into a panic to search around for it all over. I couldn't understand how I was drawing more into Paris' words as our study hours started to add up, that I was looking at her physical features more, finding them much to my liking. Hiding all that behind the wall that was my 'crush' on Jess, my last-chance gasp at trying to confirm my attraction to the opposite sex.  
   
Explaining as I asked her not to interrupt (I was feeling emotional and didn't want to lose focus and then fall into a crying jag), how I felt touched to be her VP candidate and that I wanted to make up the lost time our friendship lost over our first summer. Her devotion got to me, the little things she did and said, that she didn't want to lose, she would do anything good for someone's vote. After a while the speech I gave fellow students to make it known Paris was the best candidate was no longer hollow, that the words started to have meaning.

We then come to the day of the wedding, minutes after I kiss Jess, which doesn't surprise my mom as I admit to it ("I had a feeling," she confided). After hearing from her that Dad wasn't going to be back with her and I told her I was going to DC, sitting near the pond, watching the water. My mind is shocked to find nothing sparked when I kissed Jess on impulse. All I could hear instead, is that beautiful female voice in my ears, saying she had the election sealed, and that I should be ready to leave for a Capital Summer.  
   
Nothing I could feel at all with Jess. Instead, I think of myself next to Paris as the results are read to confirm the election, and how triumphant we feel hearing the results in our favor. We smile at each other, and then before I can take it back, my imagination has Paris and I, eye to eye, looking at each other. "Thank you, Rory," she says, as she brings herself near me. "You're welcome," I say back...  
   
And then she kisses me, the exact way Jess did minutes before. Except this time, I feel this dream buss more physically and spiritually, it's so much more powerful. It's only a dream, something I think would never happen. Her soft hair in my hands, her hands on the small of my back. Just like Jess.  
   
Except it was Paris, someone I shouldn't have felt that way about. I explained my insecurities over the summer and fall about developing my attraction for her, how having her only six feet away and listening to her sleep talking dreams and found them cute instead of earplug-worthy, that being with her only for two months, away from the distractions of the boys and Stars Hollow made it easier for me to determine that pursuing something with her was for the best.  
   
"What if she would've gone out with a boy, would you have accepted it?" Mom wondered. That got me laughing as I remembered back to Jamie and all that happened with him.  
   
"She did and all I wanted to do was hope he made her pay for a dinner at McDonald's," I joked. "But I could tell she was going through the motions with that guy, she didn't even feel any kind of attraction to him really. He was nice and that was appealing, but she never was looking for a relationship with him, and I was so thankful the date didn't work out. She didn't even know she had a date with him until I made it clear to her." That memory made me gleeful that I was the only one whom she really got excited about datewise.  
   
"So you pretty much used that guy as a guidepoint about how to go further with her?" Mom was starting to calm down and understand everything and see that that this wasn't inspired by some random thought or a sociology experiment where we tried to understand what was behind the mind of the stars of _Girls Gone Wild_ commercials.  
   
"It really helped me out and told me that I just might have a chance to just maybe get to her. I knew it was risky and if I didn't approach things just right, friendship between us would never be an option again." I frowned, sighing. "But I had to try, I have to take risks, like I did when I went to Chilton in the first place. If I wouldn't have done it, I would go the rest of my life wondering what might have been."  
   
I was truthful about everything, being vocal about how I wanted Paris and all I did on purpose the last three months to assure that she would be mine. Going on and on about her, surprising Lorelai with all the little things she didn't know about Par, how much her crap mother had almost insured she would forever be a loner, it was all laid out there on the table, bare. I was still scared of the small possibility that I'd be forced to break up with her, but my fears started to melt away as I continued on and made sure that it was known I was gay for the right reasons, not to get a good grade by distracting her or silly experimentation, that this was serious. I didn't even make any jokes or witty remarks, not feeling it the right time to regard anything between us as a joke yet.  
   
A half-hour later, and with everything out in the open (including the fact Miss Patty knew), I had bared my heart out to my mom, who listened to why I was with Paris seriously. She made the occasional 'Ice Queen' remark, but I stopped her each time. All I could hope for is that she was happy for me, no matter who I loved. I was on that couch, my mouth dried from explanations, my stomach in a knot from so much nervousness. Downcast, I tried not to think the worst, but had it in mind just in case. We looked at each other firmly, as I felt like a disappointment, while Mom was searching for where her 'little Rory' went all of the sudden. Her jacket was opened, and she was thinking about everything that I just said.  
   
 _Please don't hate me Mom_ , I monologue, _I never meant to hurt you, but I just want to be happy. I like her, and she likes me, we've had fun together and we both work well mutually. I know you're not a bigot, and I just want you to feel that Paris is a good woman, she's not going to break my heart or abuse my trust, I know it, she's not going to be possessive over me._ She stayed silent for a moment, looking me over, and I saw realization in Mom's eyes.  
   
That I had crossed a threshold in my life. Instead of doing what was expected by the town, her, and my grandparents, I had gone on my own, proving that with my turning eighteen a month ago, I can be strong, think for myself, and fall for who I wanted to. Pressure wasn't going to stop me from keeping what I wanted.  
   
But I knew she had her fears, too. "Are you sure you're prepared for this, kiddo?"

"Mom, I know what I'm doing," I said confidently.  
   
"Now you do, but once this gets out, you might change your mind pretty quickly." My gaze locked sternly on her as I became defensive again.  
   
"I think that's unlikely, Mom," I groaned out. "If someone doesn't like us together then I don't want to know them."  
   
"God, this is so odd...I never would've thought about this at all." She grimaced, trying to keep her feelings in check. "You and Paris...what did she do to attract your attention, build an origami bouquet out of notebook paper?"  
   
I smiled at her. "Mom!"  
   
"Talked...nerdy to you." Oh geeze, she was using her flirting voice. "Rory, want to come over after school and expand the Pythagorean Theorem with me?"

"You're not going to stop, are you?" I theorized. "She was just herself, she gave me that opening last year, and I just jumped into it."  
   
For once, my mom, queen of biting on the most obvious of lines, decided to let that one slide, holding up her hand, saying she wasn't touching it. I knew she wanted to really badly, but from the look she was giving me, Mom was trying to accept who I was, no matter her reservations and what she thought of Paris in the past. I made her understand that it was fine to joke about her when we weren't together, but I was less willing to accept any cracks now that I know her as my girlfriend, which came along with her burying herself in schoolwork for not only the academic aspirations she had, but to flee her mother's influence.  
   
I was right about the conversation going from 'how could you do this' to 'how I will accept this'. She eventually moved over to the couch and I finally confided in her more about what's been hidden from her since the summer, the long glances, the ways I tried to get her to see things my way, how really, Paris isn't a bad person at all, just a bit off-kilter when things don't go her way. Lorelai saw it my way, not how she might have interpreted it.  
   
Once I got to admitting the celebratory wine and my spontaneous Porsche test drive, there was some uneasiness, I admit. Describing how I took the curve so fast, then how I slammed down the last glass of red right from the bottle days earlier, she went mom card on me and told me to be careful and politely refuse next time.  
   
"It was just a one time thing," I assured her. "Wish fulfillment. She had the wine ready to go for months, and we weren't going anywhere, so I thought it was safe."  
   
"Yeah, but you two drunk...you don't want to do something you might regret."  
   
"We weren't going to do anything, she's still scared about intimacy," I admitted, sighing. "That's about the only frustrating thing about going into a relationship with her, she's only dated, never had a relationship."  
   
"I didn't know. I guess I just assumed that well...Porsche, going really fast, she was trying to be aggressive."  
   
I shook my head. "Not at all, just a girl excited about her first real date where she wouldn't be dumped afterwards."  
   
Mom seemed to start thinking of Paris beyond her stereotypical view of the girl, finally figuring out why exactly I saw myself with her more than I could with Dean. It was a sudden change as she stopped cutting her down and started to understand the way I saw her.  
   
"I really wasn't thinking, was I? I just saw you and her, jumped to a conclusion, and I almost scared her."  
   
"No, you scared her," I said, rolling my eyes. "She's probably in my room thinking she really screwed up big time."  
   
"I didn't mean to," she admitted. "Just first instinct, I didn't know you were going to defend her so vigorously. I thought this was just pure experimentation and that's all."  
   
I shrugged and shook my head. "I'm afraid not." She moved over to sit next to me, and we started to wind down the talk. "I fought this for so long and I just didn't know what to feel, and I know I should've talked to you about it. I just...I thought I could handle it just fine alone."  
   
Mom then reminded me that my age didn't always mean to stop asking for advice from her. "Kiddo, just because you're 18 doesn't mean that you're completely independent; you still need to come to me with things like this. I know I'm not exactly the best authority when it comes to these kinds of things."  
   
"Your explanation that Ellen on the episode where she came out wanted to be a 'really, really, big best friend' to her future girlfriend proved that well," I noted with a smirk.  
   
"True, but I can't sugarcoat this, this is a big change for you. People are going to look at you differently once they learn who you're kissing; they're going to be judgmental and harsh."  
   
"I know that."  
   
"Though I'm definitely going to be there when you have to come out to Grandma."  
   
 _Thanks for reminding me, trying not to imagine that!_ I smiled a little, thinking about how my grandmother might faint upon hearing who I'm going out with. "See, there's a bright side to this."  
   
"Seriously, we're talking a popcorn, Dots and Coke-worthy outburst. I can just imagine it now, 'But Rory, there are plenty of guys out there, why take a girl?' 'Most of them are jerks and my girlfriend is a walking, talking Cliff Notes, she looks really hot in yellow and black.' 'Claude Birchmont has a good personality and a perfect pedigree and bloodline however, what can you say about Paris?' 'Well she really knows how to lick--'"  
   
I was laughing at her horrible imitation of the both of us, along with her obscene observations "Mom! Oh my God..."  
   
"Oooh, oooh, I also forgot about Taylor, can you imagine her at a town meeting? She'll get on his nerves worse than Luke, citing obscure statutes and 200 year-old laws to make her point!"  
   
"The town meetings have lost a little spice lately since he busied himself with launching his loyalty card program." I shook my head, feeling nervous. "I just hope you're willing to give her a chance. Paris doesn't grate on me as much, you just have to know she does things her own way."  
   
"I know..." Lorelai smiled at me. "You know, hon, I would've never thought of you with her, but really, I can see it, and I should've from the beginning. She's about the only one who can match you conversationally word for word, she's intelligent, and she'll definitely keep you on track." She started to feel contrite for her outburst earlier. "I shouldn't have said she was using you for a grade advantage, I was being a bitch."  
   
"No, you were being a mom," I corrected, still feeling a little guilty. "Paris tried to keep herself under control, but I pushed her into making out with me." Sheepishly, I sighed.  
   
Mom found another opening with that. "So you're trying to be the man in the relationship?"  
   
"Mom!"  
   
Quickly she cleared up why she said that. "I mean the one trying to lead her, make her feel comfortable with everything. It looks like I'll have to calm her down majorly when I get in there and talk to her."  
   
"I had to be careful to make my intentions clear, she's been burned by her dates in the past horribly. She has to talk things out with her psychiatrist at least twice a month and I don't want to do anything that freaks her out."  
   
Mom and I continued to talk for another few minutes about how I found out that I liked girls, and then Paris, as I bared my soul to her. Obviously she asked if anything involving Dad or Max gave me second thoughts about relationships, and I had to assure her that she wasn't to blame for my choices in love. This was all me, a combination of hormones, an iffy history with Dean and Paris's chemistry coming together to form that conclusion. As a protective measure I decided not to mention the pro/con list, hopeful that Paris wouldn't reveal that either. The last thing Mom needed when it came to me was to learn I made romantic decisions via a method comparable to a spreadsheet.  
   
I was able to explain myself with minimal interruption and was finally able to make Mom understand without having any kind of scene develop, and by the end of our talk, she had gone from unsure to pretty understanding with just a bit of protectiveness about us. Still, on the fly I knew that eventually she had to lay down some kind of law, and though there was a sense she could trust me, it for our own good we needed some boundaries, thus some new rules were added to the Gilmore Dating Handbook specifically for Paris and I.  
   
The first rule: I had to keep the door open at all times Paris was in the bedroom. I didn't like it, but I could live with it. Also out the window were any rides in her Porsche and a curfew was laid down for when we had to be home.  
   
"If it's OK with her," she added, "I'd also like her to pay half for snacks whenever we have a movie night."  
   
"I'm sure she'll agree to that, despite her opinion that black licorice tastes better than Red Vines."  
   
Mom voiced her shock over that fact. "Blasphemy, how can she think that?"  
   
"Hey, I'm her girlfriend and I don't understand it." I was laughing about that, as Mom continued with some rules, including Paris having dinner at Luke's once a week, which I'm sure she'd agree to, though Luke might have some major reservations.  
   
"Is that it?" I asked.  
   
"Almost...just one more thing: she has to go in a sleeping bag or the couch if she stays over."  
   
Frowning, I objected to that. "Aw man, she really hates both." But Mom was unyielding, claiming she would eventually get used to either of the uncomfortable surfaces.  
   
 _No need to bring in how she sleeps_ , I thought to myself, knowing I might get deeper if I happened to mention how comfortable my girlfriend's bed was. But thankfully, those were the only rules Mom applied, though she said she'd be flexible if something else came up between us. I was just glad that she understood I meant no harm at all to her with what I was doing, and that I was being as cautious as I could be.  
   
What surprised me was when I told her this, Mom hugged me and then told me not to fret over everything, that she understood that I was going after something that was frowned upon by society, and that I shouldn't have to fear everything that comes up. "Kiddo, really, don't hold back just because I have all of these fears for you, just know what you're doing with this. You know I really can't stop you, but I trust you so much, and if that involves somehow getting close to Paris, then I guess I'll just have to understand that."  
   
"Are you sure?"  
   
"Just be careful, you know how she is."  
   
"Mom, we'll be fine, we've had worse happen to us," I reminded her, noting my bad middle school experiences and her introverted ways, "She has a way with words, and that'll help if someone objects."  
   
"I know, just worried." It was just at that time that my stomach had to grumble, reminding the both of us the first question asked before we got caught. Blushing, I commented that maybe it was time to go get that pizza we all needed.  
   
"Yeah, I think so too. But this time you better go to Joe's, that way Paris and I have time to talk alone."  
   
"Good idea, it might be good for her to focus when I'm not here." Mom took the needed money out from her purse and gave it to me. "I know what we want, and Paris as always has no cheese on her pie."  
   
"Yeah, you kind of remember those things."  
   
I started heading out to the front, but not before being thankful that Lorelai was on my side. "Thanks for understanding all of this Mom. I love you."  
   
"I love you too," she said with a genuine smile. "Thanks for being honest with me and telling me everything. I promise you I'll be the same way with Paris."  
   
"I know you will," I said, and headed out the door to pick up the pizzas, feeling less of a weight on top of my shoulders than I had before I got home. I was glad that Mom was as cool with it as she was, and that she'll be on our side. I wasn't going to break her trust because it was so tentative, but the acceptance was all I wanted, expected, needed.

In the clear November night as I headed downtown, I was glad to be out to Mom. There was a chance for this to build, and she wasn't going to break us apart. My mind was more at ease, my stomach more settled, and relieved, knowing that Lorelai was done attacking Paris, and ending her teasing of the girl. I needed that, and hopefully things would be easier.

Although there was still that image of my brain of Paris' uncovered torso. Damn, it was nice, and I know I shouldn't have looked, but once you get a taste, you can't stop thinking about it. Why I developed a perverted mind around her I'll never know...  


* * *

I made my order at Joe's, and the counter guy told me it would be about twenty minutes for the pizzas to be done, so there was some free time to wile away as I waited for our food. It was dark, but I was in the mood for a walk around the town square, so that's what I did. The cool air made my puffs of breath visible, and I felt a chill in my ears strolling around the area. My mind on was on so many things, including homework and the paper, but mostly it was on Paris.  
   
How was she taking my mom talking to her, and with our discovery, was she going to withdraw and decide to delay telling Mrs. Gellar? I'm not pushing her at all and she can tell her when she's ready. Even so, to have who she probably regards as 'the cool mom' decide to jump to conclusions and go with a theory she wanted me for my grades, I could sense that she went to having some confidence about outing herself to her mom to feeling that guilt that comes back when she does something wrong. I know she withdraws into herself and I have to draw her back out, and that she's very nervous about everything that's come with this so far.  
   
But I keep thinking about the weekend, and that maybe she was playing a tease on purpose with me, what with the texting and showing off her dress, she was feeling ready to come out to play a little more, push things a little further. I really can't explain how she would go braless on purpose out here to town; I know she's told me she hates her confining bras, but she seems to revel in the attention I give her when she's in something that pushes up her goods into something that gives me a good view. Besides, her friend is Louise Grant, flirt extraordinaire; she's had to take at least one hint from that girl to keep me hook, line, and sinker.  
   
She was playing with me this weekend, and she knew it. But Mom was about to ruin that progress and I thought that somehow she'd try to encourage Par to be a little more restrained when it came to us, maybe go back to clothes not showing off her figure and being the complacent society girl once again.  
   
I already had that type of partner though in Dean. If I wanted that I wouldn't have tried anything with Paris. I want her to flirt, to be a tease, known only to me for having a wild side. Her Porsche, the way her legs look in a leather skirt, the way that drone of hers just makes me wish her voice could be transferred into the form of perfect vibrations that in the right place could make me wet. The way she says my full name when I'm in a spot of trouble with her, she yells it out and suddenly I feel like the naughty little girl who put the whoopee cushion under teacher's seat, getting a nice little thrill out of what I did.  
   
And no, that isn't my inner vixen talking, that's all me, wanting to be naughty. Within moments it was translating Lorelai's rules speech into my head, and that vixen was trying to find the many, many loopholes that weren't closed and will probably not be known by her unless someone calls her and tells on us. Not to be cocky, but I think that most everyone finds us both innocent, they wouldn't consider us sexually in any kind of way. Do they even realize that most of us smarties usually read many books a month, and that some of them just might get our blood pumping? Also, you have to consider the many aspects of academic competition, spending hours upon hours with eyes strained in front of computer terminals, microfilm readers, trying to build our arguments or a story with past references in _The Franklin_. The rare opportunity to see Paris' face light up as she finds something that will be the dagger to win a debate, her bright look as she describes in a frenzy that this will have Bridgeport East quaking where they stand.  
   
 _You thought she was giddy after winning a debate last year, imagine her with you to 'celebrate' a win!_ I warmed at that very thought and felt a smile creep on my face. Then I lost my concentration for a moment, and before I knew it I felt myself crash into something as I thought of my girl thanking me for victory.  
   
Dazed, I tried to get my bearings, and thought I bashed myself into something like a fruit cart or a bench. The impact was soft however, so I immediately ruled them out upon looking up to see Miss Patty looking down at me with a smirk on her face and a twinkle in her eye.  
   
"Careful there, honey, the next time you'll meet a Beetle if you don't keep your wits about you." I smacked myself on the forehead and started to apologize for getting in her way.  
   
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, Miss Patty, I didn't see you coming, uh...hi."  
   
"Hello Rory," she drawled. "What's got you out here on such a beautiful night?"  
   
"Just waiting for sustenance. Mom sent me out to pick up pizza for her and I..." _Should I share that she knows?_ I thought, trying to wonder if it was a good opportunity to broach it. There wasn't anyone around and both Patty and I were close to the depot, but I never know in this town. Still, it wasn't like everyone in town cared, so what the heck? "...Paris is there too, so we're getting her something."  
   
"I'm sure she is," she responded back with a knowing look. "You two are really working out well, aren't you?"  
   
"Yeah." I was so on-edge. There had to be some way to keep the conversation vague and with veiled entendres. "She's really helpful lately, keeping my grades in line, I needed that help."  
   
"Anything getting in your way? I see that Dean hasn't been doing that well since things ended."  
   
I think she was trying to help me keep things low. "Nothing out of the ordinary. As for Dean, I wouldn't know anything." I could be truthful there, I tried to avoid the market whenever possible, Dean so set in his ways that I had his schedule memorized. I specifically told Lane not to mention him at all in conversation, and the few times I had seen him it looked like all the wind had been sucked out of him. I could feel a little sympathy for him, but I've thrown myself so into Paris that I don't even give it a second thought.  
   
"How is she doing?" Patty asked.  
   
Shrugging, I described the weekend and how tough it was on the both of us. "She was stuck in the middle of a hell party and just hated it."  
   
"I'm sure you kept her entertained," she said with a hint of mischief. All I could do within the public setting is knowingly smile and mention how thankful I was for modern technology like cameraphones and quick text messaging. Still, even trying my best to hide things, she could sense that there was something up that I was retrieving pizza instead of waiting for it to be delivered.

She put her hand my shoulder and comforted me. "Dear, come on, I know why you're here."  
   
"No, just getting pizza," I lied, shrugging it off. "Sometimes it's good to get exercise before you load yourself all full of junk food and candy."  
   
"You never pick up your pizza though, I know all." Damn, Miss Patty really does have a photographic memory. "Now really, what's a girl like you doing out at a time like this?"  
   
Shrugging, I felt a little weighted from what I was holding back, and I had to say something. "Could we...I'm trying to burn off some time until I have to pick up the pizzas." I pointed towards the depot down the street to hold off any insinuation of 'we need to talk' aloud. It didn't take the older woman long to realize that what I had to say wasn't town business.  
   
"Of course." She nodded, and both of us walked towards and into the dance studio, where she shut the door quickly and made sure there wasn't a stray student or townsperson in the building to eavesdrop in on us. I think I sort of looked downtrodden and exhausted from having to pour my heart out and defend Paris.  
   
Why, even after talking things out with Lorelai and being assured that she was going to learn to live with it, did I feel like a bad child who shouldn't have tried to do what I did in the first place? I felt shamed because of the way that we got caught and I still felt a minor buzz of arousal all the way through. I didn't need Miss Patty to understand the fact that I was caught, but that I was uneasy about trying to stay chaste when I wanted more.  
   
After she asked what happened, I came out with it right away.  
   
"We got caught, Paris and I."  
   
"Ahh," she exclaims, almost like she expected it. "I thought you were going to tell her."  
   
"In two weeks I was, she was too." I shook my head. "But reality had other plans."  
   
"She didn't walk in on you two...intimate, did she?"  
   
"Thank God no, but we were making out on my bed, Paris was on top, and it was pretty clear." I told Patty about everything, the defending, the talk afterward, the fear that Paris was going to shy away from me once again.  
   
Miss Patty found it funny, and after I was done, told me she thought it was one of the few ways besides a confession she knew I was going to come out to my mom. She compared it to her own teenage years back in Cuba, where her father happened to discover her with the local town smart guy as she was trying to...let's say give him some experience. That's what I love about her, no matter what year she's in, Miss Patty always proves that she's never lead a boring life.  
   
Both of us talked in serious terms for a while, her assuring me that she knew Lorelai would eventually warm up to everything, and that Paris will settle down too. I thought the same way, and I was just so thankful that the first person to know about us helped to calm me down.  
   
After some more talking though, I could tell that Miss Patty was in digging mode, getting inquisitive with her questions. "So, how soft are Paris' hands when she's touching you?"  
   
"I...I'm not sure how to answer that," I stumbled out.  
   
"Child, she seems like she's quite fierce, I can see it in your eyes." She smiled at me, and my mouth dropped open.  
   
"What do you mean?"  
   
"Rory dear, you look like you were rudely interrupted in the middle of having an intimate moment."

"How can you tell that?" I wondered.  
   
"Just the way you're sitting, it shows, you're edgy, like you need to finish yourself off or have a cigarette." She laughed as I got a sense of how I was sitting exactly. Usually I feel relaxed and calm, but instead I had my legs clenched together, my fingernails running in the grain of the wooden folding chair. I could still feel my face flare with embarrassment long after it should've faded, and my mind was secondarily occupied with Mom and Paris at the house, imagining a situation where my girlfriend was being nervous and combative.  
   
"I shouldn't be doing anything with her so fast," I said to her, trying to explain my state. "It's just she looked so cute and I was looking at her all night, and she's so beautiful, but we should be focusing on work."  
   
Smirking, she reminded me of my mindset when Paris had the idea to begin with. "Well that's why it's called a study date, isn't it?"  
   
"Yeah, but it should be more study than date!" I threw my hands up high, spreading them out. "I tried to keep in control of my hormones and just think seriously, but she's laying on that bed wearing those jeans and that shirt playing peek-a-boo with me, and it took all I had not to just plain jump her!"  
   
"You did it slowly then, the excuse of a massage that turned into more?"  
   
"Mm-hmm, and it worked...at least until Mom got there." I squeaked my sneaker against the wood floor, feeling my frustrations build up again. "I didn't even know I was undressing her and suddenly I'm looking at her top slipping off, all because of my hand. I didn't know, but at the same time, my body wanted more and I'm just...just...you know, like a bottle under pressure and I just want to release the tension."  
   
"Basically," Patty theorized, "you want more, but you don't want Lorelai to catch on too fast."  
   
"It's silly, I know, but appearances are everything." I gritted my teeth, trying to explain. "I imagined all of this over months and months, and now that it's a reality I keep forgetting that I'm two years older, yet I'm the school's Mary, and my mother's daughter. I can't get out of that, and now that I'm the one initiating everything, I have to figure out how to tear myself from those labels." I wryly frowned.  
   
Miss Patty, ever the sexually-minded woman, listened to all I had to say with open ears and a good heart, all I had to say. I just wanted to be back with Paris again, and being pulled away was just screwing me up. She saw that, and started to give me advice about things.  
   
"Don't do anything about the labels, no one knows anyways. You should get your kicks in when you can, and slowly, Lorelai will realize that your dear girl isn't a threat and let you do more."  
   
"What do you mean?" I was wondering what she exactly meant.  
   
"You're going back home and Paris is joining you to watch a movie, right?" I nodded. "There you go, you'll get unwound then."  
   
"You're kidding, right?" The woman was sounding crazy to me. "Patty, my mom will be in the same room, watching us like hawks!"  
   
"She doesn't have x-ray vision though, and you're one to use a blanket to keep yourself warm."  
   
Now I knew what she was hinting at, trying to sneak things. Still I was uneasy about doing that. "I'd be breaking her rules though."

"What are they?"

"Pretty much don't do anything in front of her?"  
   
"Then you'll be fine, just flirt with Paris beneath the blanket, and whisper. Trust me dear, I think she's just as frustrated with things; she'll want it." She ran her hand along my shoulder and patted it down. "You're doing fine, but you just gotta keep those wandering eyes away from the both of you."  
   
"Yeah." I smiled again at her, still a little nervous about how I'd pull off hidden flirting. "I just hope that she's open to it."  
   
"You know she will be," Patty assured me as we talked a little more while I waited for the pizzas. It took my mind off things, and thankfully she offered much more advice than I really needed to show Paris discovery wasn't going to be the end of things between us, it's only the beginning.  
   
 _You should be so thankful that Miss Patty was the one to find out first_ , I thought to myself after saying goodbye to her and heading back to Joe's for the pizza. _Imagine if Taylor had discovered you two.  
   
_"Shut up," I told myself; I wasn't going there. The only thing I knew was that Paris and I were still together, my Mom was telling her it was OK, and a movie night with a bad flick ahead for all three of us.  
   
Maybe a little rule-breaking too, along with other things...  


* * *

"Babe? Rory? Hey, the film's almost over, it's time for Rapunzel to get back to her evil mother in Hartford." I felt a shaking against my shoulder, trying to get comfy with what I thought was a pillow. I opened up my eyes slowly, trying to let the light shock filter slowly. I had no idea where I was, much less what time it was.  
   
"I'm sorry, I'd stay a little longer, but she's getting worried, Ror." Another voice, only this one I recognized from my dream moments before.  
   
"Wha---what's happening?" I finally woke up, and realized that the 'pillow' I lay my head on wasn't that.  
   
The itching should've tipped me off, along with the fuzz and static cling in my hair. I looked up to find Paris' gazing down at me.  
   
"You fell asleep about the time the events started building. It was definitely god-awful, as your mom promised."  
   
"Oh, in the movie, right." I rubbed the sleep out, realizing then that I had fallen asleep nuzzling against Paris's shoulder. "But I usually can watch it all without getting bored."  
   
"It wasn't the boredom, kiddo," my mom interjected, "you didn't get much sleep over the weekend and it's just catching up with you." The all-nighter I pulled on Sunday night to review my classes for today suddenly seemed like a bad idea. I tried to bring myself up, but I then realized that before I started my nap, playing with each other beneath the blanket caused two things to happen, one of them being that my arm was stung numb from draping it across Paris' back, and then placing my hand at the side of her waist. Both of us were beyond relaxed and comfortable.  
   
Of course, what she exactly did to get me into that state was what really got me to fall asleep. Her hand was still against my thigh. Now regularly, that's not a problem, all lovers do that, right?

That hand, however, was spread all along my jeaned flesh, with her pinky finger still in the unzipped area of my pants, alternating between playing with the denim, and then the zipper, and finally the now cool cotton beneath dampened by my wetness. Both of us had taken Miss Patty's advice and played beneath the blanket. I went with pawing her up without Mom noticing, while Paris decided to go lower. At first it was tentative and I felt Lorelai's gaze weigh upon me, Paris playing with my jeans zipper and pushing the hem of my sweatshirt up as she took advantage of my wanting state.  
   
Eventually with each touch softer and softer, wandering along my sides, belly, and then lower than that, I collapsed against her and fell asleep, waking up with several popcorn kernels uncomfortably down my shirt, dropped in a drowsy attempt at eating. Some of them ended up in my bra even.  
   
Paris, however, didn't dare disturb me, nor did she leave until she absolutely had to. There she was, still looking at me like she was awed at even being near me.  
   
"Hey," she murmured softly. Without a second thought, she kissed my forehead. I was stunned she did that, and though I darted my look towards mom, by then she was on her way to the kitchen, pizza boxes in hand to put in the mud room for recycling.  
   
"Hello, are you mad?"  
   
"About you falling asleep? Of course not, we have to catch rest when we can sometimes. But I should've listened to you earlier and went with a sweatshirt, your face looks like a rash broke out." Laughing, her thumb ran along the texture of my face, temporarily patterned with the wool shapes of her sweater. "Besides, after this day you definitely needed some quiet time away from me."  
   
"But I wanted to spend more time with you...awake." I felt sad since I wouldn't have the usual five days this week to be with her, only 3 1/2 before Wednesday afternoon, when she had to join the Thanksgiving rush and catch a flight with Sharon to Daytona Beach, where she'd spend the holiday weekend with her hated maternal relatives.  
   
"You defended me today, hon, you deserve to rest," she said softly, her face covered with a slight smirk. "I should really thank you for dealing with your mom in that way, I didn't know how she'd accept it, especially after I panicked and she threw all those accusations at me." I just shrugged; I did it for the sake of defending her as my girlfriend, it was something I'd do for anyone, really.  
   
"I didn't really do all that much, I just stated my case and hoped that would be enough."  
   
"God, you're so modest...and stubborn." She pushed me up, and I was able to get my zipper back up as she told me exactly what my confession meant to her. "I was ready to give everything up, but you just jumped right in and stopped me from self-destructing, you don't know how thankful I am you turned this around."  
   
"Hey," I soothed, settling a hand onto hers. "you're my girlfriend, and we need to get through this all together, so don't start doubting yourself now. You certainly haven't before at all, you stubborn mule." Her eyes squinted for a moment as she gave me a warning glare and a gritted out 'Rory!' in jest. Both of us got up and kept our eye contact strong.  
   
"Yes, but this isn't a test score, this is real life," she said softly. "Ms. LaCosta and your mother are fine with us, but that was to be expected. We still have so many people to convince that we're a couple and we mean no harm."  
   
"One at a time, that's how we do it." I scratched the nail of my thumb inside of her palm. "This wasn't the perfect time to come out, but better that we have it out of the way, because now you have a place to go to when things get too rough at home."  
   
"Really? You're sure about that?" Paris smiled and I nodded.  
   
"You're coming here once a week anyways per my mom, but I definitely want to see you more often than that."  
   
"Me too." I felt silly staring at Paris the way I did, and I'm sure she felt out-of-body, the both of us falling so fast, and already breaking my mom's rules despite her insistence. "It's too bad I'm stuck in Florida this weekend; I was looking forward to the both of us at the Civic Center serving for the Hartford Mission Dinner Thursday morning." I could tell how depressed she was about it, for it was one of Paris' favorite ways to show her compassion for the community. "This year I was finally going to get turkey and gravy duty. I've moved up the totem from pumpkin pie since I was eleven."  
   
"Maybe next year?" I wondered, hopeful.  
   
"I'm not sure, they usually try to go for new blood after high school graduation." She sighed, trying to push her bitterness down. "I guess I'll live with it, though the Pats better win in Detroit, otherwise the whole day's a loss for me."  
   
I assured her that I was going to make it bright somehow. "I'll call, I promise."

"And I'll know, silently, my phone has a vibration function, along with software to make it ring or shake however I want."  
   
"Oh yeah?" Curiously, I wondered exactly what I was under. "Please tell me you don't have me under the chorus for _Along Comes Mary_." Always nice to make yet another dent in that nickname Tristan gave me so long ago, but is quickly becoming untrue.  
   
"That's a good one, I'll have to remember that for when I get bored. But for now, it's simpler than that," she told me, "just your name in Morse code, ROR, both in vibrating and audible form. Everyone else thinks it's just my calendar reminder, and they don't suspect a thing."  
   
I was awed by that simple touch of cuteness on her part, being saluted in such a secretive way. "And they say languages are dead, you're still putting it to use quite well there."  
   
"I have to admit, you've softened me, Gilmore; everyone else except Daddy, the girls, and my Harvard assistant get the default, but for you, I can make an exception." Both of us got up as my mom came back into the living room.  
   
"So," she directed her attention at Paris, "you had fun."  
   
Paris nodded affirmatively, the tightness in her voice gone from hours before. "I really enjoyed the movie, Ms. Gilmore."  
   
"You're never going to call me by my first name, are you?" Lorelai shook her head, smirking.  
   
"One day, but for now, I'm minding my manners." Her messenger bag was at the side of the couch, and she slid it onto her shoulder. "I'm sorry again for the way I reacted...just stress and all." Her apology was genuine, and Mom was pleased to hear it, smiling at the girl before letting us both head for the foyer for our goodbyes.  
   
"It's OK, I should be apologizing for the same thing. Who knows, maybe one day we'll both look back on this and laugh, and laugh, and laugh." She approached the both of us, and stood near Paris, trying to make her as comfortable as can be. "I'm still recovering from this, but really, you have a place to come here if you ever have any problems at home. We're not going to turn you away Paris. I'm trusting you with my daughter there," she then pointed at me, "and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable with me, I'm cool. Like a cucumber. In Arctic ice with a cherry on top and a penguin adding it to his glass for a saltwater cocktail--"  
   
"Mom, I think she gets it," I interrupted, trying to get Paris home before Sharon blows a gasket. Unfortunately, this led to the true beginning of the 'Paris and Rory like each other' teasing I know will be a new routine with her.  
   
"Oh boy, someone wants to pucker up! You better watch out, Paris, she's hot for you!" She giggled like a schoolgirl at her own joke, her sense of humor so warmed. She expected Paris to laugh, but instead my girl gave off a blank stare.  
   
"Uhh, all right then, apparently you're both too tired to make a comeback." She finished off on a more serious note. "Drive safely then. Goodnight Paris."  
   
"Thank you, Ms. Gilmore, and please, keep that film hidden out of my sight." She shyly smiled, and Mom went back to the kitchen for more popcorn as I showed Paris to the door, the both of us still happy about how everything turned out. I placed my hand on the doorknob and watched Paris slide her arms through her jacket as she put it on.  
   
"Do you feel better about your chances with everything?" I asked, enveloping her college interview within the coming out and acceptance concerns.  
   
"I felt doubts ease tonight; this was a great idea, Gilmore. Thanks a lot for everything, I'll go over my answers on the tape and construct replies from there."  
   
"Anything to help," I confirmed. "Now we just have to get you over these unfounded _Wizard of Oz_ fears." I grinned as she rolled her eyes. "Come on, it's a very sweet movie."  
   
Leave it to my favorite classmate to ruin the magic of a film like that for me, forever. "It's a commentary on the incompetence of municipal politics, bad road design and messy ethnic relations between several groups of citizens. You really haven't thought about how maybe the Wicked Witches felt abused by the system tilted towards the needs of those damned little people and that Emerald City? She's an anachronistic woman stuck in her own ways as the Yellow Brick Road goes through her backyard while four disparate wanderers hope some nut job with fancy special effects can make their dreams come true and plot to bring her down. And then Dorothy, playing her 'cute card' to get out of the fact her house squashed the Wicked Witch of the East! She should've been tied up for weeks in the Munchkinland Police Department filing paperwork..."  
   
 _Oh dear, she's going to run out of oxygen_ , I thought as she went on with her theories. Once she got to her 'Buddy Ebsen's Tin Man makeup was sabotaged' theory, I noticed just how fired up she was, her brow furrowed up, mouth looking so delectable around those plump pink lips, and how hot her voice sounded deep in a silly pop culture argument. I felt my heart speed up, blood pumping faster.  
   
Yes, I was getting turned on by her anger, and loving all of the points she kept shooting at me. I loved seeing her this way, all flustered and passionate, but she had to get going soon, unless she liked Sharon grounding her for a week for 'worrying her'.  
   
"Paris, you do realize that you're applying real world politics to a fictional world," I argued. "Whatever Baum had in his head, who cares, it's a great book and film."  
   
"It is not..." I knew one way to win this argument, and it wasn't going to be with words. Keeping all of my attention on her, I gave her another once-over, and decided to make her want to get home...really fast.  
   
"You might be scared of the movie," I whispered softly, wrapping my arms at her waist, "but you know that Dorothy in that gingham dress gets you hot." Bringing her closer to me, I laid a quick peck against her lip.  
   
"What do you mean?" she asked. "How do I think of her sexually?"  
   
"Oh, not her, the character, or Judy Garland. You don't remember my talking about the Halloween Festival here last year during a lunch talk, do you?"  
   
Naturally she was confused about my sudden tangent. "Am I supposed to remember that?"  
   
"You probably should've, considering you excused yourself to the restroom after I told you my costume choice." I nipped at her lip once again. "I was Dorothy last year, remember? I have the perfect All-American looks to pass for her, so I decided what the heck, let's go as that. Dean was a scarecrow, but wearing a straw hat and overalls just didn't put him into character that much, he sucked."  
   
Slowly, I brought an arm up along her side as she gritted her teeth, trying to remember the details. "Isn't it appropriate for a small-town girl like me to go as a small-town girl after all? The day after, I describe the costume at lunch to you and Maddy, how it fit perfectly, Mom's design of the ruby slippers was a dead-ringer, how it was fun to go around town with tons of candy in my basket."  
   
"Rory--" her monotone was a shriek, and I felt her body react as I moved that hand higher and higher, pushing aside the jacket.  
   
"You can admit it to me, don't feel shy. You go to bed, and you recall that memory of me describing my costume, thinking of me as a Dorothy, wanting me, to corrupt me further. Because I have..." I cupped a hand along the bottom of her breast. "I remember thinking of that months later, the day after we won the election, my mind a jumble because of Jess. I got my mind off my kiss with him by thinking of you, how I felt. Your nicknames for me, like farm girl, Dixie Chick, Pollyanna, Fairest of the Fair--"  
   
"I never called you that last one," she interjected, a creaky voice betraying her.  
   
"No, but I know you've thought it. I know you probably think of me by every Disney princess name except for Jasmine and Ariel because I don't like showing off my belly and I'd make a hideous redhead. You've always thought of me as innocent before we came together." I bent down and kissed her softly, letting my tongue drift along her inside lips, her vanilla tinged taste returning to my memory once again. She fell into me and I shifted my other hand towards her rear. Paris was enjoying what I was doing to her, no matter that it was driving her up a wall.  
   
I let the kiss fall apart slowly, looking at her deep, lusty glare, her mind spinning with everything under the sun. I brought her back towards where I was going. "You know when we were playing tonight, that was on purpose, right? That I'd like to get to know you more intimately?"

"Uh-huh." She sounded like she had to ask permission of a teacher to go further with me.  
   
"Suffice to say, I imagine you in the worst ways possible, and get off to them. I got off to the thought of you dressing me down to nothing but ruby slippers, and I know that you get wet at trying to take my innocence." She inhaled a breath.  
   
"Maybe a couple times I dreamed of it..." she wandered off, looking at me, her legs suddenly seeming to quake. "Or one afternoon I visualized it."  
   
I smiled, glad to get it out of her. "I knew you did, Par." I used the three fingers of my right hand to play around with the soft flesh of her breast, obscured by the sweater and cami. "Which is why I relish every layer I see you out of." She couldn't respond as my index fingerprint made contact with her prone nipple. "Getting caught made me hot, and watching you with that shirt down is leaving me with a deeper want for you, it just stirred me up in the right way."  
   
"What if you get caught now though?" she asked, my nail rubbing around the flesh. "God, that feels nice."  
   
"If we are, we'll deal, but what she doesn't know can't hurt her." I kissed her one more time. "My mind has been haunted by you for months, and darned if I'm going to restrict myself to just kissing and making out. I've thought of you sexually, you have too, and we can't go back from there, right?"  
   
"Nope."  
   
"My mom will be fine, she'll come around, as long as you relax. But for now, don't let anything stop you from thinking about me the way you do, including rules. I like you Paris, and I'm not going to stop anytime soon." I smiled, and let her go, watching her ease from my grip, feeling wound up, her face burning up from my insinuations. Man, I just love getting her this way, it throws her off, but I know she loves it. She slid her jacket back on and readjusted her bag strap, brushing some stray hair from her face.  
   
She told me how much she appreciated my flirting. "I just still can't believe your mom is OK with us. It's strange to be like this, in a relationship, being accepted. Not all the way, obviously, but my foot's in the door."  
   
I nodded back. "I'll push you in further, I promise."  
   
"I know you will, just be careful."  
   
"I will be," I said.  
   
"Good. I'll see you early in the morning, don't forget to look over some of the ads on the _Franklin_ intranet, I have a few I'm wavering on as far as design."  
   
"I won't, I hope you have a good night."  
   
"You too, Gilmore." She flashed her smile one last time and prepared to leave as I looked at her, wanting just a few more minutes more with that beguiling woman who's come to make my life a whirlwind the last three weeks. Again my heart felt a letdown like coming off a caffeine high, and I savored the taste of her last kiss in my mouth as I turned around, hearing the lockset turn when she opened the door.  
   
I was about to come back into the living room...  
   
"Hey, you know what?" Paris' voice went into a sharp tone, the way she said something on her toes. I stopped in my tracks, turning back around to face her holding the door open with her shoe, her deep dark eyes filled with realization.  
   
"Huh?" I thought she'd say something about a topic she just came up with as far as her interview questions. Looking both ways and seeing Mom wasn't back in the living room yet, she called me over to the door, beckoning me in for a whisper. "What popped into your mind?" I asked.  
   
"I am scared of the film," she confessed, "everything I said in front of Lorelai is true as far as that. But sometimes I have role-play fantasies in my mind." She was slow to come out with her admission, flustered to confess. "One of the most common ones I have is indeed, you as a certain Kansas fictional heroine, and I visualize you so perfectly, down to the ruby slippers, the hairdo, and that gingham dress." She shuts the door just enough to keep it open but not have anyone peek into the house. "And then I work myself off divesting you of each article and the period-appropriate underwear beneath, most likely obtained via the Sears catalog."  
   
"Oh my God," my voice groans in want, and I feel her lips brush against my earlobe.  
   
"Since I don't think of myself as a good Good Witch and the Wicked Witch guise isn't enjoyable, I usually think of myself as...and you're going to laugh at this."  
   
"No, I'm not," I promised. _What could she be?_ I thought, unable to connect her to a female counterpart to the scarecrow, tin man, or lion. She brought her mouth down to the bottom of my earlobe, and slid her tongue along the soft, sensitive flesh, sliding her lips down and folding it between them.  
   
"Since I have a short height, I believe myself as a Munchkin...and a high-standing member of the Lollipop Guild who happens to have a thing for heroines swept in by cyclones." Her voice deepens, she nips at my earlobe, and then..."The difference is, I **really** love to lick sweets, enjoy lollipops to a high extreme..." Her hand brushed my upper thigh, then towards my butt. "...along with a inclination towards brunettes tasting of coffee and Red Vines. You know me, I enjoy working my mouth all the time, be it at work..." her teeth graze down the earlobe before she releases it. "...or play."  
   
I kept myself in very tight rein of my body, even though all Paris's sexy words were getting to me. I was hot...and she knew she was getting in that all important last word before she had to leave. _She took your home field advantage_ , my vixen noted, _and cornered you hard_. She released me, and gave off her secret smile at me as she looked at me dead on, her cheeks standing out and making her seem so invincible.  
   
I'm supposed to be the expert on this relationship, but she's trying to equal the tables. There Paris was, leaving me a mess. Hours and hours of chaos, and she leaves me thinking of her going down on me in full costume, trying to find out what 'click your heels three times and have an orgasm' would cause from the ruby slippers.  
   
"Goodnight, Rory." Her last words were a singsong taunt, her last action a quick kiss as I failed to respond to what she just planted in the front of my brain. I watched shell-shocked as the door shut, and she left me behind, a want to get myself off planted in my mind.  
   
Turnabout's fair play I suppose; I give her the fuel that I find her getting off to me hot, and she tells me about a deep, dark fantasy she carries and will never tell anyone. I expected her to react, but not to turn the tables on me!  
   
 _You better go and take care of that itch, Rory, you know you want to!_ To top it all off, let my inner vixen butt in and remind me that I was soaking from her close contact and perfectly selected words, and all I can think is _Damn you, Paris...no matter how much I like you, there are just times where you can just get me fired up in the worst way possible!  
   
_Really, damn her, for having such great verbal skills, limitless income, a way of winning everything she eyes up, and to have a body like hers that I'm slowly puzzling together, along with her saliva still cooling my earlobe...  
   
I stood there in the hall as Mom came back into the living room, totally lost. She tried to make conversation with me, but all I could do is nod back, listening to her ramble on about my newfound sexuality as I nodded, 'yeah'ed, 'Yes, Mom'ed and 'mm-hmm'ed my way through it, agreeing with such observations as the dance marathon, Paris' completive demeanor getting me riled up, how I'm attracted her bad girl side with the cars and wine, the things I've gone over in my mind many, many times before. Nodding and agreeing, all I could think about through the fifteen minutes was that my bed was calling my name, and it smelled of my girlfriend, contained her hair strands on the pillow, and I needed to indulge myself.  
   
I made some effort to conversate eventually, and she got to a part where she said she still loved me with all she had and would accept me, no matter what. I love my mom, but sometimes her long monologues really get in the way of what I want to do, you know? Finally I yawned, and it was then that Mom noted my tired state.  
   
"It's been a long day, kiddo, you should head off to bed," she said.  
   
"Yeah, I need it," I said back. "I'm glad everything is fine at least."  
   
"You'll both be fine, Rory, just keep things a secret for now, OK?"  
   
"We're not saying anything to anyone else for two weeks." Both of us then went to our bedtime routines after hugs and kisses, and I could go to bed, relieved that I wasn't the 'wrong way' when it came to who I was attracted to.  
   
Maybe not right to bed of course...

Looking out the window as I lay in my bed now, two hours after Paris left and I was able to get in some muted alone time, I feel so tired as I find my mind going over tonight over and over again, my body so relaxed after indulging in getting myself off. My eyes are weighed down with sleep, but I feel much better about indulging in my body in my own bed.  
   
A few weeks before I would've been afraid to, from what I thought was a fear of being caught masturbating by my mom or even someone else. I didn't even try to do anything, preferring the shower to get off to any thought of Dean touching me sexually.  
   
These days however, I theorize that literally I needed to put a damper on my sexual fulfillment, because I never could create enough fantasy material with Dean to keep me satisfied. For some reason I could never think of him coming to Chilton and taking me in the school uniform, nor in a place that you'd think would get me all wound up, the checkout stand at Taylor's. I thought about it once in my dreams, but woke up freaked out by it since his clumsy hands ended up activating the conveyor belt, which ended with me waking up as my skirt, and in turn my butt got sucked in. I'll spare you the further gruesomeness from there, but you can see that my imagination for getting myself off was quite limited with Dean. Either the setting was too dirty (the garage at his house), too noisy (his house), or else was interrupted constantly (remember Clara? She butted in **every** time!).  
   
I feel less shy however around Paris as far as settings, and once I got into my room and dressed down to my underwear, I started thinking about Paris' _Oz_ fantasy, but without her there I thought it a little disappointing for her not to be able to bring it to life. Instead, I decided to dream about what may have happened had Mom not walked in on us, how both of us would've eventually stripped to panties and undershirts. I let my mind wander around the image of myself taking off Paris' camisole, remembering the image of her exposed naked breast now burned into my mind. She comes back through the stripped shirt, tossing it off to the side, her long silken locks making the view of her breasts as if having to part a transparent curtain. I think of her that way and I feel an air of mystery build up inside of me.  
   
My hands, I thought of them as hers, caressing my body like a tuned instrument, fingers at the underside of my small breasts above my tank top, and then a brush of her fingers along my nipples.  
   
"You know, you'd be a very good heroine, the way you look reminds me of a younger and brunette Linda Hamilton." The only person to make _Terminator 2_ watchable (damn it, the only reason I watched anyway was because of Mom's strange Edward Furlong crush of 1999!) came into my head, and I felt myself respond more and more. I turn off the bedroom light, going by feel and darkness to make the fantasy more realistic. She tops me, and I gasp as I brush a hand against my dampness, still obscured by my panties.  
   
"You want me so bad, Paris, I know you want me, please." I talk to myself, using my mind to construct responses by DreamParis. Her hands brush up my sides to take off my shirt, freeing my breasts, sore with arousal and want of her attention. Then she kisses me hard, not relenting or making the kisses romantic, these are hard, blood-boiling kisses, designed to get me wetter and wetter.  
   
I keep the fantasy boiling, wandering my fingers to only work my pussy for short periods of time, just enough to get me in the mood, build up the sensitivity. I'm breathing heavily, my body cooling from the building sweat. I play with my breasts, cupping them in my hands, and then I dare her to make me scream. I haven't had such a hard cum before, and the flirting has built up through the night, I'm ready to get off.  
   
Pushing the duvet off my bed with my feet, I arch against the headboard, trying to get into the perfect self-fuck position. I think of her straddling me, commanding me that she **will** be on top in that deep foreboding voice that has such a command to it when she asks me to do something immediately. Her hand brushes against my pussy in a tortuous way, finding my clit and brushing it through the far ruined cotton soaked deeply with my want of her. I hyperventilate, tightening my mouth to hold back a strangled scream. My nose mixes in the scent of her shampoo, still strong on the pillow beneath my bed, and the raw aroma from my body, provoked and tightened, ready for her to bring me off.  
   
I continue to groan, and then I hiss as I push the material aside strongly to expose my lips, so strong I hear a slight tearing sound and feel it loose in my grip. The air cools me down, but at the same time makes me gasp as my fantasy shows Paris kissing down from my belly until she's facing my clit, engorged with blood. Honestly, I can say that it felt like there was a weight down there all night with each provocation as she caressed and played down there. I felt myself tighten up as I tentatively brushed two fingers softly against my lips, and then down to my clitoris. They were wettened with my saliva, as I hoped to have a reasonable reenactment of her going down on me.  
   
"Oh God!" I had a lot of pressure built within. "Give me more baby, oh God, you're so wonderful." I speeded the pace, my other hand at my belly, wandering up towards my boobs. My nipples were pointed straight, the first time that's happened in months. My teeth bit my lip and I worked my hand, trying to open myself as much as possible without breaking open. I thrust my hand in and out my vagina, and then back to front along my clit, trying to find just the right place to get myself to cum. My eyes closed tight around me, and my voice deepened with every thrust, my hair fargone also.  
   
"Get me off, Par, get me off now, keep doing that." I opened my legs a little more, the mattress shifting below me and my ass bouncing on and off with it as I tried to get each new thrust in. In the middle I made a mental note to myself that I might need to get something to push the orgasm further next time, but for now my trusty lil' hand would have to do.  
   
I thought in my mind vividly of Paris's head in my hands, her hair tangled through, and my feet clenching her body at the waist to bring her tongue in closer to me. I moaned lowly, feeling the beginnings of the orgasm build. "Ehhhuggh, ehhhugggh, ehhhugggh..." I lost control of my voice, my body only focused on getting myself off.  
   
I then think of Paris humming, bringing the vibrations from her tongue, remembering how sexy I found it she hmmm'ed.  
   
Oh man, that really did it for me. I started stroking faster and faster, my mind thinking of the humming, and I started to convulse a bit, having to push my free hand from my breasts and onto the side of the mattress. I arched back further, a few inches off the bed, pushing the panty material further off to the side as my clit retracted with each bit of stimulation. I 'mmmmm'ed through it as I started reaching the hilt, cursing a little and crying Paris' name softly into the night, my eyes wrenched as my body felt so tight.  
   
Faster...faster...faster. I saw her tongue flicking my clit, no regards to slowness, her breasts doing a little bounce as her head worked up and down. I reddened, my lips tight as I tried to keep myself silent. "Oh fuck...please, please, please, mmmmmm, yes, yes, yes...oh Par...Par...yeah sweetie, make me cum, yeaaaaahhh..."  
   
I was reaching a point, my eyes tearing up, oh Jesus Christ! My head pushed into the headboard as far as I could go, my toes gripping the end of the mattress so I wouldn't fall off, I looked really weird I'm sure. I felt the hair tangle up within my grasp with each thrust, and then I pulled softly at my clit.  
   
"Shit!!" That was doing it, doing it very well. I pushed further and further, trying to get off faster and faster, and it was working, the feeling going all through my bones. Paris below me, my hand was joining in on stimulation. Oh God, that was wonderful, and I started to feel the pleasant feeling in my tummy going through me. I stroked further and further, and more and more, the little button stinging even more pleasantly with each rub...  
   
"OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!!" Then before I could realize it, I was at my peek, and I started to feel my pussy convulse with release, I started coming and really hard, thinking of Paris getting in two good last licks. I grabbed the sheet to the side of me and pushed it against my mouth to scream into it. Wow, I didn't know I could ever get off that hard, but I was, I kept contracting in and out for at least thirty seconds. My hands dampened as my cum flooded out, slicking my labia. I shook, the orgasm going all through me until it ended, my lungs filled with air and each breath coming out in a loud shriek.  
   
I came down from my orgasm really hard, the fantasy successful in reminding me how much I wanted Par to want me in more than a loving kind of way, that I wanted her sexually. My body collapsed onto the bed in a lump, completely soaked, my legs still quivering and I was sore from the powerfully hard orgasm that just occurred. I was actually crying at how much the orgasm meant to me, how hard and beautiful it was to me, because it resulted from something I wished could've happened tonight.  
   
And I was so close, only to be disappointed when I was caught. _She would've done that, or something a little tamer_ , I thought to myself as I recomposed, trying to remember that sex was going to be one of the things that would bring us closer or tear us apart. That I felt such an intense connection with her that I allow myself to fantasize about her in formerly taboo situations. That I would push aside my former fears to jill to her in my bedroom, and that right now, I have zero shame about it.  
   
None at all, so much that I didn't put on any pajamas, letting the tank top rest at the side of the bed, because I still felt warm from the afterglow after self-pleasuring. It was so odd to feel so contented from just thinking of her that way, of all the girls in that entire school, my heart is with her, rather than one of the P&P's (the school code for 'pretty and populars' in case you're interested). _And she likes me too_.  
   
Two years ago about this time she was teasing me about missing a test and teasing me at every opportunity. These days she's still teasing me...but for all the right reasons. Talk about your skewed flips!  
   
I'm laying bed after changing into clean panties just waiting for the sleep to come to me, and I know it will soon, because I'm all tired out. Tomorrow's going to be a three snooze day, I can already feel it...  
   
Wha-whoa? What's my cell phone doing ringing, it's 11:30 at night, does the person calling realize I'm sleeping? God, if it's Shane and Jess calling me like last week to tell me which new spot they picked to have sex with, I'm gonna, ohh, their sex lives will be so ruined when I tell Taylor they got one of his employees to open the ice cream shop for an after hours 'taste test'...  
   
Grabbing for the phone, dreary-eyed, I look at the screen, but can't see it because I'm so tired. I flip open the phone.  
   
"Hello?" My voice sounds like crap.  
   
"Just thought I'd let you know I got home OK." Paris? Why is she calling? "I uh, did I wake you up?"  
   
"No, of course not, I always have time for you," I stumble out. "Just don't expect calls at this time of night."  
   
"I know, I just felt like I have to thank you again for defending me."  
   
"Not a problem." My hair was a mess and I was in no condition to talk, so thank God for a phone line. "I just did what was right."  
   
"Are you going to be grounded because of me? I don't know if you two talked after I left." I could tell she was worried about that a little.  
   
"No, she didn't say anything, I think we're fine, just have to be careful around her." Remembering back to earlier, I asked about Sharon. "Was your mom worried about you?"  
   
"Are you kidding, she was mortified I didn't come with her! She was ranting and raving, saying I missed a good prospect as far as my lovelife." A pause. "Wait, I should rephrase that, what was the term she was using to describe him? 'A good boy with golden sperm'?"  
   
"She did not." I laugh tiredly.  
   
"Indeed, she used that exact term. Then she chastised me for considering interview practice more important, calling it needless and unnecessary. According to her, my social contacts are always more important than making good small talk."  
   
"Does she forget that Harvard isn't UConn?"  
   
"I don't know, but I can't get out of the next cocktail party the Sunday after next, no matter what excuse I have."  
   
Shaking my head, I wonder how Paris could live with having half her genetic material from this woman. "We can't create a fake anniversary issue to get you out of it?"  
   
"I'll suck it up, but I refuse to talk to Golden Sperm Boy."  
   
"That's the spirit." I then yawn, feeling so, so tired. "You didn't have to call, you know."  
   
"I didn't," she admits, "but I had to...just had to hear your voice one last time before bed."  
   
"Or do you have an ulterior motive for checking in on me," I wonder. "Wondering what your revenge for my pizzagirl routine did to me?"  
   
"I can't say this call has innocent intentions. But when you tease me like that Gilmore, you know I come back with twice the drive to bring you down."  
   
"That you do."  
   
"I left you all hot and bothered, naturally you'd want to take care of it," she says back, her voice soft. "I hope it was good for you."  
   
I give the answer to that seductively. "Oh, very..." I shift the pillow beneath my head to get more comfortable. "I was about to sleep like a baby when you called." Another pause.  
   
"You just sound like you had fun, I can tell."  
   
"I did."  
   
"Fun not involving one of your cute pairs of pajamas." Did I mention that I shudder at her blue-blood pronunciation of pajamas every single time?  
   
"No pajamas at all," I note.  
   
"Impressive." Yet another pause. "You know I'm just making small talk until _Nightline_ ends, Koppel's topic is boring this evening."  
   
"No you aren't, it's a Monday night, and during football season his show airs late."  
   
"It does not."  
   
"Does too, Paris, you lie through your teeth."  
   
"But the news is boring, and the airhead on 8 is telling me that a homicide in Bristol is more important than Bush's ridiculous assertion Saddam has WMDs. Come on, you know he's just bored because it's been 30 years since we had a 'real war' and the warmongers are looking to get back in!"  
   
"Paris," I try to point out. "I don't care right now about Iraq."  
   
"That guy doesn't have anything to prove any weapons are there, and the air strikes and no-flys work, we'll be fine."  
   
"I know you think Condi is the new Henry Kissinger and that Cheney's pulling all the strings for Powell, but I'm not exactly in a war-talking mood, really."  
   
"You watch, we're going to invade just on a whim and they'll find nothing. Nothing!"  
   
"Goodnight, Paris," I smile, not intending to hang up at all.  
   
"No, don't go!" Paris is pleading for me to keep on the line, but I keep silent for a bit. "Hello? Hello? Rory? Are you there?"  
   
I giggle, and then respond. "As long as you don't kill my afterglow with bomb talk."  
   
"Oh damn it, you're just evil, Gilmore, I really was about to hang up you know."  
   
"Sure you were Par-Bear, I'm sure you were." I laugh as she groans.  
   
"Is it sad that I'm getting used to that name, finally?"  
   
"Hey, you look adorable and cute, just like one of them."  
   
"Yeah, the blue one with the cloud on his stomach."  
   
"And you said you didn't know any Care Bears at all, do I finally detect some useless knowledge in that brain of yours, sweetie?"  
   
"If I do, I'm not telling." I can hear her laugh a little through the phone mic. "You know I'm probably going to be late to pick you up in the morning."

"Why, how could you possibly be tardy to pick me up?" I ask sarcastically.  
   
"Why don't you ask those wandering hands of yours? They seem to know more than you."  
   
"Are you suggesting that after you end this call, you may do something you might not want me to know about?"  
   
"Maybe," she hints. "However, you don't really know, so I'm just going to head off to bed now, and let you do the same. A sleepy mind means a sound body."  
   
"I should probably do that; today's been a day I didn't want to end."  
   
"I know, but the sun always comes back, so Tuesday is on its way."  
   
"Damn Tuesday," I complain, stretching out across my bed. "but I can't stop it, I can only hope to contain it."  
   
"I had to get with the one girl besides myself who watches _Sportscenter_ for pop references only, not the scores." I hear her throw a couple blankets up in the background, and then crawl into bed. "I suppose, better end this call before you lose your sleep buzz. I just wanted to see that you're OK."  
   
"Nothing unusual here, but you as the last voice of my night will do wonders for my dreams."  
   
"Then have good ones, Gilmore. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning."  
   
"OK sweetie."  
   
"Another thing I'll have to get used to," she complains. "Goodnight...my dearest. How is that?"  
   
"Still sounds classy without betraying your manners," I comment. "I like it."  
   
"Me too. Uh, so, I'm really going to hang up now."  
   
"OK, go ahead."  
   
"Well after I say what I just thought of as a goodnight greeting."  
   
"But you did already."  
   
"I was just asking if it was acceptable."  
   
"I know, but now you can say it like you mean it."  
   
"But I meant it the first time."  
   
"You did, I know."  
   
"Rory..."  
   
"Paris..."  
   
"I have to hang up, and you won't let me say goodbye."  
   
"I am."  
   
"So say goodbye."  
   
"Goodnight Paris."  
   
"Not goodnight, goodbye."  
   
"So you don't want me to have a good night?"  
   
"That's not what I was saying!"  
   
"Fine, I'll end it then, for real, this time." Then I finally close out the call. "Goodbye Paris."  
   
"Goodbye and goodnight, my annoying manners-challenged darling." Before I could say anything (jokingly at least), she hangs up, and I close the phone, setting it back next to my bed with the ringer set to silent.  
   
I can't believe I just had a hangup war with Paris, and she went for it! I'm guessing this is even more progress towards a long relationship, since Dean and I did it four weeks into our thing.  
   
There's a difference though, and that was four weeks into knowing him, I didn't have any naughty thoughts about him, but Par, I certainly do. Is this a sign of some kind, of something more?  
   
Really, I'm not sure myself, but if she's seeing me off to bed, there's something inside of her that's telling her that I'm the one for her. And I know the same thing is happening with me.  
   
I'm just laying in my bed, letting this great day full of happiness, worry, disaster, trouble, and reconciliation go through me, and I think to myself right now as I feel my eyes heavy from sleep that this is perfect, and that everything is going according to plan.  
   
So why is there a nagging itch telling me that I want to push things further? I know while Paris packs the next two days I'll only see her on rides and at school, but now that I've had a taste for her seductive side, I'm ready to tackle anything she might want me to do. That now, with mom's approval, I can go ahead and push things further along without fear.  
   
It's just too bad I'll have to wait to do it. I know Paris wouldn't try anything with all of those pesky relatives around in Ormond Beach, so I'm not even going to try at all. Cross my heart and all that other stuff, you know? She has the willpower to go four days without me, and with our hormones sated, there shouldn't be a problem, right? Right?  
   
Then again, it's mighty tempting to think of Paris in that one bikini set she showed me last week, just a cute little two piece colored a darkish pink. Maybe just one more time, if you'll excuse me...  


* * *

 **_To be continued...  
_ **  



	14. A Thanksgiving Call for Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distance, awful family, five dinners, grape soda, tryptophan, cell phone airtime, and past sexual hang-ups don't stop a couple from making a close connection on a late Thanksgiving evening.

**Title: Longing with a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Fourteen | A Thanksgiving Call for Action  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Spoilers:** Several episodes throughout the series are mentioned within this chapter, but the ones majorly referenced within here are _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_ , and in the past, _Rory's Dance_.  
 **Rating:** R (definitive sexual content, profanity, mutual self-pleasuring, several infractions of FCC interstate communication regulations, and misuse of stuffed animals)  
 **Disclaimer:** Despite all my begging and pleading, Amy Sherman-Palladino isn't coming back to show anytime soon (though she still owns the idea for the show), so for now we're still stuck with Warner Bros. Television and Hofflund-Polone owning the rights to the characters, and "The New CW" (what's new besides a green logo from the 70s and ruining great television I ask?) running it. Oh, that David Rosenthal is the executive producer, but the less said about him and what is S7 so far, the better.  
   
Of course, I can be proud to say that the Aerie girls (belonging to American Eagle Outfitters) will never feature in this story. Though could you imagine them at the end of _Longing_ debating the happenings of each chapter? Wait, you can't, because their poor heads would explode trying to think about how Rory and Paris could manage to pleasure one another...their developing skills are well below that! "You put your mouth where? Ewww!!! And the couple name shouldn't be Prory, it's Raris, 'cause Rory's the star of the show. The actress who plays her is named Rory, right girls? Right? Oooh, these panties are pretty, go buy them or something!!" Ahh, I kid ;).  
   
Oh, and Paul Adelstein is now the lawfully wedded husband of one Liza Weil. I'm just going to say...treat her well you lucky bastard (withering stare).  
   
Publix (Florida's major grocery chain) is a division of Publix Super Markets, Inc., while Victoria's Secret is a trademark for Limited Brands. I would also place a safe bet that Julia Child's name is the property of her estate. All other trademarks within are the property of their respective owners.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Distance, awful family, five dinners, grape soda, tryptophan, cell phone airtime, and past sexual hang-ups don't stop a couple from making a close connection on a late Thanksgiving evening.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** See, didn't I promise you, less than six months, really, it's out in less than a year! Now my new goal is to get a chapter out on days when Microsoft doesn't issue quarterly earnings reports, I will start to speed up from here, really. Hopefully you enjoy this chapter; I rewrote it at least four times in one partsbecause it didn't sound like they were in the voice of Rory and Paris. It's either put out the best story I can, or hit delete and start over again. I never want my readers to be disappointed.  
   
This time I'm going to try to go with a single-beta format, so thanks to Danielle for her usually work making sure my words are perfect and my grammar impeccable. I suppose I should also thank D for pointing me towards Bette Porter (you know, Jennifer Beals' character on _The L Word_ ) and a cache of Monica Bellucci pics she pointed me towards for getting me into the right mood. There's nothing like the mix of magic circles, hot dean-on-TA action (damn you Showtime for spending only 10 seconds on that!) and Italian beauties just to get you in that right mood to write and pound the keyboard until it's all out and down.  
   
I don't have any fic recommendations because...there hasn't been much to recommend. Come on here folks (both on RalSt and GGSlash), both Danni and I are sitting here pounding out Prory, and we have nothing to inspire us further from all of you loyal readers, Help us both out by getting more stuff out there, be it Prory, Rory/Madeline, Louise/Mads/Rory, Paris/Lorelai, heck, get inspired and have Amanda from _Ugly Betty_ bump into Lane, do anything...we need more Gilmore Girls femslash, period. Please, write? (gets out the pleady anime-style eyes)  
   
Fifteen times ff.net readers, you know what I'm about to say. Don't like Paris and Rory getting down and dirty, you've got plenty to choose from outside of this story, go and read that if you don't find my content to your liking. Also, keep up the honest reviews, I enjoy them all, no matter what they may say.  


* * *

I don't really regard holidays with any kind of enthusiasm. I'm not surprising in that regard, am I?  
   
But really, what has there been to celebrate in my life that has taken place when the banks and post offices close, or at least school comes to a screeching halt. I've been primed to think of life in the terms of 24 hours, 7 days, or 365 days (and an extra day every four years). Not that I feel a real need to pause in any sense. I'm not callous, I reflect on the sacrifices of my ancestors for their religious freedom during Passover, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Hanukah, and I feel the sadness of what the Holocaust did to my people. I can't forget that, and I proudly proclaim my Jewish heritage whenever I need to. If somehow I ever got into a job where my boss were to ask if I could change my name to reduce conflict, as various news anchors and actresses have in the past, I would refuse immediately, and leave them to hire someone else.  
   
Otherwise, holidays are just a reminder of how my life is beyond school hours, and how much it sucks. Since I have no stake in Easter Sunday, that's just a three-day period of time where I have to watch kids chase around eggs hidden by some bunny while I could be starting my fourth quarter drive towards the end of the school year.  
   
Valentine's Day? Need I remind you of the many years of pity valentines left in the mailbox at my desk that, and seeing Madeline and Louise rake in the love? I'm just gritting my teeth remembering those years, and the jealousy of seeing the pink and red balloons on their lockers back in Country Day. Just another reminder of how I've regarded myself as a loser.  
   
As for the Fourth of July, how can I celebrate it, knowing that our gift of freedom is threatened at every turn, and that Congress and the State House have turned into conflict-laden chambers where the first ExxonMobil board member to lavish the most jet rides to some stupid House member from Mequon, Wisconsin, who has an irrational hate of illegal immigration wins all the influence and curry he can get? That if not for an outdated element of the Constitution and bad voting techniques in a three-mile wide strip of land in Broward County, the best man would have actually won and be living at 1600 Pennsylvania? Don't forget the attorney general who thinks that covering up a statue that's been nude for years is more important than going after meth, and our joke of a governor, who uses his powers to get a hot tub discount rather than to actually do something to make Connecticut more than Mohegan Sun, Manhattan bedroom communities, and Martha Stewart.  
   
Of course, can't forget Halloween, a holiday I've never celebrated since Sharon was convinced that every rapist or opportunist within 600 miles was going to kidnap me, or that trick or treating was on par with walking into downtown Havana wearing an "I love America, suck it Castro!" t-shirt. I just never bothered to celebrate it. If I did, it was at a bad DCW party where everyone wore costumes of fictional characters which were relevant in 1957, while bobbing for apples and all that boring crap that was probably in the special Halloween episodes of _Silver Spoons_ , _Rags to Riches_ , old 80's programs of that ilk.  
   
Which brings me to Thanksgiving. Before, it had been an OK holiday, the Gellars and Martinez-DeBartolos meeting at the Manor and talking things out. There were conflicts, but they were usually ironed enough for all of us to come together neutrally and thank God for the strength to bring us all together. I'd get to see my favorite paternal relatives from all over the country, while we made fun of the maternal side because they lived a tacky sort of living apt for _Absolutely Fabulous_.  
   
However, the divorce between my daddy and Mother happened during Thanksgiving of 2000, so that's when the day turned sour for me. Sharon decided to reveal her 'evidence' right at the dinner table before grace, and before my father could try to deny the allegations or I could say anything, her side of the family was ready to push his through the gutter. I watched in horror and embarrassment as my Aunt Beth, my father's sister, was brought to tears by my maternal grandmother, who decided that it was the perfect time to point out that Beth's husband lost his dot-com job and that he didn't know what to do because of the stock options drying up. The poor woman was savaged, and then my father trying to keep my mother shut up was futile. How we got through dinner is a small miracle in itself, with Sharon's mother deciding to savage our help who prepared the dinner at every single turn, which was an embarrassment to a team that received "best service" at the Taste of Hartford only months before.  
   
The night took a dark turn when Sharon decided to partake too much in the wine, glass after glass down her throat, and her mental state deteriorated from there. My father could only look on in shock as the woman who had first caught his eye at a wedding for his best friend 20 years earlier, who had convinced she would be his beloved forever, broke his heart by claiming all these affairs that were untrue, yet everyone on her side believed it. I knew it wasn't true, I know my father, he's painfully shy about relationships and was the type to hire the best woman for the job when it came to his assistant, rather than the one who looked the best in a Wonderbra.  
   
"Sharon, I love you, and you only!" he cried out desperately. "You know I don't have the time to cheat on you when I'm on business, and even if I did I couldn't bear to ever betray you." I stood to his side, trying to help him make sense of it, but she wouldn't listen.  
   
"Dear, you just don't satisfy me anymore, and I assume it's because you regularly hire a whore to take care of you in Tokyo!" Her voice had spite within, and the hardening of Sharon's heart to love was complete.  
   
"Why would I? I pay for everything electronically or through a check--"  
   
"Oh shove it, you pay for your fucks with cash, I'm not stupid, Harold!" All this in front of both of our families, who were already dividing up. My father tried to fight, and I tried to defend him, claiming tearfully that Daddy loved no one but her.  
   
"Go to your room, Paris, this doesn't concern you," she stated coldly, her eyes stone cold.  
   
"Doesn't concern me? The hell it doesn't; you're attacking Daddy when you don't have any proof--"  
   
"Young lady, you might be smart in school, but you don't know shit when it comes to relationships, so who are you to defend Harold? Don't you dare side with him!"

Damn, she was trying to push my buttons. "I'm not siding! This is the first anyone is hearing about it, so I'm sorry if I'm in a little shock over this."  
   
"Paris, your room, now." I watched as a couple of my relatives surrounded me. "I will pull you out of this room with force dear." I looked at my father, his face aging ten years in ten minutes, looking already defeated since she scared him, mentioning her imported lawyer from the City who had a record of convincing judges to side with the wife in custody and divorce, no matter what.  
   
"I'm sorry, hon, just go up to your room...I'm going to try to fix this. I just don't know what's happening, but for now, I have to...have to..." As I walked out of the room after hugging him and telling Daddy no matter what, I still loved him, I felt my heart strain because of everything going on. That out of the blue, Sharon would decide to tear us all apart and ruin whatever unity both her and my father's families felt by deciding singlehood and divorce was the only answer to her problems. Going up the stairs, watching both families apart, my father in a tight hug with his mother, my Nana Gellar. Seeing this display of familial affection made me realize that my mother was only out for blood, willing to do everything in her power to ruin him.  
   
She almost did, but she was stopped, thank goodness, by a lawyer who made sane points to save my father's fortune from being frittered away. She got enough to live on comfortably, and since the claim of paying cash for his so-called hookers couldn't be unproven, she won that argument. She also put on enough of a sob story to win custody of me, and left my father painfully out of what he wanted, to keep me for the two years I had left in school, rather than have to stay in that cold mansion with the frosty woman I shared genetics with. The stress was also too much for my dear Nanna. Three weeks later, she passed away quietly in her sleep, the stress and sadness that her son's happily ever after was yanked away by such a shallow woman she trusted with his heart too much for her.  
   
Thank God for my Jewish roots, because he gets to see me on those holidays, the long holidays helping me look forward to things outside of school. But Sharon still gets to keep me otherwise, and that means that Thanksgiving is her holiday, where she can drag me down to Florida to meet the people I loathe most: her relatives.  
   
Seriously, I can't believe I share blood with these idiots. Her sisters, all three of them, are just as stupid as she is, more concerned about their bank books and closets than they are actually being happy without a credit card purchase. They didn't get the luck Sharon had husband-wise, already having eight exes between them.  
   
Then there's her brother, my Uncle Fred...someone I don't want anywhere near me. You know, the creepy kind of relative that shadows you and always calls you honey and cutie? Who was the one person to really notice at twelve that I was developing my cup size? Yeah, that would be Fred, and I couldn't handle him anywhere near me after he decided to innocently pat my ass during a holiday gathering when I was fourteen. Innocent, that is, if you consider using the whole palm cupped to pat perfectly normal.  
   
Then the rest of them, I'm not going into specifics besides I absolutely have to be the smartest and most mature child in that entire room. The kid's table is usually a chaotic mess, and since I regard small children usually with less enthusiasm than an average gynecological exam, they drive me up the wall with a splitting headache. The teenagers within the DeBartolo-Martinez clan thankfully don't speak to me, regarding me as the 'freak' and finding their Walkman or girl talk more interesting; it's like I don't even know my fellow nieces and nephews.  
   
Well, that's not completely true.  
   
One other girl in the family has the same attitude as I do about them, Dolores. She's now twenty, but in our younger years when we were together, we'd spend many an hour hiding from them in the room we were assigned within the nine-bedroom home. She was a savant like me, very smart, although her parents thought that a $10,000 entertainment system was more important than sending her to a top-notch private school, and showered her idiot brother Donovan with attention instead, just because he might get into the NFL based on his football playing ability.

Her resemblance to me is shocking, though with some differences. Her face is fuller in the cheeks, and she has a fuller head of hair and bangs, along with a slightly smaller chest than mine. But despite her being from Cleveland, she also talks exactly like I do. There's more Italian than Spanish blood in her, and both of us can relate to the pressure of carrying our families solely on our backs.  
   
However, I haven't seen her for two years. I have no idea where she is, except that her family said she left after graduating from high school third in her class. The explanation was she planned college all by herself and refused to leave a number or address for where she was, and they can't find her. They're not going to try because they regard Dolores like my mother did, that we weren't supposed to be in the sense we were 'accidents', and they just don't care. No matter that Donovan blew out his knee during a game and then out of football, fell in with the wrong crowd and became a washout.  
   
I wonder where she is though because most of this night has been awful; it would've been fun to bond with her over our bad luck of being related to these people.  
   
I do say most of this night for a good reason. Laying in my thankfully empty room overlooking the A1A and the Atlantic, the humid Florida evening feeling so odd to me because I should be chilly with flurries scurrying down my bedroom window, not having the air conditioning on low, and I should be in a long nightgown to hide my nudity, not in an old Red Sox t-shirt and sleep shorts. I should've also been feeling like I accomplished more than I did today, the afterglow of helping in Hartford with the huge Mission Feast, not having to watch turkey and beyond the fixings go to waste because Sharon and the women made way too much food, and somehow it didn't come out like it does in a Norman Rockwell painting.  
   
Thanks to my cell phone, however, I don't feel all the guilt I should but instead I feel sated, knowing that up the Seaboard, my girlfriend's night ended wonderfully just from the simple gesture of a phone call to her. And that I feel the same way too, despite the deep pang in my stomach that I wish I could be there, sharing her day with her and feeling the way I did with Dolores when she was around.  
   
At least she made me feel wonderful; even though I was so far away, I was still kindling the relationship further when she least expected it, and in a way that shocked even myself.  
   
I think about her voice as I recall the night, and right now I smile, watching the slightly full moon out my window casting a sheen on the beach across the road, and I'm warming as I think about what led me to this moment...  


* * *

"Paris, I'm not going to argue with you about this, you're not old enough yet!"  
   
"I'm 34 days from turning eighteen, surely you can let me do this." I was foaming mad as I pleaded for my mother to let me finally have a seat at the adult's table.  
   
"We can't make an exception for you; if we let you sit there, we'd have to all the other teens sit there too." I crossed my arms over my chest, angry that she'd take away this one opportunity for me to show my power in the family. After all, I was the one with the trust fund to be opened in a month.  
   
"This isn't a bar, Mother, it's the Thanksgiving table!"  
   
"You don't deserve to sit there, you didn't help me or the rest of the women with preparing the meal!"  
   
"Sure, cede to the men! Who gives a damn that I have no aptitude in the kitchen?!"  
   
She stomped her foot on the carpet, trying to assert her parental control. "I asked you to stuff the turkey, you didn't have to cook anything!"  
   
"I was busy with homework," I claimed, truthful with what I was doing. "I have to finish a report that's due on Monday."  
   
"Paris, it's called a holiday break for a reason."  
   
"Yeah, to catch up!" I gritted my teeth, realizing again that Sharon would win this argument, like she did every time. "Fine, I'll sit with the other teens, but I'm not happy."  
   
"You don't have to be!"  
   
"I didn't even want to be here. Nana Gellar made better stuffing than Aunt Cassie!"  
   
"You take that back! That is my sister and she went to Le Cordon Bleu!" She tried to go after me, but I was ready to leave the room before she could catch me.  
   
"She went to Brown Institute's version of it after seeing an ad for it during an episode of _Blind Date_ , and she didn't even complete the class!" I put in my last word and left, annoyed with how this entire trip was going so far. I groaned under my breath as I went up the stairs to try to get some space from these people.  
   
They've all been just jerks to me; for instance, when I was ready to watch the Pats game downstairs with everyone else. I sat down in an easy chair I figured had no sentimental value to anyone in that condo, ready to watch the game, when suddenly I hear a voice behind me.  
   
"Hey! Get out of that chair!" That was Grandpa DeBartolo. "That's my chair!"  
   
"I want to watch the game!"  
   
"You can't watch it; you're a girl, get back in the kitchen, missy!" Oh my God, what a dick. I know I'm supposed to respect my elders, but since I 'looked funny' according to him, I really wasn't one of the granddaughters he spoiled. "Why do you want to watch it anyways?"  
   
"Because I watch football and the Patriots are my favorite team," I said. "I've seen games in person before and I happen to enjoy Adam Vinatieri's kicking style."  
   
"It figures, you'd like the dumbest and least important player on the team." Um, hello? He won Super Bowl XXXVI, I'd call that pretty damned important. "Just get out."  
   
"Fine," I gritted out, not finding any guy in that room to defend me at all. "But I wasn't going to do anything to offend any of you." I stomped out and decided to just listen to the game through my laptop, seething that I wouldn't be able to watch it in person. It just wasn't the same to listen to a Thanksgiving game tethered to the computer rather than seeing it on television, far from the reception of the radio station I usually listened to the game on. At least it gave me three hours away from the family, because trust me, I'd be thankful for the quiet later on.  
   
Around 4pm, Thanksgiving dinner was ready, and everyone was called out to the dining room. I hate my mother's interior decorator, and the reason why is encapsulated in this house's hideous dining room. Everything was teak, it's too nautical themed, and I hardly feel like I'm eating a classy dinner at all.  
   
Which is apt, because the last time most of these people have seen class, it was twelfth grade or lower. Seriously, I've seen Chilton lunches with more control, and where all I wanted to do was be thankful for what I had and eat, Sharon had to ruin it all for me. Sitting at the teenager's table, it was like watching the result of an orgy between the cast members of _The Brady Bunch_ , _Eight is Enough_ , _Full House_ , and _Step by Step_ , my worst nightmare come true. Bickering and arguing in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound within that dining room, 25 members of one family come together to reunite, and all I could think was that I should've been in Hartford, with my father, the various aunts and uncles I have much respect for, and Francisca's wonderful pumpkin pie teasing my nose with spices and sweetness. Just the perfect flavor of head chef Greta's turkey, the way my father could slice it, the consistency of the mashed potatoes, along with a centerpiece I created in art class as my grandfather, the other man in my life I looked up to, gave the prayer of thanks in Hebrew, for the bounty and blessings we've been lucky to have, that we have the strength to carry on good works and be benevolent whenever possible, never putting ourselves above the family.  
   
Yeah, that would be wonderful.  
   
But for this year, it'll have to be a memory as the holiday on my mother's side consisted of dull prayers and thanks for their wealth, and the hope things would continue to be that way. No mention of any family who passed on this year, how thankful they are to all have shelter, that they all love each other. None of that at all, because the guys had only an hour to pig out before kickoff in Dallas.  
   
Of course, the dinner was miserable, my relatives barely acknowledging my existence, the nieces at my table fawning over some reality singing show contestant who from the sounds of it resembled Sideshow Bob. The guys talked with their mouths full about some actress named Lindsay Lohan, who if I recall is trying to follow in the Annette Funicello template of fame by starring in several Disney movies a year, building up her career slowly. I didn't listen, and really, I didn't care.  
   
I couldn't enjoy the food, which was cooked, but in the 'it's hot enough' definition, with the turkey being underdone and the stuffing soggy. Many shortcuts were taken by the women, including cranberry Jello-O, Publix pumpkin pie, and since they had to buy enough wine for sixteen adults...I can't believe I'm even admitting this was a table wine at a Thanksgiving feast...Boone's Farm. Julia Child herself would cap someone's ass if she ever got wind of the drink of choice for these simpletons.  
   
Meanwhile, I was stuck with a hideously patterned can of generic grape soda, "because it was cheaper than grape juice," as my spendthrift cousin Charlene had to rub in my face. Look, I know I'm not into being Baptists like the rest of them, but all I ask is for the milk to be nowhere near my meat, to have something good to drink, and that a pig and its products stay out of my sight, was that too much to ask? Excuse me for not wanting to be there, but I was quickly becoming annoyed with the fact that while I was thankful I had one girl on my side back in Hartford, these people were living well off my Daddy's alimony! Money that should've been assisting with a new UConn Children's Hospital, was instead going to pay for a patio for Uncle Fred down in New Smyrna.  
   
 _God help me please, what did I deserve for this?_ By the end of the hour, everyone was filled up and happy, and though I ate everything, I wasn't going back for seconds. There was just an unbearable sadness that this was the worst Thanksgiving ever, and I was feeling miserable not only because of these people, but from missing Rory horribly.  
   
I know I shouldn't be selfish, but I do miss her. When I made my last call before leaving for Bradley Wednesday after school, it was like saying goodbye to an old friend growing closer and knowing you more and more. I just don't feel the same because I'm back where I was before the dance marathon, distance between us and no way to bridge it at all.  
   
I felt alone, isolated, and confused. I wasn't supposed to feel this bad about leaving for at least another month, and I knew she'd be OK. But my heart still felt like it was lost, not having a focal point for it to express anything.  
   
No matter that Rory said she'd think of me all the time in our four day forced vacation, the inner cynic within thought that untrue. She has lots of family, friends and townspeople to keep her occupied while I was gone. She had other things to do than put up with me, for sure.  
   
Me? I had schoolwork to keep my occupied, along with my laptop, and that's it, and I was growing bored with building my planned community of Elthington Valley within _Sim City 3000_. I had also exhausted reading the _New York Times_ and the _Wall Street Journal_ articles posted yesterday and today. About the only thing left to do was to bond with the family over _It's a Wonderful Life_ , but frankly, the irony of watching that title with people I didn't consider anywhere near wonderful was obvious.  
   
I helped with the cleanup to burn some time after, but was immediately pushed off dish duty by Aunt Cassie because she couldn't see her reflection in them. Note that by 'dish duty', I mean throwing the plates and cups into the dishwasher and starting it up. Obviously I was in the way, so I did odd jobs where I could until my mother found I did enough sufficient work to be excused up to my room. I didn't have to share it with a relative, a small blessing I was thankful to have.  
   
Glumly, I sat down to my work, writing an independent study report for Biology that I'll turn in mid-December just so I can guarantee my grade won't fall below the 97% line. It took my mind off things, but not enough. The Word window was filled with plenty of words and going back to my sources often kept me focused. Still, I couldn't keep my mind off Rory at all.  
   
 _Did she have a good day?_ I shouldn't have been missing her that much, using the evening for a sabbatical from my life as it is now. I even left the cell phone in my carry-on from the moment I got on the plane until after dinner, trying to keep myself from flipping the phone open and checking if the voice mail or mailbox icons flash and show new messages came. I didn't need to be happy just because of her.  
   
But I was miserable. Isolated and in the middle of the Intracoastal strip, with no tolerable relatives until past the Broward County line.  
   
 _So this is what love pangs feel like_ , I thought to myself. Missing the one girl brightening my life like a puppy on a poster with an inspirational message off to the side, pleading with you to know things will get better. Trying to get my mind of it, I saved out the report and opened Solitaire.  
   
Still nothing, with the Queen of Hearts unwittingly giving me another girlfriend reminder. I played the deck offered, trying to empty my mind.  
   
"Paris, I'll miss you." Her voice again reminding me from memory as we broke off at the front door at Chilton, Lorelai at the front drive picking her up. "Have a good weekend."  
   
Of all the songs to pop on via the streaming radio station playing on the laptop, John Waite's _Missing You_. Even if it's a downer looking back at an ended relationship, his call that he wanted to send a message "like a telegraph into your soul", he knew how I felt.  
   
 _I should've stayed, kicked and screamed_. My regrets were coming, and because of them, I was miserable in Florida, leaving Rory to have a lonely weekend without me. My callous mother got in the way, and I didn't fight her.  
   
I was no longer in a mood to work, nor to kibitz with the relatives in the great room.

I needed to hear my girl's voice, be it the girl herself, or just a voice mail. Even a short SMS would settle me down. Hiding the phone was only harming myself; I had to talk to her.

Getting up from the non-ergonomic chair I was using at my temporary end table "workstation", I headed for my baggage, and my messenger bag, dependable to me whether at school or on a voyage. I knew exactly where my phone was and I unclasped the buttons holding the bag together, reached in, and pulled out the powerless device. Nervously, I opened it and held the power button, waiting for the screen to boot up as I thought about things between us.  
   
I went back to how I felt coming back into town on Tuesday morning after the heaving flirting between us both during and after the study date. We all sat at the counter while Luke stirred my tea and tried to keep Lorelai from sneaking a free cruller from under the display plate. Things went well, no one noticing anything between Rory, though I could tell Ms. Gilmore had that nervous 'please don't ravage my daughter here' look. I kept in control, Rory did too, though the brushes we got in when no one was looking sent electricity up my spine. Whatever the heightened focus on each other was, however, both of us managed to stay focused on school subjects, taking with fervor while they ate their breakfast and I ate my grapefruit and tea.  
   
We're aware of the heat between us, but for now we've reined ourselves in at both school and during the commute because we have to both focus on Harvard. That doesn't mean we're cloistered, as we still get the touches and flirting in during quiet periods where we know there's no one watching. Telling Lorelai at least gives us one place to sate our wont for affection, so the pressure's off a little.  
   
The phone arrives at the display screen. I then wait the ten seconds it takes to sync with the network and retrieve messages. No texts, but four voicemails show up. I gain a little hope she's called...  
   
But it goes away as I listen to each of them. The first one, a midnight call from Daddy wishing me a happy Thanksgiving, encouragement, and an I love you. It's a tradition with him to do that, and I still appreciate the gesture, though I feel bitter because he stayed home this year with the family hoping Sharon might be benevolent for one year and let me celebrate in Hartford.  
   
The second call, a familiar voice...but not the one I really wanted. "Hey Par, Louise here. By chance, you wouldn't happen to have the notes from Tuesday's Life Sciences? I kind of, drifted off--" I hit 7 and deleted the message right away. Does that girl not realize I'm not exactly in the best place to help her? What part of "I'm going to Florida for the weekend" didn't she understand?

Wait, she did understand that. But then she went off into a tangent about Florida men I tuned out after second three and the word 'hot', due to her mind somehow able to multi-task a 3.8 GPA and a hot list 10. How I stay friends with that girl, I'll never figure out.  
   
My last two voice mail messages also didn't have Rory in them, as Francisca and her family shouted their Thanksgiving wishes in Portuguese right at their table, which also brought a smile to my face, another wonderful message. I then listened in anticipation to the fourth message, which the recorded voice told me was marked urgent.  
   
"Hello, I have the money for the car...oh wait, I meant to dial 0505, sorry!" The line goes click, and with that, I feel down that Rory didn't call. But it probably wasn't her fault, it's a holiday to everybody, so she must've figured she shouldn't have called me tonight.  
   
Then again, since I was the last to say goodbye, I think the etiquette is that I have to call her next. That, or else she couldn't get near a phone. I missed her, and I just needed to talk to her, I just didn't know if she'd be in a condition to talk. I mean it was 8pm, for all I know the Gilmore tradition is to watch the _Friends_ Thanksgiving episode.  
   
Nevertheless, I had to give her a try, if not for reassurance then just to keep myself sane within this stupid house with these stupid people. I was sort of tired of hunching over the screen and felt my back was a bit sore, so I took the hands-free headset from the bag, then connected it to the phone in order to talk without developing a sore shoulder and elbow. I then flopped onto the bed, trying to get into as comfortable a position as possible to spend a half-hour away from the world as I know it for now. My speed dial on the cell programmed Rory under 4, and I held the button until the display showed it was dialing out.  
   
I closed the handset, and set it off to the side as the phone started to ring up in Connecticut. I had knots, trying to figure out what to say if she wasn't home. Or if she was home and didn't feel like talking to me. Why wouldn't she want to talk to me though, I've been wonderful to her lately.  
   
 _Stop, she'll pick up_ , I reminded myself, _don't forget she made a 24/7 promise to be there, no matter what_.  
   
 _She can say that, but is it true?_ the rational side of my brain argued. _For all you know she's on with Lane, too busy for me...  
_    
"Hello?" _HA! Take that rational thought, she's there!  
_    
There as in her voice was there physically. But really, I caught her at a time where she's all tuckered out and exhausted.  
   
"Rory, hi. I hope you don't mind that I called." In written words, that might sound straightforward, but try to imagine me in one of those 50's telephone etiquette films sounding all nervous and odd; that's how my voice really was.  
   
"No, of course not," she answered cheerfully. "I was going to call you in about fifteen minutes."  
   
"Really?" I was flattered.  
   
"Yeah...I just got home from the mansion about five minutes ago, Thanksgiving dinner with the grandparents."  
   
"I finished mine three hours ago," I said back. "I've been doing homework in the interim."  
   
"Did they treat you OK?" Rory was deep with worry about how the family treated me, but I assured her it was expected that they'd barely regard me.  
   
"I'm glad to be away from them, for a little while at least."  
   
She sighed, saddened by the lack of feeling for my family. "It must not be the same celebrating in Florida. I think of it and I'm reminded of _Home Alone_ , a cheap hotel and out-of-place decorations, some in neon."  
   
I curled up on the bed, trying to deepen my head's footprint on the pillow. "It just isn't the same, they have no fireplace, no warmth at all. My room looks out onto the ocean at least."  
   
"How does it look?"  
   
"Dark," I replied honestly. "I can see across the A1A. I'm about three floors up; my mother rents out this entire complex. On a clear night if I look south I can see the lights along Daytona Beach, the airport, and I've been here in the past when the lights at the Speedway are on, you have to strain but they're visible. The Cape's too far though, so no view of the Kennedy Space Center."  
   
"At least it's a beautiful area," she surmised, trying to cheer me up. "I just wish you were there under better circumstances."  
   
"Yeah." I breathed into the phone, trying to hide my feelings. "Don't get me wrong, I like the state, the sunny weather they have, but it's just not Connecticut this time of year."  
   
"Are you depressed?" she asked. I started to shake my head, thinking she was in the bedroom with me, but then remembered she was too far to see that.  
   
"I'm fine, you don't have to worry, dear." I heard a pause, then a beat. She stayed silent for a moment, and I thought that my firm tone had scared her off and she was trying to gather herself together.  
   
"I miss you." Her voice was soft as she said it, and the simple transmission of those words down the telephone line overpowered me.  
   
I didn't expect her to say it so early in the conversation, within the first couple of minutes. It was supposed to be a part of the goodbye, and I wasn't supposed to have a quivery stomach from that statement. She wasn't supposed to miss me, instead she should feel relieved to be away, have some space from me to gain some perspective from the three weeks between the first kiss in the Gilmore living room and this moment.  
   
But there she was, admitting how much she missed me. I held back, and said the first thing that came to mind, the reason I made the call to begin with.  
   
"I miss you too." Somehow I didn't sob, and I was able to say it with a smile. "I haven't had my phone out, so I'm sorry I didn't call earlier."  
   
"It's a day for family," she reminded me, completely understanding. She went on. "You really didn't have to call, I'm just glad to have you in the first place. I was worried, honestly, but I knew you'd be fine, since your cynicism makes any event almost bearable."  
   
"Usually it does," I said, sighing. "Tonight, I feel like the family black sheep." I had to bat a few strands of hair from in front of my eyes as I continued to talk. "Everyone was going on and on about how wonderful they felt, that everything was going their way and not a problem in the world. But you just look at them, and you can see that money shields the reality, and that their happiness is artificial."  
   
I pushed myself a little closer towards the air conditioner vent, which isn't right over the middle of the bed, but off to the right. "Meanwhile, I'm here, content for the first time in years. I have ambition, my grades are on a roll, Harvard is damned impressed with me, and I have you at home, my girlfriend, taking the time out of her holiday evening to listen to my ramblings." I smile, just thinking about how lucky I am. "And for the first time since...since, the whole divorce situation when I lost any popularity I held before and that mess with the Formal and Jacob, I'm happy. Really, truly, happy." I stop, feeling my thoughts come to a dead halt because of the other factors which stopped that emotional track.  
   
I hear her breathe on the microphone of her handset, and to an extent, it mixes with mine. Both of us take in this moment far away, Rory nervously unsure where to go next, while I feel stunned. I love expressing myself when I can, but when I come back and remember that I'm Paris Gellar, the savant, the way I have been comes back. But I'm trying my best to change that personality around so I can be more open with people.  
   
Conversations like tonight's really help along that track.  
   
I stay silent for a few more moments, the romantic within me mentally noting that our breaths match up over the phone, while both of us play with bedding in the quiet moments. I begin to lay down, my head weary and sore from standing straight up looking at an LCD screen or relatives all day long. I keep thinking, my mind blank except the thought that Rory makes me happy.  
   
The brunette up north breaks the silence with a question. "Paris?"  
   
"Uh-huh?" I'm distracted with the fact that I'm starting to try to connect with her by building a mental picture of her.  
   
"What were you thankful for?"  
   
"Huh?" Honestly, I had no idea what she was asking of me.  
   
"Don't tell me your family doesn't do the prayer and then go around the table for thanks." It was then I remembered; two years in a row without a fully reverent holiday makes you forget some things.  
   
"Actually, I was never asked." I was stunned...they never asked because of the speed of the meal.  
   
"Oh." She felt down and odd, finding a completely normal line of thinking blown down because she couldn't relate to an abnormal family situation in any way. "I uh...I'm sorry."

So much for this conversation as of far cheering me up. I wanted to vent, but at the same time I didn't want Rory to think I was treating her like Dr. Birnbaum. My throat tightened as I tried to redirect the talk towards my 'positive place', as the good doctor would call it, with the help of a few thoughts.  
   
"Don't be...I don't know if I could share what I was thankful for anyways." I felt so sappy, but I needed to tell her that even without the question, I knew that it was one thing.  
   
"What then?"  
   
I exhaled breathily. "For you, of course. I didn't get to say it, but I'm sure that's what would have been the first thought to come into my mind. But if they would've actually asked, I would've said something else."  
   
She bit on the 'something else', trying to engage me. "What would you have said, something about Chilton?"  
   
I shook my head, 'uh-uh'ing that concept. "Not really, just replace the 'I'm thankful for my wonderfully witty and beautiful girlfriend' comment, with 'I'm thankful for my demure and intelligent best friend'. I don't have to be thankful for Chilton everyday after all, and now I have a perfect place to focus my energies besides the written page."  
   
"And people say they can't get along with you!" Rory laughs over the phone, touched by what I said about her. "You know the Headmaster's been feeling a little more charitable towards the _Franklin_ lately; you failed to do your usual evisceration of his office in your editorial."  
   
"Did I, Gilmore?" She's right; I kind of lazed out on my editorial this week, deciding to touch on the governor's scandal rather than school politics for once. I wasn't paying attention to Charleston because I haven't been focused on school politics lately.  
   
"You did, but I'm sure the magic will be back next week."  
   
"It will," I said determined, as I noted to myself in a pad off to the side to get an editorial written Friday afternoon to criticize his plan to add smart card technology to the student identification cards.  
   
But for now, it was time to turn some tables on the receiver of my phone call. "So...did you get to admit what you were thankful for?"  
   
"Yes I did...four times."  
   
"Four?" Why was she saying she was thankful four times over? I heard her groan, and that's when I knew a new adventure in the life of Stars Hollow's most interesting two women was about to begin.  
   
It was a doozy, as Rory went into detail that she had been at the tables of four different families throughout the day, from early in the morning right into the middle of the evening, a well-planned day that went awry because of several different things. A long, long day where from the moment Rory and her mother woke up, they had to attend four Thanksgiving dinners, each a little more crazier than the next. First one at her friend Lane's, where she had to help keep a cover story going about Lane's possible boyfriend Dave being in a Christian band so that they could have some shot at dating. Her stomach didn't react well to that one, as the Kim family had a light and healthy dinner.

"That sounds nice," I said, trying to picture it.  
   
"Sounds, but it tasted awful, they had Tofurkey®, and I was shocked to discover that there is indeed such an item." I was laughing loud and hard at that one, getting my girlfriend a little annoyed. "Hey, it was good, but it didn't taste like the genuine article by any means, I had three glasses of organic milk to wash it all down."  
   
I thought about how my mother would react to the news of a healthier alternative, and sadly, she would be very pleased. "That's one meal I'd go on a hunger strike over," I commented. "I don't usually react to food like this, but...eww."  
   
"OK Madeline," she reminded, bringing me back to one of my friend's usual interjections at something gross. "The second was Sookie, miserable because Jackson and his buddies decided that her oven cooking tradition needed shaking up. Cue the rental of a deep fryer."  
   
"A deep fryer?" I perked up. "Really?"  
   
"Yeah...it's definitely worth it, I thought it was really, really good, I didn't know if I should've saved you some. The atmosphere though was strange, Jackson's friends acted like a frat party and Sookie was fretting all through it."  
   
I gritted my teeth. "What is it about men and losing brain cells at Thanksgiving? The guys in my family all acted the same way here too."  
   
"Um, Paris?" Strange not being able to see Rory's faces through the phone, so I had to depend on her voice for the measure of sarcasm contained within. "When we got back to town, they were deep-frying everything edible and non-edible. I think they lost entire brains within the fumes of the cooking oil."  
   
Again, I was laughing out loud, visualizing the men of Rory's odd little town outside of the chef's house, huddled over a tin can filled with oil and chanting "Fry! Fry! Fry! Fry!". Sometimes I don't understand Stars Hollow, but the people there never fail to deliver when it comes to entertainment value.  
   
After completing her description of meal #2, it was onto the third, at Luke's, which was the most peaceful of the night, with only 'Mr. Former Dance Champion' Kirk being odd, since he somehow acquired a cat with his own name that totally hates him and has forced him out of his home. This, despite the cat being close to feral as possible without crossing over the line.  
   
But once she arrived at the description of her dinner with the grandparents, she started to feel a little down. I was startled to hear about it, as Rory had been having some problems with Emily and Richard since an escapade a few weeks before where they brought her out to Yale under the guise of a visit, but which turned into her being shanghaied into an interview set up by Richard she wasn't prepared for at all with the dean of admissions. She had forgotten it for awhile and pushed Yale where it belonged, under the 'safety schools' category.  
   
Both of us considered Yale the enemy despite their donation of the press to the _Franklin_. We're betrothed to Harvard, and family can't stop that. Yet the grandparents are pushing it on her, no matter how much she insists in August, she prefers to be in Cambridge. But what hurt her most was Lorelai's reaction that Rory had submitted an application as a safety, calling it another sign her parents were butting in where they didn't need to.  
   
"How can she think that?" I asked. "No offense to her younger years, but does she realize how cutthroat college admissions are?"  
   
"None taken, and probably not. I'm sure she thinks I'm just fine, but really I'm in a panic in that department. I don't want to go to Yale if I don't have to, which is why I keep rehearsing the interviews, no matter which one I might end up in."  
   
"But the stronger ones for Harvard, right?"  
   
"Always," she said confidently. "But I just don't like how they try to pull me towards each of their sides just from my school choice. It's mine in the end, and yeah, I'm going to disappoint Grandpa by going to Cambridge, but I know him; he supports me no matter what."  
   
"We've both been thinking Harvard since day one," I stated strongly. "It's not you living your mother's dream, you've been thinking about it from the moment your eyes landed on a brochure. It's the same for me; I don't care if it's my generational responsibility to attend the school, I **want** to be there."  
   
"I wish they'd both understand that." She sighed, and I could sense after a little more back and forth about Emily and Lorelai's petty arguing that Rory didn't really want to talk about any of this more than she had to; she just wanted to talk to her girlfriend about regular things. We've gotten the family bitching out of the way, so I had to find another point to bring her in.  
   
Suddenly it came to me, abruptly.  "So, how much turkey, in your estimation do you think you've consumed?"  
   
"Let's just say I'm thankful I don't have to wear jeans," she sarcastically noted, "because right now? They'd be fully unzipped, since I've eaten more corn, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce than they probably served at the Mission today!"  
   
"From your avoidance, you've had an entire turkey."  
   
"I've had every variety of turkey today possible except for turducken, I've had it deep fried, in the form of Tofurkey®, slow-cooked, and oven roasted." She moaned out, seeming to rub her sore belly. "Trust me, at this point I'm ready to go vegetarian."  
   
"You must be tired, too." My memory, usually sharp, was somewhat clouded due to the effect of having such a large meal. "That overindulgence of carbs, it's making you seem worn out."  
   
"Don't you mean tryptophan?" I shook my head, remembering my reading on the subject.  
   
"There's a little of that, but mostly it's the carbohydrates and amino acids competing and then the consuming of the food helping the tryptophan convert it into the sleep hormone."  
   
"I'm too tired to think, you're making my head hurt, hon." I heard her laugh a little, and my mind was thinking _God, she's adorable_.  
   
I hushed my voice a little. "Too bad I'm there to give your temples a massage."  
   
"Or my back, I swear, I wasn't meant to sit on four different seats of varying types for an hour each time."  
   
"Really?" I was starting to picture her a little more vividly at each place, the four tables, two with cushioned seating, one diner-style, and then the picnic table. "I'm sure your stomach is sore, too."  
   
"Mm-hmm." More vivid picturing as my mind went to thinking about that tummy of hers and how sexy she seems in a tank top or short shirt that shows it off.  
   
 _Don't go there_ , I warned myself silently, trying to stop this sudden sexual track. My mind couldn't go there; it had to stay focused on clean things, like homework, the newspaper--the safe items which would help me stay distracted.  
   
No matter that my thoughts of her were overwhelming me. The last two days on the plane and in this room have been spent worrying about her, and the lack of intimacy after Lorelai caught us was getting to me. I'm trying to think of other things as I talk to her, but they're three sentence topics quickly taken care of.  
   
And her voice...oh man, that innocent little part of her that on the outside shows her sexuality is little to null, but with me, it's turned into a seductive weapon. My mind keeps echoing her insinuation that I make her hot from the Gilmore foyer and how wet it made me to hear her say that.  
   
I was quickly taking things into another direction with the conversation without realizing it at first: A simple question, asking what she was wearing, stated neutrally.  
   
"Just my deep blue patterned dress from being out all day. I had on a pink sweater to keep myself warm. It's kinda boring, the dress, you know, what I'd usually wear on a Friday night dinner."  
   
"Mm-hmm, sounds nice." Despite all my holding back, I asked on further. "How low does it go?"  
   
"Mid-way down, it's understated."  
   
"It must feel really nice on you," I said, thinking up the visual picture of her in it.  
   
"It's a sort of silky rayon, it falls nicely down my legs, you know?" I nodded through the phone, 'mm-hmm'ing her.  
   
"Like my favorite kind of pajamas."  
   
"A very nice dress." There was a pause between there as I tried to figure out where to go next with this conversational track.  
   
What was I starting to do? I asked her a simple question about what she wore, and suddenly, my thoughts were wandering to the girl back north over the telephone wire, how she might be reacting to my questions. _For all I know, she's at her desk studying, or else_...  
   
 _No, you're not going there_ , I warned again. I sipped a bit of water to re-wet my throat, trying to figure out where to take things next.

"Paris?" Rory's low-fi voice startled my attention, and I scrambled to quickly acknowledge her.  
   
"Hmm?"  
   
"Why are you asking about my dress?" Her voice was soft and innocent.  
   
I stumbled, trying to make a quick excuse out of thin air. "Uhh...well, I just wanted to get a nice mental picture of you...how you're looking as I'm talking to you right now."  
   
"Are you sure? Usually you know I wear a dress to the mansion. It's pretty much mandated by Grandma that I have to."  
   
"Well, you never know, one day you might decide to go wearing pants instead." I was so lost, trying to get back on the topic.  
   
"I could, that's true." She hesitated for a moment. "But then I'd get a lecture from Grandma that 'it's not proper for a young lady such as you to come to dinner in jeans. This isn't the Boxcar Diner, dear'." She was trying to do what had to be a very horrible, yet still good imitation of Emily, which had me giggling a little.  
   
"She realizes that diner closed in 1974, right?"  
   
"Sometimes Mom thinks she's permanently stuck back in the sixties. Besides, I love this dress. What's wrong with it?"  
   
"Nothing," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "Absolutely nothing!" _Oh crap, don't clue her in!_ I tried to backpedal quickly from my excited statement. "You know me, I probe, that's all."  
   
"You usually probe my brain, Par, not my dresser drawers." Rory was trying to turn those tables around on me. "I think someone's been paying more attention to my dress lately because..." she stopped for a moment, as I heard her shuffle around a little, which from the noises sounded like mattress springs and thrown blankets. "...you think I'm hot."  
   
There were the brakes on normal conversation...and the temperature in the room was suddenly feeling a little warmer. I tried my best to keep the conversation within an even flirting line. "I do, but that's beside the point. I was only using your state of dress as a point of reference due to your lack of a cameraphone. I like to make myself think I'm in a regular conversation with you."  
   
"Noted," she said slowly. "But what would you have thought had I said that I wasn't wearing very much, or nothing at all?"  
   
 _Oh God! Stop those thoughts!_ I was getting really flustered now! "Well...I'm not sure," I said, tripping over all of my words with my tongue. "You aren't usually nude, so it would throw me off."  
   
"Am I making you nervous?" she said, her voice testing my virtue.  
   
I tried to stand firm, holding back my flirtatious tone. "Of course not, you can't throw me off."  
   
She thought for a moment about how to respond, and after a click of her tongue, decided to turn things around. "So I have permission to ask what you're wearing?"  
   
Now I felt a little more comfortable as she took the focus from herself. _OK, you can do this, just don't go into detail_ , I thought rationally.  
   
"You can ask," I assented. With a pause, I tried my best to describe my outfit. But it's going to depress you. I have on a thin purple sweater, khaki pants, and a pair of casual brown lace-ups."  
   
"Is your hair up, or down?" She continued.  
   
"In a tight ponytail." She seemed a little disappointed in that description.  
   
"I thought you were done with that hairstyle."  
   
"Not around Mother I'm not," I observed morosely. I sensed another opening to push the flirt along, and I slid a finger into the hairband holding it in tightly against my head, detangling the band so I could wear my hair down again. I could hear in the background of the headset the ruffling as I undid the tail and then tossed my hair back and forth to free it all again. "But for you, I'll make an exception."  
   
Rory seemed pleased by that, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "Just the way I like it," she stated.  
   
"I guess you like it," I said.  
   
"Mm-hmm." I kept shifting on the bed, finding the building conversation overwhelming, and she could hear that through the microphone of the hands-free. "I bet the sweater looks really nice on you."

Not much to think about my outward beauty, I conceded her point. "I guess it's nice, but something I'd rather not be wearing." I tried to push the comment off-hand, but my voice had other ideas, since really the building heat was causing me a little bit of an uncomfortable feeling.  
   
"What would you rather be doing now then?" she asks, still sounding innocent. I'm starting to lose more rational thought as the fantasy that was building was starting to overwhelm what was my memorized conversation track of cuteness followed by serious literary and academic conversations.  
   
"I'd rather be home. More than that, I'd much prefer your company." _No, no, stop!_ My rational thought was fighting a losing battle with my out-to-play inner vixen. "Tell me, that dress, you said it felt silky, right?"  
   
"Mm-hmm," she mumbles.  
   
"Sort of like...a slip?"  
   
She was becoming a little shaky. "A bit like that...yeah."  
   
"It must be chilly at home, the boiler and all. It takes awhile to kick in." I was thinking of the time it took from when we got home for the oil furnace to kick in once Rory set it for 70° on Monday.  
   
"I have a blanket," she tries to say, evading the insinuation.  
   
"But you'd rather have me, I'm sure." My tone was starting to soften more than usual. "How is the atmosphere in your room right now?" I bite at my tongue as she describes the setting, with the ceiling light off, her desk lamp on, the only light in the room as her iBook is closed. The mental picture was building inside of my mind.  
   
"So, I could come in, and you'd be laying on your bed, shadows along your side."  
   
"Yeah." Her voice was getting a little deeper. "Shade's drawn too."  
   
"As I would expect..." Unexpectedly, I was engaging in a tête-à-tête to try to get her warmed up. "You must be flushed red, chilled to the bone. You've been to four places today, staying an hour at each, a lot of time outside, or on the road. In one seating position all day, you're sore, and the effects of digesting the meals are tiring you out, but the process is only now getting you warmed."  
   
Another beat, to catch my brain visualization up with my words. "You're on your bed, trying to feel relaxed. It's all over. Emily is gone for the next couple of weeks, freeing you up from her and Yale pressure. You're calm, trying to project that out. But there's no one to project to since you're just in your own bed. Your head is on the pillow, looking up at the ceiling, and the dress is shifting from your relaxed state, to the left. A bra strap peeks out from below, but I can see you so clearly. The dress is thin, so your usual casual bra doesn't work. You had to wear the fancy type today, didn't you?"  
   
I listened to her for a few moments, her breathing starting to hasten a bit. I was finding myself getting into this picture-making very well. "Yes," she whispered. "It does a minimal job of supporting me; you can't see it through the dress at all."  
   
"I'm thinking of you, the shoulder of the dress slipping down, exposing a bit of the spotty freckles dotting your arms up to your shoulders." I reposition myself once again. "I could just look at you like that all day, all night. I watch you try to slide it up, but it's stubborn, not staying up."  
   
"Uh-huh." Her voice was deepening as mine got within even more of a hush. "You like to watch me, don't you, Par? You stare at me in class or from a distance in the newsroom. I see you look from the corner of my eye, your eyes wandering along my legs and up my skirt...how you've had a new appreciation for me."  
   
"You're made for a dress," I whisper. "When you're formal and dressed up, I just envy you, how classically beautiful you look, the shape of your face. The way your hair trails down, how even your wrists within the cuffs of your blazers are such a tease, stopping me from viewing your arms."  
   
"Oh my God..." I hear her swallow. "...Paris."  
   
"And how you view me too, that I hide my breasts from everyone else, trying to believe that no one notices them. But you do...and I also notice yours, small, compact, perfect for your frame." I shift again. "I'm thinking about your nipples, stressed from the blood constriction, cold. They're showing through the dress, and your bra...like a slip."  
   
"Uh-huh." I hear her then gasp, then gulp, taken back that I'm describing her in this way.  
   
"I caress them with the forefingers of my left hand, looking at you from below. My index and middle gently swirl around the tip on your left side, puckered, as if a bump within a tablecloth. I play with it, testing the give, the swelled nub so sensitive...it's never been touched like that before, except from your own doing. Being gentle, Rory, I promise you."  
   
Some minor hyperventilating from her side of the line. I hear in the background a soft zippish sound. "Please, be gentle."  
   
"How tight are you feeling?"  
   
"Ohh...a little wound up now."  
   
"My right hand, along your side," I say slowly, deep and hushed. "From deep beneath the underarm, I slide it along your side, my fingertips dancing along an invisible line. Your eyes, previously slanted and sleepy, now wide open, pupils wide. Face deeply flushed. You think to yourself that this is somewhat hastened, that I shouldn't be doing this. But I know you, what you hinted at Monday how your dreams have been lately. You're picturing me shirtless. Gilmore, not like Dean, where that was unacceptable. My sweater is a hindrance, but not only that, my pants too." Moments before, I had slid off my shoes and kicked them off, and found myself getting into a laying pose that was quite interesting. "These pants are fitted so tight on me, I've gained a half size since I last wore them, one half size I know Mother wants me to lose. But I won't, because I know my ass looks sweet in them. And if you get into just the right position..." I press my pelvis against the middle seam. "...it's heaven. They're a little loose there, and I feel some building pressure."  
   
"Damn," she moans out. "Tell me how you look right now, please."  
   
"My legs are sort of spread," I note, "the balls of my feet gripping the end of the mattress. The sweater rides up my stomach, usually it fits perfectly. The moment I think of talking to you, however, my body reacts, it expands out, anticipating your taste, your touch. It's a tight fit, the outline of my bra, easily seen through the sweater."  
   
"Nice, oh God..." She breathes deeply, voice heaving. "Your...your bottom part, your panties, they must feel tight."  
   
"You have no idea," I say. "The seam of my pants, it's right where I need it. Pressing..." I slide my legs a little, holding back a sigh. "...in a place where I usually don't want them." My eyes widened as I purposefully pushed more into the seam. "Ugggh, man."  
   
Her voice was becoming uneven as we went further. "Par, what are you thinking about me right now?"  
   
"That your blue eyes are dark, squinting in the dim light of your bedroom as you lay back, on your mattress, concentrating on the phone call more. Your hand, it wants to touch, but you're holding back, I can hear it."  
   
"I am not," she argued. I shook my head.  
   
Darkly, I suggested her real mindset. "You are, because your imagination, it's raw, giving you suggestive images, both arising from my words and your thoughts. You want me, that sweet mouth of yours wet with the Pavlovian reaction that you want to kiss me, deeply, hard. Your legs dampening, body hot, senses dampened by the gastric overload."

"OK, Sherlock, what do you think I want to do?" she asks sarcastically.  
   
"You're thinking of me sliding my hand along your dress," I propose. "Maybe even up, along your smooth legs--"  
   
"As you take off my stifling pantyhose...I didn't want to wear them today but the chilly weather gave me other ideas." _Way to insert that nag and turn it hot, Gilmore_ , I commend silently. "Ever since I decided I'm going after you, I haven't worn them, since I know you treasure my bare legs, you loathe them with a passion, and in turn I do too. You slip a finger beneath each side of the waistband." She pauses, giving me the signal to go next.  
   
"I roll them off slowly, my eyes on your face. I'm not watching because I've memorized most of your curves." I still can't believe she hasn't stopped me. "Over your thighs, my thumbs brush closer within the inner part, my index hooked at the waistband, bringing them down."  
   
"Yeah," she gasps, breathlessly. "Just like that, be soft..." I continue to describe how I take off the hosiery, thinking of myself kissing along her neck softly. Her breath is harried: she sounds so desperate and wanting of my attention.  
   
"I can feel your eyes warm me up," she suggests. "Oh God...you're peeling off my pantyhose, but you're not looking there at all. You're being very shallow, Par."  
   
"Where am I looking?"  
   
"My dress is pushed up, and you're looking all the way up it." The mental picture was already that...she seemed so sexy in my head with a wrinkled formal dress pushed all the way up her thighs. I warmed up more, starting to feel heated along my body. "I lift up the one leg the pantyhose are still attached to aim them towards my hamper, but your concentration is so far elsewhere...the material slides down my thighs until you're looking down at my...my...my crotch."  
   
 _She's starting to doubt herself a little_ , I thought, _maybe this wasn't a good idea_. I cooled from her being unsure, trying to scramble to figure out where she wanted to go next. "Rory, are you OK?"  
   
"Um, yeah, of course. It's...it's nothing," she tries to suggest, but her stumbling words make me think otherwise. She's struggling to bring herself to think of herself as a lust object, and her Puritan mindset is getting back to her. I know she has it in her to get raw and erotic, but she's still scared because what we're doing has somewhat of a reality to it. We're not 'together' physically, that much is true. But mentally, it's about as real as it can be.  
   
"Are you sure?"  
   
"Yeah!" she exclaims in a panic. "I...I'm just not used to, well, uh, you know, what I've been thinking and writing being..."

I confirm her mindset, trying to be as caring as can be. "You're scared to be unedited, right?"  
   
"Uh-huh." She breathes softly, trying to find courage. I hear it in her voice that she's afraid to go further if someone walks in, so I have to assure her.  
   
"No one is here. They're not getting in. No one will interrupt. The door's locked." I moisten my lips. "You?"  
   
"Mom went over to Luke's after to vent about dinner; she's not even here. I told her I was tired and that I was going to read, study and head to bed. But just in case, I used the slide lock on my door, and _War and Peace_ is also braced against it."  
   
"There's nothing stopping you then." Slowly, we're both moving back into the mood.  
   
"No." Her voice is taking on a breathless, sexually wanting tenor. I'm playing with my own, trying to find just the right voice to seduce, something that was very easy within fantasies. In real life however, very untested. Still, I'd try anyways. However, I had to make it clear that I might be instigating what was happening, but Rory was still in control.  
   
"If you feel you need to stop, just say the word, and I will."  
   
"Don't stop, Paris," she said. "Please be like you dream of me in my mind...say what you want. I have to....no, I want to get used to this, wanting me like you do." I heard some rustling, and to my surprise, she was getting right back to where we were. "You slide my hosiery the rest of the way off my feet, looking down at me. Your gaze, weighed down towards the junction of my legs."  
   
Immediately, I felt turned on once again. "What are you thinking?" Tightness building in me from her voice.  
   
"You're looking at me like I'm delicious, and it's really getting to me, I'm running my right hand along my side, smoothing out the dress, then down to where the hem is pushed up to. I'm so hot right now, my body warming from the attention you're giving me."  
   
"My hands are cold, like they're apt to be in dry weather. My hair is brushing along your collarbone as the both of us kiss, my weight atop of you as you squirm, trying to have my grasp avoid sensitive spots. My hand wanders along up from the depression of your kneecap, and into the delectable pale skin of your left thigh. Being very soft..." I hear her shriek at the other end of the line.  
   
"OH! My God!" It takes her a few moments to recover. "I'm so sensitive there...and towards the inside portion too. My dress is pushed up a bit more..."  
   
"Where else?" We know each other well in everything but erogenous zones.  
   
"You know my earlobes?"  
   
"Tristan had a fixation with them," I remember.  
   
"He was right to, I've always imagined someone nipping at them, kissing them...in my dreams."  
   
"The sensitive stimuli gets to you, doesn't it?"  
   
"I always dream of your teeth against them," she confesses, "when I fantasize about being taken in a surprising way. I've thought of it since that time during that Shakespeare unit you came upon me sitting on the bench, whispering sonnets. Oh..."  
   
"The supple cartilage, gliding through my teeth, the smooth texture. I also..." husking, I flirt. "I'd suck on them, suctioning it, then I would take the tip of my tongue at the end of the lobe." I start to feel very tight within my bra. "I blow warm breath within the back of your scalp, and then I move those kisses from your earlobe, down your cheek, and then at your mouth. Moving slowly...slowly...making a lower curve with my lips, my tongue, worshipping your beautiful features. Towards the other cheek, back up, up, and then...then I bite again."  
   
"Yeah...yeah. I like it when you do that, oooohhhhh...."  
   
"What are you doing with your hands?" I ask, noticing her deepening tone.  
   
"I'm rubbing myself. Slowly and agonizing, through the material of my dress. Down my breasts, towards my core, I'm so wanting of you. With my right hand, two fingers together...thinking about your ear play like you're playing with another sensitive portion of my body."  
   
My mind, living and vivid color. "That's so beautiful, hot...delicious. Still playing with your earlobe, my hand at the back of your dress, massaging you through the silky material, from your bra on up."  
   
"Paris...yessssss." Oh God, goosebumps and chills at the sound of her voice. "You release my ear, moving your mouth away from me to take in what you do to me...how much the very thought of you, doing all of this."

I go on a little more, slowly detailing how I was looking at her...how sexy she was, her hair becoming mussed, wrinkles along her dress. The very tease of her left shoulder, giving me just a hint of her freckling as I stare at the strap of her bra. I start to move things forward more, indulging in the one thing I really love to do to fluster Rory and push her buttons.  
   
"I'm behind you now, Gilmore," I utter breathlessly. "I know how you are about being approached from behind, it gets you boiling, doesn't it? The way it takes away your advantage of knowing what's ahead with me in front of you. You anticipate the element of surprise, and it never ends up how you think it might."  
   
"Damn." I think of Rory in her small-town home, indulging my fantasies. "I like you behind me, being the controlling one. I feel so tight, hot...my face is warmed red, from being so turned on."  
   
"Your throat is tight, my breath cascading along the back of your neck. You tingle with the probability that what I say next isn't going to be innocent at all."  
   
"Are you scared tonight?" she asks, trying to gauge whether I'd push out if things got too hot.  
   
"Scared, but ready to take a risk with you, Gilmore." I purse my lips together to re-wet, finding them drying out quickly. "I can hear you...you're still sliding your hand over your dress, right? Slow, deliberate strokes."  
   
The answer is squeaked out. "Yuh."  
   
"So damp, wanting..." I'm getting wet at the very thought of her bared legs. "You can't handle it, the extra layer is dampening your senses. I'm pushing it up from behind, while you hike it up from the front. Over those curvaceous thighs, my hands, long, thin...I'm reveling in the privilege to know that I can touch you in that way."  
   
"You can...I daydream about you, you doing that." Her breath is ragged. "I can't believe the thoughts I had at the grandparents today. I went into the library to get away from the guests because they kept annoying me about Yale."  
   
"Something about me?" I wonder.  
   
"Not quite, just a kink that I have, something very, very odd." A bit of hesitation from her end. "You know how some people, they get turned on at the sight of high heels, formal dress, that kind of thing?" I knew what she was talking about, since Louise had shared in the past her preferred sexual fantasy was a fuck with a tuxedoed hunk, through their clothes with only the pertinent parts exposed.  
   
"A fetish," I say, inquisitive. "What, may I wonder, turns you on?" It couldn't be too odd, since Rory was a normal woman with a few exceptions.  
   
"I have a thing about the smell of books," she confesses.  
   
"Books?" Okay, that was definitely a new one. At least she didn't say a panda costume, I guess. But she went on to describe why, her voice still soft and laced with desire.  
   
"It's the mystery behind them that gets to me, the kind of paper they're printed on, their age. I mean a CD, a video, you go by the cover, pop it in, and there's no mystery, you see what you get and they all have that odd plasticy smell. But a book, there's so much about them." I could hear her voice waver, turning herself on while she described her kink. "In what other medium can you tell what title's a classic, or know that it's something quick and dirty to waste an afternoon. For example, my grandfather, he has a complete first edition set of Dickens books...I smell the old pulp within the paper, and I think of how it can sweep me away in that world he created."  
   
"You love the scent...it sticks in your mind." I build around it. "I had to come into this somehow."  
   
"I thought of myself with you in that room, watching me read at my Grandpa's desk...you watch me, bemused about how buried I am within the novel...and I know that at anytime, you can surprise me and strike."  
   
"You're true to my mind." I love learning these new things about this amazing girl, even through this fantasy. "Remind me to buy you a first edition _Little Women_ for Christmas."  
   
My body was wracked with so much tightness from this point, Rory's voice really getting into my psyche. I'm listening to her, yet I feel wanting to be raw with her, letting things ratchet up a little bit. I change my positioning on the bed so I'm looking towards the window, laid out lengthwise, the phone sitting on the nightstand, connected to the headset wire, my elbow propping my head. My hand, the right one, is moving lower along my side. I start to describe what I'm doing.  
   
"Still thinking of you, right here...my fingers are at the waistband of my pants. Your dress is pushed up all the way now, wrapped around my arm to keep it up." I gasp as I brush along the exposed patch of skin.  
   
"Stroking me, through my underwear, down the front, oh my God..." I hear her actually grunt. "This is actually one of my favorite pairs of panties. They're silk, blue, with a little bow on the waistband. I picked them out at the Secret to wear on my 1 1/2 year anniversary date with Dean. But to a point, when I was in the store, I thought about how you might regard them also. I'm glad he never got to see them." I hear a click on the other end. "They're sort of good-luck to me, because I wore them the day of the wedding, when Jess kissed me...and you won the election, and a couple of times when we were in Washington, winning those tough debates against the Pacific team."  
   
I'm becoming hotter, and much tighter, and my words get a little more passionate. "You must be so wet, pulled in so many directions, your stomach feeling so funny. You're thinking of me here, in this little room."  
   
"Yess...oh yess...That sounds so good baby, your voice is getting me off, keep it like that."  
   
"Biting your lip, you have to be...you get antsy when you're doing something wrong."  
   
"Yeah, and this is," she tries to reason. I'm not letting her.  
   
"It's not wrong, it's very normal," I explain. "Thinking of me while I'm thinking of you, nothing but our imaginations guiding us."  
   
"Uh-huh...oh God. Thinking of your hands roaming all over my body, you at my back, fully clothed, and I'm the embodiment of beauty. At my back...I remember back to you, my arms around your waist, in bed. The safety, comfort, and want of you."  
   
"My warmness..." I'm taken away to that morning, wearing the plaid shirt and shorts. "How I wanted so much to believe that you wanted me." I start to unzip my pants, wanting few barriers between the both of us. "I remember being so turned on at what you wore."  
   
"I'm thinking of you unzipping my dress...slowly and elegantly." I hear that zip sound in the background. "I want you so bad, I've missed the comfort of your voice, the touch of your hand on my wrist, brushing it against my side. How you look at me in the locker room," a gulp. "The heated stare, watching me tie my shoe on a gym bench, your eyes, I know where they go, a triangle. You think I'm a work of art...you can't help but look at me."  
   
"Your breasts, small, but a lovely handful. I'm pushing down the dress from the front, sliding it off, seeing your bra...my palms rake across your nipples, puckered and hard."  
   
"It's a thin dark fabric, yet you can see the outline of them," she describes. "The contrast with my pale skin, your eyes notice my areoles."  
   
"Are you still stroking?" I ask.  
   
"In a circle, I'm so damp, haven't been stirred up since Monday night. I need this so much..." I hear the microphone click as it seems she tries to brush the hands-free cord off to the side. "...I feel so warm here, talking to you. Your voice is guiding me on, doing a superior job of setting the stage."  
   
"You brush your hand against your bra," I suggest. "I'm thinking of you getting yourself off in my line of sight, your hair all over the place as the dress falls off your slim profile."  
   
Her voice is tight and strained. "When I get wound up, it hurts sometimes...oh God. My breasts are so sensitive. I've slid my right hand through the bottom of my underwear, stroking myself, slowly. I did it sort of slow Monday night, but right now, it's a good pace."  
   
I'm being taken away by the images being shared between us. My voice fills with more confidence, unafraid that I would go too far. I push down my own pants a few inches, and then trying to be fast, I take the phone and slide it down my sweater so I don't have to interrupt the conversation when I take it off. My words, her words, they're getting to me. I hear Rory continue to describe her pleasure through the phone as I run cool fingers along the cleft formed between my legs, and the crème-colored silk briefs I wore.  
   
"Yes, oh yes, Paris, like that." She was getting more wound up. "My mind is filled with you next to me all the time, I can't believe how much your voice is getting to me. I'm playing with my breasts, stretched out all the way across the bed, propped up on the pillow, looking down towards my feet."  
   
"Ror, do you watch yourself when you cum?" I was feeling even more tightness build up, her voice enchanting to me.  
   
"Sometimes, it's so fascinating to see my body like this, stiff, anticipating." Her breathing picked up. "I always thought it something you kept to yourself, that you didn't share with anyone."  
   
"Don't be afraid with me, I always thought the same." I look at the fingers of my free hand, an image of how they'd look along her thighs in my mind. "Alone in scant lingerie, you must feel really hot."

"You have no idea..." She gasped into the phone, a shaky voice trying to show the pleasure my words were giving her. "Oooooohhhhhh...ttthhhhhhh." I felt goosebumps along my arms listening to her moan. "Gawwwd!!" My face flushed, and I was awed that my voice was doing that.  
   
"What are you doing?" I asked.  
   
"A finger against my clit, it's so hard. Wow." Some more rustling in the background as she seemed to regain her bearings. "I'm biting my lip very hard, feeling around it, uggggghhhh...through my panties, it actually juts out a bit."  
   
I was starting to stroke myself a little bit more, just wanting to hear her pleasure. I kept myself as silent as possible, not cluing her in that I was getting myself off at the same time as she was. "How wet are you?"  
   
"Very," she gasps. "I can't even get any friction going between my legs, which is how I usually start myself off."  
   
A cold shudder went through me, and my larynx creaked. "You...you can get off that way? I didn't think that was possible."  
   
"You'd be very surprised."  
   
"Really?" I was smiling, visualizing this usually innocent girl glowing without anyone noticing that she's doing something so illicit.  
   
"Let's say that in class, sometimes, I do a little more than pay attention to the lecture." Rory continued to gasp and stroke herself all through, knowing that I was being driven crazy by her. "A certain class before lunchtime is the most... _exciting_ of the day for me."  
   
"Dear God..." I was becoming involuntary, my fingers dipping lower, threatening to breach into my panties. "What is going through your mind during Russian Novels?"  
   
"Not Russian Novels, I can tell you that much." She laughed. "I just look at you behind your back, and my mind drifts elsewhere, my hands all over you...it's so much for me to take in."

"I think of you there too, wishing you could just undress me, take me away from that insipidness. I've noticed your hands during the class move closer, lower...towards my bra straps."  
   
Rory drawled out her acknowledgement. "Mm-hmm." She was continually stroking herself, her heavy breathing apparent as I saw her in my mind with eyes lidded. "I get really hot when you push in against the chair, letting the collar of your blouse open a little behind. Giving me that small peek at the skin it covers, along with a hint of the bra."  
   
"Speaking of which," I say breathlessly, "I'm sliding my fingers along the back of yours, getting at the hook, to stretch it out and take it off."  
   
"You want to look at me, don't you?"  
   
"Mmm-hmm. I bet you have so many more freckles on those breasts of yours to count. I want it off of you."  
   
"We both love freckles, don't we?" Her voice is becoming rough as she tries to push her back up so she can strip the article off. "It's just amazing how cute that nose of yours is, with those little red marks peppering it."  
   
Surprised by her compliment, I shriek. "It is not cute!"

"You want to bet? It plays a role in some of my naughtier dreams, hitting that right place as you line up your tongue--"

"God, Ror, stop," I implore, not ready to cede control. "You're the star tonight, not me!"  
   
"But I want to make you feel good, and make this weekend just fly by for you--what better way than to plant dirty dreams inside your head?"  
   
"The better to leapfrog me GPA-wise," I said with a bit of mischief. "However, I'd get right back at you, sliding my hand across your bare chest, then hooking a finger around a hard nipple."  
   
"Oh yesss.....oh God." Her breathing once again picked up. "You're toying and pinching it, just trying to get me hotter."  
   
"My other hand down across your stomach, so tight and slim...you're so perfect." My voice is even lower, and more suggestive.  
   
"Oh my God...yes...you're so close, and I'm getting so wet..." Rory's attention was quickly drifting away from vocalizing how she was feeling in words, while my imagination was overwhelming my own faculties. It's nice to be wordy to set the scene; between the both of us, our imaginations could build it further.  
   
We weren't going to get anywhere though if I kept Rory in conversation. My mind image was filled with Rory on her bed, almost nude, hands across her body.  
   
"Rory," I shuddered out, trying to turn her on further, "where is your other hand?" She continued to gasp and moan through the phone as I heard her vocalizations, sharp breaths, hyperventilations. "What are you thinking right now?"  
   
A period of time has to pass before she can speak again. "Thinking of you...on top of me...kissing...suckling."  
   
"My tongue slides 'round a nipple, completely prone. You want that, don't you, dear?" I hear what I can decode as an affirmative whine. "And now I'm sliding my right hand down your form, slowly, my fingertips the only skin-to-skin contact, the coolness from my palm sliding down across your hot skin." My voice deepens even more into a whisper. "Across the knot of your belly button, the right side folding over the left. In a way, I'm thinking how your mother's young blood created such a beautiful young woman for me to treasure. You're smooth, your entire height stretched out across the mattress, with the scent of a fall New England evening mixed with your lotion, both aromas so strong."  
   
My only response is still nothing but breathing and the occasional creak from her larynx, her microphone at the perfect place. _Exactly what I want for now...let it germinate within her mind. You want her to feel that your touch is beyond anyone else_. The vixen in me, doing a great job painting the picture.  
   
I knew I couldn't paint it for myself though. No matter the sensual feelings I was having, I wanted to concentrate on her pleasure, and put mine aside for the time being. Rory was the star, the one with the heavier stress, who initiated everything between us. I had to reward her for being tolerant enough of me, and there was no expectation that she had to return the favor.  
   
"I leave long, lingering kisses on each of your breasts, the right and to the left, and then I start to push myself up, so I can meet you mouth to mouth. Brushing my lips against your skin, across your breastbone, up the middle, towards your neck. I'm sliding that left hand down towards the small of your back, memorized like the topography of California to me. I think back to the marathon, where each touch along your spine made you shiver and shake, and before I thought it was just an illusion to only me and you really weren't reacting to how my fingers were working you. Little did I know I was knotting you all up and down, keeping your mind distracted as we waltzed down the hardwood."  
   
It was then I learned she was even worse off than I projected. "You had me so wet, just about gushing, and so not easy to hold off my thoughts when I'm in a dancing pattern. I would've never even thought in reality, you'd be so curvy...or soothing." She says this through a voice with a higher tone than usual, telling me that it's all working out quite well.  
   
"I think I should feel very complimented by that," I said, feeling warmed and flattered by her accolade. "My mental picture paled to your reality in turn. I pictured you as sort of a square, wanting to go slow, not very adventurous at all."  
   
With a deep laugh as she continues her stroking, she proves that she certainly isn't anywhere near that shape. "I can see why you'd think that, God. Ask me what I saw in Dean, please!"  
   
"I don't want to. I just want to focus on my hand sliding along your belly, lower and lower, just drifting down, your eyes focused on mine, lips parted, glossy. Your body, wracked with sweat, some intense pleasure from the blood in your breasts on full flow, your nipples hard from my caressing."  
   
"Mm-hmm," she moans. "Feeling for you...those hands across my waistband...ohhh...ohhh..."  
   
"My other hand is at your waist, each of my nails scratching along your skin, warm and soft. I like feeling your middle, Gilmore...it's like a secret that only I know." More heat, as she exhales, confirming that her abdomen is one of her erogenous zones.  
   
"Parrr...." she drawls out my name, and a shudder goes through me as my eyes tighten that I'm doing this to her. "Oh my God, yess, yess..."  
   
"Darling, are you still circling?"  
   
"Yesssss...ohh...ahhh, keep touching me there...so needing this."  
   
 _Mmmm, yeah, this is good, isn't it Gellar? You have her in a corner, she's frenzied for a cum, give her something to remember._ My inner vixen became my inner cheerleader, trying to help me say the right things and keep Ror at a steady boil before she went over. "I'm sliding off your underwear, so damp with how you feel about me. They never stood a chance when the first thing you thought this morning was that you hoped I would call, you've been anticipating this, like an exam. Wondering how I'd test you with how you'd be satisfied, you were shocked when I actually wanted to partake in this." I prop myself up a little more, turning up the headset's volume so that I could hear every bit of what she was about to do. "I have too, just hearing your voice, wanting to take things up another level. But in the meantime..." I purred deeply into the microphone, my mind filling with divesting Rory completely of any clothing, "...those panties are down, and they're completely off of you."  
   
"They're gone...on the bedpost...nothing left...but you...and I..."  
   
"Just a inquiry, before we go on." I felt a little nervous with the question, but if I was going to take it all the way, the complete picture had to be filled. "Without panties, since I became your girlfriend, you are?"  
   
"Trimmed in a neat triangle...when I shave my legs...like myself clean...helps my fantasy."  
   
My mouth after that question? Watering with anticipation at knowing her more intimately, one day. For now though, my hand was hers, and I had to guide her.  
   
Being vanilla wasn't going to help her along, but thankfully I had something in my arsenal to describe.  
   
"Last night," I began, "I was thinking about you, apart from my mother in the plane, near an exit seat, bored watching the flight go over Delaware on the seatback screen. All alone, no one disturbing me to the left and the right, or kicking my own seatback. I could doze off until the flight landed, and that I did." Everything came back to me about that nap. "You and I, at Miss Patty's...I recalled that one time you told me after the formal, you dozed off with Dean on the yoga mats at one in the morning, you didn't do anything but still you faced the gulag of your mother and grandmother talking you onto the pill?"  
   
"How can I forget?" she grumbles.  
   
"Well, I twisted it around a little..." my color started to fill in the details of my subconscious. "Thought of you and I there instead, after Tristan and Dean actually went after each other, it got pretty bloody between them and they ended up hauled off to the hospital and then to jail with assault charges."  
   
Laughing, she knows how I probably felt that night. "They always seemed like they were gonna kill each other one day." Thinking about what my dream was leading to, her mind was curious about how I got her on the yoga mats. "But we were at odds, how could you have changed that around? That night almost killed any hope of even a friendship between us."  
   
"Two years gave me a new perspective into how you were around me that night..." I smile as I remember the dream. "...you were flirting with me, using your body language, and then your eyes." That surprised her, as she gasped in shock that I would remember that far. "That ugly dress was good for one thing, you got an eyeful of the goods, especially when I went off on you about Jacob."  
   
"P-p-par, I wasn't looking, honest, why would you think that?" I bet she her entire body was flaring a red blush from head to toe as my voice became seductive once again.  
   
"Because, even back then Gilmore, I know you got hot at my anger. I saw that your eyes never left the area between my eyes and my cleavage the whole time: there was a blatant stare on your part. Then when you told me that I was the one that said it all, not you, you gazed up at me as the bodice of the dress tightened against my nipples when I looked up to see the Chiltonian reaction." I knew it was getting to her, as I heard even more harried breathing into the headset.  
   
"I'm sorry...I couldn't help it...that was the first time ever that I realized you had such a bust hiding beneath your clothing. It was never a prominent feature before then."  
   
 _Perfect, she's biting on! I knew this thing for me went back further than the rehearsals!_ I was choosing to reveal a few details before I colored in the dream for her. I went on with the true events of the night. "It's perfectly all right, because when I got into the Town Car fleeing the Armory that night, alone, you know what the first thought I voiced out was?"  
   
"Hmm?" she strained, the slow strokes still continuing.  
   
"I asked myself, 'Was she staring at me sexually?'. At the time, it was just the anger and everything else about the night mixing in to tell me no. After a couple years though, I have to think that you were."  
   
"But I wasn't," she futilely argued. "I was pissed off that you were accusing me of revealing Jacob!"  
   
"Really then?" Time to make my point. "Then when was your first sexual dream of me, and what was I wearing?" Ror grumbled into the phone, but I was going to get this cleared up once ad for all. "Take your time, Ror, I have all night."  
   
"I'm not exactly in the best thinking position," she whines.  
   
"You just told me you kindle yourself in Russian Novels, so I know you multi-task!"  
   
"Oh God! Geeze, fine..." despite her thinking, barely thirty seconds passes before she remembers her first sex dream with me. "It was in March last year, after you went out with Tristan and froze me out, while I was in flux with Dean. I was helping you get ready for the date with Tristan, things happened where I ended up in the bathroom with you in your underwear. I watched you putting on my mother's clothes, you noticed my staring. We started to flirt, and before I knew it I'm pushed against the sink, you kiss me strongly. By the end, we had all our clothes in tatters as the dream ended before you thrust your fingers in as I screamed that we were both dead for ruining her clothing!" Her voice goes up several octaves as she summarizes the dream. "I splashed water on my face after I woke up and fled to the bathroom, and thought it a nightmare!"  
   
Meanwhile at this end, I'm laughing out loud at the frenzied description, and then I confess my first sexual dream with her. "That's a good one. My first was during Rebuilding Together when it was 108° that day and we were down to tanks and shorts. I had to leave the job site because I was developing a sunburn and possible heat stroke. Back in bed at the Manor, I had a feverish dream of you serving me a lemonade, spilling it on me, and then things heating up as we try to beat the heat; ice cubes, suntan lotion, and a freezer in a kitchen with bare drywall you fucked me against were also involved. Though why my subconscious suggested we have sex in hot, humid weather is something I can't figure out."

"So you in July last year, me a few months before?" I mm-hmmed my acknowledgment, as her tone turned into warning. "And why were we fixed on boys when we were both thinking about this, Par-Bear?"  
   
"I think we were stupid and committed to our men?"  
   
"Or we just used our anger for each other to cover up how we felt."  
   
"Definitely." I can't believe how heated we're starting, and I'm not even to describing the dream situation. "You know, I haven't even thought about Tristan at all sexually since he left. It's all been you with the occasional actress entering the picture."  
   
"My brain has excised Dean in the last few weeks," she admitted, "no dreams of a sexual variety of him since we arrived in D.C., all my sexual dreams have been of you."  
   
"No one else, at all?"  
   
"Maybe a couple threesomes, but for now, those are gonna stay secret. I don't want to freak you out."  
   
"I have those too, but not for sharing, at least for now." Now I think it's time to bring her off; she's getting there, I can tell. Her voice is tight and all wound up, breath rapid, and it's been at least 25 minutes, I'm surprised she hasn't felt any kind of pain or sudden orgasm.  
   
"Come on Rory, I'm going to tell you now, please don't get freaked out by my dream."  
   
"I won't, promise. Your voice, it sounds so damned hot...I love it when you're cute and demanding."  
   
"All demand from here on out," I disclaim. "I want you to keep it up, don't stop touching yourself; it gets me hot. The thought of you, in your room, so far away, stroking your clit..." I clear my throat along with my warmed mind with a quarter bottle of Diet Coke, continuing on as the sweetness inundates my mouth. "I'm getting to my dream. We're out in the hall of the Armory, you're running to catch up with me, angry that I blamed you. You're in my face, backing me towards a corner, trying to tell me that I shouldn't assume out of the blue. I'm in my mode of not taking in the conversation at all, rolling my eyes and teasing you in my mind as a stupid hick girl who doesn't know what she's talking about. It goes on and on, I'm not listening at all..."  
   
"Yes..." she heaves into the phone.  
   
"All of the sudden, without any provocation, you grab at the side of my dress. You yell loudly, asking if I'm listening to anything that you say. Dismissively I say that I am, but you're having none of it. You're going on and on and I'm thinking about wanting to flee, first the boyfight, and then this. Looking for the exit, I try to leave, but you're keeping me by gripping tightly on my arm."  
   
"'I don't understand why you had to take your cousin', you ask, and I explain it was last-second, I didn't find anyone and Sharon forced him on me whether I liked it or not. It goes on as I try to argue that I have certain expectations, and I accuse you of making me a charity case when you said you would've found someone in your town for me, that I wasn't going to go on a date out of pity." Going back over the bitter part of the dream reminds me of that former hateful personality I hope that I've left behind for good. "You speak up, trying to remind me that Tristan had an open invitation outstretched when he bought his tickets and I should've spoken up. Instead, I shout you down with Sharon-fed bullshit about chivalry and tradition."

The dream started to pick up pace after that I as I go into the meat of the matter. This DreamRory, unlike the meek girl of those two years ago, was the strong Rory of today, trying to call on me to decide once and for all if I wanted to go after Tristan or just keep the feelings to myself. She was also tired of our relationship being based on my jealousy over her as the New Girl, and that she wished to see me as her equal, nothing else. She goes on with this, along with a suspicion that she was sensing through our tension.  
   
"You're speaking to me firmly, and out of nowhere, you take the conversation off-track. 'I don't know what I did to you, Paris,' you say wearingly, 'but if I didn't know better, you let that opportunity with Tristan go on purpose.' I deny it, but you already have something thought up. 'I know that you like him, Par...' and then you start moving closer. 'Ever since I arrived though, you've been more distracted with following me around than anyone else.' I don't know what the hell you're talking about, so I try to deny whatever you're about to say."  
   
My brain is vivid with the image as things start to warm up between us. "'Paris, do you like me?' you say, looking down at me with worry across your face. I frown and say that I don't...but it's rushed and hollow, because it's then you take my hand and intertwine your fingers with mine. It's then you make me realize the truth, the very reason for trying to sabotage you before we could ever be friends. You mention the moat, how you wanted to help me out, but felt crushed when you couldn't. How cold I was to you at your birthday party, yet still went despite the fact, then a week later, let myself go by theorizing Harvard was a large campus and we were both thorns in each other's sides for two years. You know all of it, but reminiscing isn't the point of this dream..." I take a dramatic pause, hoping that Ror's libido hasn't calmed. "It's that even though we hated each other with passion at that time...deep within a dark reservoir within our souls, there was something that was screaming for the both of us to challenge each other, not out of anger or pure hate that we were both competing for the same things, be they the grades, awards...Tristan," I said with a bit of seething.  
   
"I never wanted him," she interjected between heavy breaths.  
   
"I know that now, but remember, this was us way before we could let go. Still, there you were in that hallway, asking me if I liked you, and I denied it. And in that soft, small innocent voice of yours, you correct yourself. 'Not in the friendly sense.' You run your hand up my arm, starting to push me towards the front door of the building. 'Paris, you're about to turn sixteen in a couple weeks, and I see that you're confused about me. One moment you're teasing me by suggesting I'm a loser for oversleeping, but the next you're in my ear whispering that I'm going down. And I'm baffled, because you're very close, enough that I can take in your perfume...and a couple of times, especially when you were yelling at me, I had to gulp down something...that your proximity was getting to me in a way that has me thinking in a different way than I ever have thought with Dean.' I respond to that with a strong denial of whatever you felt, but then you ask me if I could give you a ride home. Some hemming and hawing later, you finally give up, realizing no one else is going to offer you a ride back to the Hollow without charge.  
   
"I wanted an escape from my mother, and we needed to bury the hatchet. We both end up at Miss Patty's about an hour later, talking about things as I evade the topic of my interest in you, because I shouldn't think that way about another girl, much less one I was engaging in an ever-growing war of words with.  
   
"We get into the depot, sit down on those mats, and from there...the dream diverges from our real life at that time. You start to engage me in a light conversation about what a pest I've been, while at the same time we both feel so uptight and out of order in our Formal dresses and tight hairstyles. You look at me, those eyes scanning me, and you ask me normally if you could undo my hair, tight in all of those pins and barrettes. I think nothing of it and I give you permission to as we engage in a conversation about the new unit in Shakespeare with Medina. Your hair fixing starts off friendly, just undoing the tangles and various things keeping my hair up, your soft voice telling me that my mother's hair stylist doesn't know anything about my mane, and you're jealous of my hair. You brush through it and I find it hard to concentrate on my apology, but eventually I do end up getting it out. I hear you behind me, relieved that you don't have to feel guilty about it."  
   
A few more dull details later, I know that I have to get into things, as Rory speaks up to interrupt.  
   
"Par...sweetie? I love the dream, but my eyes aren't, they're getting heavy. It's been about ten minutes since you started." I look at the time in the corner of my Mac, and indeed, it's been too long. My inner vixen is also impatient with my storytelling. _You need to get into it! You have that girl stuck on pins and needles! Sleep during phone sex is about the worst thing you do; do you really want to explain to Lorelai why her naked daughter didn't hang up the phone until 6am?!  
   
_Time is certainly money, but giving Ror a Thankgiving orgasm was also important! I had to stop wasting time; I was losing my own drive, talking about hair and dream scemantics!

After an apology to her, she reassures me that she can understand. "We're both nervous, and this is your first relationship. You're just happy to be able to share dreams about us." Her voice deepened and her words were serious. "If you're trying to set up a fluffier picture to keep me in a romantic state of mind, don't."  
   
Truthfully I tell her that this is how the dream went, really. She appreciated that, but it wasn't an issue for her. "I'm cupping my breast, thinking about you down there, your mind focused on my orgasm, while I slide the fingers of my right hand along the outside of my pussy lips." Moaning deeply, I can hear the microphone rustle as she feels herself up. "I can see what's happening already, even if it was your dream. We're both there, innocent, our guys hardly satisfying, the anger from the fight still within the both of us, but also concern because you're wounded, dateless because of your demanding mom. I'm on that mat, sliding my fingers through your hair, disappointed with how Dean really was. I'm behind you, thinking about you...ohhh...ohhh...how beautiful you were in that dress, baring all of that cleavage. I also still remember the flowery perfume you wore along your neckline, my mouth watering as I bring my hands around from your back, and then along the sides of your dress. I startle you still...and suddenly, the thought of you being so beautiful enters my conscious. I realize then, my dear," she softly exhales. "From the beginning, you've treated me badly, because you like me..."  
   
"...I've also been territorial about the wrong thing. It wasn't Tristan, it was my own heart." I continue the dream, dead on, uninterrupted. "You soothe me with your words that if you were a guy, there wouldn't have been a second thought about taking me out if Tristan didn't. 'Who say I would've turned you down as a female?' I challenge. I think I've taken you off-track, but you're not thrown off, instead, your slim and pale hands move from my side, and then they cup my breasts, as you bring your lips close to my ear. 'The moment you got in my face,' you say, nipping at my earlobe, 'I wanted to have a go at you. I didn't even remember Dean was there until he shouted from the punch table that he thought we were having a problem.' One hand slides down to my stomach, with the other pushing into the neck of the dress." I shut my eyes, holding the side of my mattress to kill the temptation for that hand to wander when I was describing. "And you tell me, with your strongest tone, that you've been looking at me all night, jealous of Jacob, bored with Dean. When Jacob hit on you and threw you his digits, you lost control and decided to go after me, because in your words, 'I wish that I could take that dress off you right now'...but fate had other plans. Plans, which ended up fanning the flame of your desire."  
   
"Ooooooohhhhhh, yeah..." I can tell that Rory's starting to heat up. "The dress color was ugly, but you...so sexy. I always get off to you in it."  
   
"I thought the same thing of yours, those soft fucking shoulders being exposed, leading my eyes low, you fit it like a glove, and I wondered how I could get your hair down. It matches the shade of your eyes, and my drive is insane, thinking of that dress off to your side as you step towards me, a strapless bra and panties clinging to you barely. I still see Dean, trying to get it off you, and I'm on fire because he'd probably take it off clumsily.  
   
"We turn around, facing each other cross-legged, but not for long. I admit to you that some of that jealousy was a crush, and you know what you say to me?"  
   
"Hmm?"  
   
"'I'm not committed to him.' Your arms drape around my neck as you get to the back tie of my dress. 'He wasn't going to work out, so I was definitely after you.' You undo the snap holding me in, push down the straps, and then you give me a command to flare me up."  
   
"Holy shit!!" She shouts those words so loud that she causes my ear to ring minorly. "You've taken to my aggressive side! What did I say?"  
   
"You wanted me to 'make my first high school dance something to remember,' and for a moment, I feel responsibility take over. But it stops when you push the hem of my dress up so that bared thigh is meeting your core, and it's clear within your eyes that you won't be refused. You wanted me to control you, make you forget Dean...do you want that?"  
   
She pauses, confused as to whether my question was dialogue or not. "Huh?"  
   
Finally, since we got together three weeks ago, I release the language filter. "You want me to fuck you?"  
   
"Yeah," she says wearingly, as I find myself back in my commanding mode. Her answer isn't enough.  
   
"Come on, Gilmore, this isn't one of your lily-covered fantasies! I'm gonna get rough with you...leaving marks all along your body. By the time I'm done you'll be so red you won't be able to wear panties to your grandparents tomorrow!"  
   
"Oooh God..."  
   
"Respond please. I want you, do you want me?"  
   
"Yeah, baby, I do, I do..."  
   
My voice snarls. "Volume, Lorelai, I'm getting pissed. Realizing you knew all the time that Jacob was my cousin the moment I came in. You held it back, and now, you're at my mercy."  
   
"I've been naughty, haven't I?"  
   
"Yes, you have...you don't deserve your panties back...you're going to submit, so I tear them off, into shreds, hiking up that dress, pulling at the zip aggressively. I'm going to get it off you, whatever it takes. We're both heightened, horny, willing to do anything for each other. I commanded you to stand so I can get your dress all off, and in turn, mine falls off as I rise up. You look me up and down, enchanted, your heart a mile a minute, and as it pools down from below my abdomen..." I pause, and let her imagination fill in the long-private blank.  
   
"Y-y-you, you, you only had on the dress." I can hear her start to fall apart based on that knowledge alone. "Just the dress...nothing else." The background of her line is filled with the kicking of sheets. "Oh my God. Ooooohh...my...God!"

"You're getting slick, aren't you, Gilmore?"  
   
"Yes, I am, God, I can feel your bare leg against mine, you push it forcefully in...you have such sexy thighs, they must be so soft."  
   
"Pushing up against it, you cushion your chin against my cleavage, between my breasts...having such a view of my face as my arms lock around you, grasped along the side, and I move you up, so that we can have a long, deep, wanting, toe-curling kiss. I'm sure to ruin your makeup, but I don't give a fuck at all, your virtue is mine."  
   
"I deserve it, I'm so bad..." her voice is picking up speed again. "Crap, you know what you do to me? I don't know how I got through four dinners today **not** fleeing somewhere! I've been in knots for days!"  
   
"We'll unknot you then. I'm pushing harder, you're getting so slick, like tanning oil against my thigh. God, you feel so good, your pussy slides right against me, perfectly. You spasm as I tell you how much I've thought about you since you came into Chilton...how I wish I was the one calling you Mary instead of Tristan."  
   
"Fuck, Par! Oh man..." she pants furiously. "I hate that name, but you say it so well!"  
   
"I'll never call you that. Your imagination isn't Catholic. You're nothing but Ror, my Ror." I keep my eyes tightly closed, one of my hands playing at my panty-covered cleft. I'm so tight and wound, but my girl deserves all the attention. "You're getting there, hon, come on. I want you to get off so hard you're out like I am when I get really built up."  
   
"Yes....oh yes, oh God, I have a couple fingers in there, thinking of you, on me, topping..."  
   
"Your clit is swollen, sensitized for so long, amplified by our teasing. You're getting tired, but you want that tension released." My words start to break up as I look down at myself. My sweater, usually a loose fit, is bunched up beneath my back, and the bulk of my bust is flattered. The tightness of the blood flow through my body makes my nipples prone, and though not defined due to how tight my 'for Sharon' bra is, they clearly peak through the two layers of material, including my sweater. Now my pants are almost down to my knees, and I lay wide in bed, listening to Rory's whines of pure pleasure.

"Ohhhh, ohhh...I still smell you...ohhh..."  
   
"Imagine us, defiling those mats, in the same place you did the ballet so long ago. Just imagine how proud Ms. LaCosta would be if she knew that you and I thought about being sexual on those surfaces, the only sign we were there being a wrinkling of the material, 'cause I get you back home to Lorelai, and she isn't the wiser. Birth control isn't an issue, nothing is. It's just two girls, becoming friends...or more than that. You can get away with so much, how does that feel? You could never, ever, ever do this with Deano."  
   
"I never would, honey, only with you, only with you...yesss, oh FUCK!" She was starting to get there, the illicitness of phone sex and forbidden settings turning her on.  
   
"The thrill that anyone could walk in on us, just like when you were with Dean, but this time you don't give a damn; you're too fargone to turn back now. You wanna cum for me, feel the pumping through your core as you get to the point with the woman you've wanted from afar for so long, through so much, all of these idiotic obstacles keeping you bonded to an ideal you're not into at all. You want me, one on two, president to vice president. Your thirst for my power, it made you want to drink from me, didn't it."  
   
"Ohh yeah, I love being your VP, I get off thinking about you ordering me around. I'm rubbing into you like no tomorrow. So...sweaty...boiler so damned hot, I'm soaked around myself."  
   
The sweat really gets to me; I think about her straight hair dampened atop her head, the small-town farm girl's pale skin glowing red, her eyes open as she props her head, manipulating her clit at a constant pace and watching herself tremor with anticipation at what she's about to do.  
   
"I wish I was there to watch," I husk into the headset.  
   
"You already are, Par...don't think distance will tear us apart." She shrieks as the beginnings of her orgasm begin to build. "I feel so free tonight, and damned sexy."  
   
"Clench yourself around me, tighten your muscles, just let your satisfaction build."  
   
"I don't know if I can..." She's frenzied and desperate.  
   
But as she's both of those, I'm also firm and demanding. "You **WILL** , just clench, my leg is right here, you want stars."  
   
"I do, I do..."  
   
"Come on, baby,"  
   
"Paris..."  
   
"Rory..." my words are still firm, though I've now pushed the crotch of my underwear aside, exposing my dampened mound. I haven't even touched myself all that much and I'm starting to feel the beginnings of release.  
   
"Paris...come on, I'm fully wrapped...so tight around you I'm leaving a bite in your shoulder!"

I open my mouth wide, gasping, my vixen thinking that was so hot! "I can feel it, just let yourself build...ohhh...ohhh..."  
   
"Paris, are you...are you..."  
   
"Yes I am..." I hyperventilate, "I don't even have everything off."  
   
"You're full of tension, come on, against me too!" I have three of my forefingers sliding in and out, the material of my expensive underwear undoubtedly ruined.

"Oh God," I cry out, "Oh God, what would I do without you, Rory!?"  
   
"I don't know..." the lo-fi voice is gone and my brain is constructing her voice at a higher quality than what's coming through. "Thigh to thigh now, I want this, I wanna cum!"  
   
"How hard do you feel it?"  
   
"Very hard, like a knot in my gut, wow!" Her breathing is in spasms, as is mine. No longer is there an Eastern Seaboard between us, only inches of space. It's almost real...scratch that, it i **s** real. "Paris?"  
   
"Yeah?"  
   
"Are you crying?" She can detect a hint of desperation in my tone as I encourage her on. This is emotional for me, draining...after everything that happened today, to know the girl that I love took time out of her evening for me, it makes me feel wonderful.  
   
"A little, are you?" I hear it too...the fun that started out with this small idea has turned into another experience her and I would have never expected.  
   
"I'm tired...drained...this is just so unbelievable..." I hear a banging sound. "DAMN IT! I just hit my head on the headboard...oh God, I hit a sensitive spot!"  
   
"Keep caressing there, baby, keep it up...you sound like you're gonna do it...oh fuck!" I'm a total mess, my mouth almost dry as the both of us begin our orgasm.  
   
"Par..." her voice is lowering...  
   
"Ror..." mine is too...I hear a rip coming from near my hand as I thrust; I've pushed the material a little too far. Not enough to wreck them, but it'll probably make them fit odd from now on. Her throat creaks as she feels her flash point hit...  
   
"Christ, I'm gonna...I'm...I..." Before I can encourage her further. "FUCK, PARIS!" More rustled noises into the mic, and all the sudden she sounds muffled as she starts to scream.

 _She's cumming. Oh my God...she's..._ my vixen was in utter shock as I heard for the first time in reality, Rory...my Rory, have an orgasm. Not just a regular climax that I might see in a movie, this was a violent torrent of ripples that she was never prepared for, never thought she'd have. I listened, stunned. Unbelieving that I, little ol' Paris, whose nickname could be 'repressed sexuality', be the one who did this.

It was so much for me. She was still muffled, and though she tried to get the words of her description out, it was for naught. The waves kept flowing through her, killing her vocal process. Her grunts and moans were the only guide I had to know how high she was getting.  
   
I was crying, but I was still pumping, in and out, in and out, in a frenzy, desperate to feel what my girlfriend felt. The tears dripped down my face, the emotions behind them overwhelming for me. This wasn't like when I thought about her when I got together. This time what was going through me was a culmination of everything I had ever felt for anyone. Her shrieks and screams reverberated down my body...it remembers all the tension built up ever since I realized I had sexual feelings in any form. Every fucking time Tristan teased me and did the 'measure hands' around each of my breasts, brushing them off as things 'just friends' would do. My hand was in, forefingers near the knuckle as my thumb rubbed my sore clit.  
   
That kiss on a dare...the date Ror set me on with him, how I felt denied because he didn't love me...they all melted into nothingness as I remember everything about her. The moment her ass made contact with my body, my project tumbling down to the tile, that awkward sixteen-year old girl with the flaring outbreak grumbling 'Get a-way from me!' as I brushed her off. I hyperventilated with each flash, her compliment that I looked beautiful in the dress she lent me...the promise that she would be my shoulder after Maxgate. The crush on her face as I stood on those steps at the end of sophomore year, denying that I was jealous of her going out with Tristan.  
   
Then the last year...the almost-kiss at the play...her laugh at my milk rant...how she eventually warmed up to my presence on her alone night...breathing gets deeper and deeper, her blue eyes in mine. My words, I don't even understand them as I focus on everything we've experienced. How her grandfather welcomed me with open arms into the locker kit project ideas...her reluctance, and later determination, of being my VP...Washington...chasing down senators and reps, the picture taken of us...renewal in September.  
   
She's barely calming down, and I'm about to spill over, three months in three seconds coursing through my synapses. Field hockey...late night apology...her wet shirt...the look on her face as my hand slid along her thigh in the Jag...Rory's happiness of finally dumping the Gearbox...the bridge askout to the marathon...  
   
Getting there, almost. It's like I'm not even within myself anymore, I'm like a ragdoll, the only sound in my mind her sounds of pleasure. The dance...the closeness...the win... _Eternal Flame_...the admittance...the first kiss...first date...first fears...first coming out...Lorelai knowing...  
   
My sweater is probably going to need a strong dry cleaning, it clings to me hard. And then the final image comes to me with her settling...it's both of us, in the same bed, grinding against each other, both so happy with just being there, together, the both of us. I'm looking at her, cried tears dripping onto her cheeks from mine, the salt combining with her chocolate latte and my vanilla tastes...  
   
That's all I need. I scream her name into the phone, loud, thankful for strong Florida hurricane building codes keeping a concrete wall between me and all those other people. Not that it matters, because for that one moment, I'm with her, in Connecticut, alone, only us. My clit sends off a tremor that stills me like an electrical charge, coursing through my brain, neurons, my bloodstream. She was still going on, a second wind flowing through as a 'FUCK' slid through my clenched teeth, this one just as hard as the first. Mine was one full, long, arduous path to satisfaction, however. Mussed, tangled hair sticks to my cheeks; I'm ruined.  
   
The cum I had, wearing the shirt I borrowed her, is nothing now. That session may have knocked me out, but it had nothing connecting to it beyond an unfulfilled lust. This pinnacle outshone that because I was able to share it with Rory, and in turn, she was able to let me drive her to her own _le petit morte_. I had managed to bring her to an orgasm with words alone, not a touch between us. That it turned out to be such a strong feeling it would have me convulsing also, that was unexpected.  
   
It took us both two minutes to settle down, both wordless as we let the last of the tension flow out from us. I stimulated a little longer, some residual sensitivity keeping me stuck to the bed, while on the other end, Rory breathed in and out, re-acclimating her lungs to a normal breathing pattern while letting those last thoughts of her flow out. Everything that had been shared was so overwhelming, and I could still sense her choking back some emotions, the overwhelming stimuli such a new emotion to both of us.  
   
I pushed down my underwear, soaked with arousal, along with my pants down to my ankles, kicking them off and pushing them to the side in an attempt to settle my body from the sexual overload it just felt. I push up the duvet to cover myself and then take out the headset so I can get my shirt and bra off. It takes a bit longer than usual, and when I unhook from behind and ease the strap down, dark red welts appear on each side, the straps tightening as I became aroused. I grumble as I slide my breasts out of the cups, my nipples overstimulated and hurting like hell from being stuck without any stimulation to ease the want. It's a lesson to be learned for the next time.  
   
All my clothes off, I lay on the bed and put the speaker back in my ear, too emotional to say anything, bringing the soft covering of the bed close to my body. I imagine Rory is doing the same thing, and that we're spooning into each other, both of us taking the _We're all connected_ slogan of early 90's Ameritech to a level never expected by a copy writer. The emotions are spinning through us and this has been a test of our relationship, whether we could stand the distance of four days apart without any contact at all.  
   
That would be an emphatic **_no_** , in case you're wondering.  
   
Finally, one of us speaks again. Thankfully it's her, because my larynx needs time to recover.  
   
"I can't move."  
   
A pause of fifteen seconds to reacquire my monotone. "You can't move."  
   
"I cannot move." Rory squeaks, trying to muster up strength. " Tryptophan and an orgasm...strangely causing me to tingle and not move."  
   
"That's good, right?"  
   
"Yeah...I think it is." She brushes the headset off to the side. "Cord not helping, right on top of my nipple."  
   
"You're going to get to sleep at least," I say wearingly.  
   
Tired, she laughs. "If I'm not up by 7am Monday, come into my room and dump that bucket of water you promised. I might be a Sleeping Beauty, Par-Bear."  
   
"What if I miss my flight? It's a strong possibility right now; I can't move myself."  
   
"Of course you can't, you have it worse than me when it comes to nerve endings." She laughs again. "I heard you getting all your clothes off, nothing like a naked you to make me feel better."  
   
"Damn you and those dime-sized areoles, Gilmore!" Of course, said in jest. "What did you muffle into?"  
   
"Poor Colonel Clucker, he's never gonna be the same. Scarred for life, I tell you!" Stuffed animals, they're always the first to be sacrificed for the sake of a relationship. Though an odd thing to witness I'm sure, a girl swearing obscenities into her stuffed chicken. But something I've experienced before with my first Tristan fantasies in puberty.  
   
"I'm sure he expected it one day. I used to relieve some feelings with an FAO Schwartz bear I got for my 11th birthday."

"I just never expected you...or I, to...you know." Voice at a high pitch, I've tuckered her out. "I mean...well, damn. I thought Monday, that would be enough. Now, the line...I don't know."  
   
I still felt the power of what happened. "I actually cried. I've never done that before, self-induced. I could probably pinch my clit hard and not rile up anything, but the thought of you and I. It did something, triggered my want for you further."  
   
"Here too, I was just doing it slowly, and then, more and more, until I was fargone, no turning back. I mean, I couldn't go another time, really, I soaked my bed. I...I've always dressed for bed, but tonight, I can't, it would be too much."  
   
"You don't have to then," I cooed, "I will give you permission to sleep nude."  
   
"I already did, Monday night. Then the next night I had on all my clothes, but before I finally fell asleep, I was down to panties. Last night I just did panties. Strange to me, it's like...like..."  
   
"You've been freed because I accept you as you are, not as you should be. You're not a future socialite, you're just my Ror, that's all, and you've taken me as I am, slight chubby tummy and all."  
   
"Yeah, that could be it." She hesitates into the phone. "I would've rather you were here though."  
   
"I would've rather been there too," I say sadly. "But my flight gets in Sunday at 5:30pm, you'll see me again. I promise."  
   
"I want to see you again. I want to be with you again. Just us, here on the phone, I thought it would be good enough, it would sate me. But I want more."  
   
"You and me both." I try to cheer her up. "How about if you leave your phone on silent the next couple of days, you have no one to call, right?"  
   
"Mmm-hmm."  
   
"I'll leave mine on vibrate too, and if we see each other's names, we don't answer, we don't talk, we don't text. Instead, we leave voicemails, and we dial out to hear each other before bedtime. I'll be suggestive in mine, the same for you. I know it's radio silence, but we'll still be talking in some form."  
   
"I'd like that, probably easier on my system," she jokes. "I like your sexy voice, it's so...un-Louise. Like you're looking to seduce me, but you're not out there and wanton. It's just normal, and perfect."  
   
"You're soft and tentative; it works for you. Screaming is nice, also."  
   
Sighing, she seems to shake her head. "It's a turn of the tables--I expected you to be the screamer, but you're as soft as a mouse."  
   
Oh, she has me smiling and thinking that I could challenge her to a scream-off. "I'm just learning to catch up here, Ror, just wait. I'll be practicing."  
   
"Thankfully we have time away to recover now, I think we both needed that." I agree with that, and feel the conversation whither as drowsiness starts to hit her. "You know what?"  
   
"Hmm?"  
   
"I think I'm ready to fall asleep now and I'm saying to hell with Black Friday tomorrow morning, no matter what Mom lures me out of bed with!!"  
   
"She gets up at 3am and slugs people at Target with her purse once the doors open, doesn't she?"

Rory laughs out loud. "She has a whole map planned out, and I'm used as a decoy. Don't know how useful I'll be though. I think I'll be feeling this into tomorrow night. But...I guess I'll get up; traditions don't get pushed aside just because of small things like a first mutual orgasm."  
   
"I know what you mean, hon." I sighed as I went into my...rather, Sharon's, plans for tomorrow. "We have to do the touristy things around Daytona tomorrow, all together, and then Saturday is Disney World. Usually a fun event for any kid and teen, but after last year where we went to the most un-fun parts of the park, I'm looking to get out of it."  
   
"They couldn't possibly be that cruel," she says, and I shake my head.  
   
"No roller coasters or water rides for us, instead we do all the boring and awful parts, including the hackneyed CBD that is _Downtown Disney_ and the studio tours. I could care less about seeing the very stage where Britney, Justin and Christina spawned their careers from the _Mickey Mouse Club_ , but a few of my teenage cousins means my fun idea of a tour of Epcot is kaput."  
   
"Lorelai would have their heads that they could enjoy that!" Her voice is starting to settle down and calm as the afterglow starts to fade away. "You could always fake illness, the dinner didn't sound like it was well-made so you could go with that, use it to your advantage."  
   
I smiled at Rory's resourcefulness and brainstorming. "You're not suggesting I lie to get out of a family vacation, are you?"  
   
"My mom does it to get out of two or three dinners with Grandma a year and it works."  
   
"I think I just might." I lay back on my bed, wishing I didn't have to get up, but eventually I would. With 20 other people and most importantly, that perverted Uncle Fred within this condo, being nude for a long period of time would be a tactical error, and according to quite a few of those religious nutjobs, 'a sin in the eyes of God'. Uh, I think he's looking at Cassie's tummy tuck and Mother's hideous boob job as worse sins, especially on an occasion where they have to wear a bikini. The good thing about those two was they were walking billboards to convince Louise and Madeline that exercise was a better way to look hot and tone up than plastic surgery.  
   
I get that thought out of my mind, thinking about the natural beauty of the one I can't stop thinking about, her soft breathing soothing me from the headset speaker. It feels nice to have someone in my life so inartificial, loving, kind, and beautiful, unaffected by cynicism and the complex difficulties facing women today. Just three days ago she had defended me against her mother to make it clear that we're not going to be stopped by the past, that we're committed to making this work.  
   
And now, I have to say that I'm thankful for her on this night.  
   
"Rory?" I questioned.  
   
"Yeah?"  
   
"I really needed to hear from you tonight...thank you for letting me do what I did."

"There's no need to," she said, "Paris, if it's on your mind, whatever it might be, I don't care what it is. I want you to share it, and I will listen and consider whatever ideas you might have, wherever they come from. That's why I drew closer to you than Dean. He never let me go off the script; it was his way or nothing at all."  
   
"But, but, what if one of my ideas...it freaks you out? You might consider--"

She cut me off before another word could be spoken. "Laughing at the concept, then shrugging it off and suggesting something else." Rory sighs contently. "I didn't summon the courage to ask you to be my girlfriend just so we could do the same boring things everybody else does. We both read a lot, we think a lot, and from your REM state, we both dream a lot. I'm not the girl who came into Chilton two years ago, inexperienced and green. You've whipped me into shape, and milady..." she whispers the next few words seductively "...you've created a monster."  
   
I have to shut my eyes quickly, audibly shuddering at the idea of this innocent girl drawing out my aggressive, sexual, and demanding dream version of her into reality. "Rory..."  
   
"Just you wait until you get back into Connecticut, sweets, you're going to a very wanting girl on your hands, denied of your touch and kiss for days and days." Oh dear God, I'm going to be leaky at every thought of her until the flight home! And she knows damn well she has me being a pile of goo.  
   
Then with a yawn from her after saying those words, I have to remember that it's late and we're both filled with turkey, so sleep will be coming soon.  
   
"Ready for bed then?" I asked.  
   
"Beyond ready for bed," she says dreamily. "The moment I hit END I'm out, guaranteed. I could've never thought, in all my time knowing you, that you'd end up doing this to me."  
   
I shake my head, also surprised at myself. "No way I could've either, that was raw. I didn't even think about it all, beyond the dream." I use my left hand to brush the sweat from my forehead. "But it was definitely fun and balanced out this awful day for me. It was worth the wait."  
   
"You're as delicious as a dessert course," she says softly, holding back a laugh. "Sorry, after so much food today I had to make that quip, it was just sitting there in my mind!"

"If I was there I'd be giving you a dirty look, but you lucked out, Gilmore. Just don't do it again." I shook my head and smiled despite what I said, and started to close up the call. "I hope you have a good sleep, and good luck finding things for everybody." I double-check to make sure that they're going holiday shopping. "You are doing that, right?"  
   
"Of course we are...it's just that there's this one thing I've been meaning to ask you."  
   
"O-kay...shoot." I didn't know she was going shopping for me already, it's only been three weeks. _Probably asking what CVS imitation perfume I prefer_ , I thought to myself, knowing her financial limitations.  
   
"Frederick's or Victoria's?" Uh, color me speechless...was she trying to kill me?! Thank God I had the choice right off the top of my head.  
   
"D-d-definitely Victoria's, no doubts. Sharon shops at Frederick's and drags me along; it's embarrassing and tacky being in that place and buying from it!"  
   
"Thank you Paris!" I'm sure she enjoyed asking that, since I won't be able to get the image of her within a VC fitting room doing her best Heidi Klum impression out of my mind all weekend.  
   
"You're deluded and an evil tease, Gilmore!" I seethe out.  
   
"You think that now," she coos, "but Monday, back in school, you'll be undressing me with your eyes, trying to find out what's on beneath my blouse. Just that alone...it'll make this trip all worth it."  
   
"It will," I respond, thinking about how special it was that Rory was picking out things to wear, just for me. It was warming to know that I was influencing her style in some way. "If you could get some front-closers perhaps, something that gives you a slight boost upward. I think the best moment of the school day for me is when Miss Peters leaves and you undo your tie, those three buttons, and then untuck your blouse, that line down your sternum visible up to the point where you give me a taste. I can look within your shirt, when you bend down to look at the layout on the table, or examining press copies..." I felt my mouth water as I spoke, the picture of looking in and seeing the definition of the top of her breasts, the pale red-pocked skin disappearing beneath soft, embellishing lace and silk cupping each breast. That simple but delectable image is such a calm influence helping get me through the tedious drafting and printing processes of the _Franklin_.  
   
She takes the flirt just a bit further on, her tired voice almost ready to give into her psyche. "Anything special below?"  
   
"You can do whatever you want."  
   
Ahh, but Rory is perceptive. "I can, at least until I'm in the archive room as you keep the rolling ladder steady from above, looking up to see if I'm all right. Or if I have to get on tiptoe to reach for a book in class on the high shelf."  
   
Looks like she's onto my snuck glances, damn. I doubt I can keep many more glimpsing secrets from her. "If you'd go with a higher cut, you'll hear few complaints from me."  
   
"I will see what I can do, I have a little bit of a budget there for myself. I've been saving up some of my Inn work money and birthday cash for fun stuff like tomorrow's trip. Everything else usually goes to the Fez fund or my Harvard jar."  
   
"Just one thing, dear--"

My concern was quickly abated by her sense of worry within my tone. "Lorelai will think I'm at the mall bookstore, and I will be. Just long enough to buy a couple books and use the bags from there to sneak my purchases under her nose after I leave Victoria's Secret, I'm not trying anything on for her!"  
   
I laughed, still remembering the commandments Ms. Gilmore scared into me only a few days before. "Why do I feel her rules won't last long?"  
   
"She's just protective, you know that. But as she gets comfortable, thankfully she also becomes forgetful of things." Rory yawns one more time, and it's longer, so I know it's probably time to wrap things up. "It's time now."  
   
"Yeah, it is." My voice sounds down about letting her go. My cell phone then beeps its error message for a low battery, and I know I have to leave her. "You sleep well then Ror, and have pleasant dreams."  
   
"I will," she affirms softly. "You too. Hopefully of the both of us there, together."  
   
"There's no doubt about that there. You were wonderful tonight, we took a great step forward."  
   
"And you were amazing for suggesting we do this; it helped my critical and mental thinking skills."  
   
"Mine too, this phone thing kept me on my toes, never tedious." Only we would get off on logic and thought processes, we so have to be abnormal. Not that I'm complaining...  
   
"All right, I'll talk to you sometime this weekend; you know where to call if the voice mails don't suffice."  
   
"How about during dinner tomorrow," I suggest dirtily, "at the dinner table, the phone on vibrate in a pocket as you talk to Em--"  
   
"Don't you dare!" she shrieks. "Great, I'm going to have **that** on my mind!"  
   
"Hey, you're the one saying you're picking out underwear for me, I can't have all the fun!"  
   
"You're right, I deserve it after all." She sighs and curls into her sheets. "Good luck with the rest of yours, and don't let them get to you."  
   
"It's been seventeen years, they won't, promise." I move my hand towards the handset to find the END button by feel. "Goodnight, darling."  
   
"Goodnight, my dearest." I pucker my lips together and make a kiss noise as a buss the microphone. She does the same thing, closing out the conversation, and then hanging up her line as I hear her voice disappear from mine. I hit my own END button, bring the phone up, and disconnect the headset as I read the display to see how much time has gone by;  
   
 ** _Length of call 1:14:23 - Current time 9:22pm  
   
_**Wow...so much for Daddy being thankful he didn't have a daughter who yacked on the phone all the time! The phone actually felt warm as I placed it into my hand from the antenna and transmitter's heat, and reading that the both of us talked that long? It made me realize how much of a connection that we really had. Every minute of that conversation was enjoyed and it's nice to finally think that my longest call ever is now not to anyone representing Harvard or any one giving me assistance in getting into that school. I feel a smile wash across my face as I get up, draping the blanket around my body as I dig into my hardback luggage looking for the cordless phone charger, a change of panties, and pajamas. It's unbelievable to think that an unwanted trip to Florida was another step in taking my resolved and composed self off-track, and in place, my true self is finally coming out and forming as things with Rory ratchet up.  


* * *

I think about all of the last two hours, and the day before that as I look out the window, tired, but still awake because I still feel all alone down here without Rory. My hair in a sloppy ponytail to the side, I look down towards the beach across the highway, overhead lights dotting the landscape of the sandy beaches below. The light fades into nothingness within a few hundred years as the peninsula meets the ocean, the only visible objects for miles east being the bright moon shining across the whitecaps of the Atlantic.  
   
I remember back to being a small child, when my father had two vacation homes on the Long Island shore of the Sound, and another one near Provincetown on the Cape. All three of us and Fran would go to either of the homes for a month in the summer, and I found myself released from all of my obligations as I could just be a child and have fun, no matter Sharon's begging that I needed to stay in the house and study. However, my father believed in solitary childhood experiences, so with Nanny watching from above, I was able to head down to the private shoreline at each house and just do whatever I wanted to at the beach. Most of the time, I would sun, but more often, I would swim, the temperate water and mild current giving my muscles a workout, though the water of Massachusetts Bay did a number on my hair. I would just spend all day there, occasionally sharing the moment with another kid, or Madeline and Louise as we spent those long summer hours just enjoying the water and the beach.  
   
The best moments though were at the Sound house when I snuck out beneath Fran's nose at four in the morning, ran down to the shore, and would watch the sun rise to the east over the Hamptons. It was such a beautiful sight to me, knowing renewal was coming, that I had another chance to make this day better than the last. I'd listen to the songs of the birds in the trees on the bluffs overlooking the beaches, tranquil and quiet, the waves crashing in at my bared feet, jeans tucked in up to my thighs. I'd watch for the time it took for the sun to fully rise above the horizon, and then I would climb the staircase back up to the house, hoping my new day was as good as the last.  
   
Later, vacation trips would become few and far between as my father inherited the family company, finding family time lacking, and Sharon became the one to control my social life. Then it was time to be thrown into the awkward camps of upstate New York, fending off advances from guys I didn't care about and friendship from snotty bitch girls looking to me only for my anger, not my kindness. I try to forget camps as much I can, they were never positive for me (one morning where my bunkmates poured water on the crotch of my jeans while I slept, and then made it out like I wet my pants sealed that forever).  
   
By the end of summer 2000, Daddy had sold that Sound vacation home because the rowdy hip crowd had found the Hamptons and he could get a good price for the place, so we had one last week at the summer house. The last morning we spent there was Labor Day, and while Sharon stayed behind to catch more rest, my father and I made that last trip down the steps towards the beach, and my rock, the one I would always watch the sunrises from. We sat down on it together, his hands across my waist, enveloping me in his comforting arms as the first peek of daylight appeared over the horizon.  
   
"Par," he said softly, "do you know what happened the day before I met your mother?" I was curious, so I asked him. He recalled that morning 22 years ago as if it was in the current time. "I watched the sun rise from the library in the Manor, and my first thought that morning was, 'will I ever find love?'"  
   
"That can't be true," I said bitterly, my love for Tristan still unrequited. "You wished on the Sun?"  
   
"I did, Sweet Pea," he said, using his longtime nickname for me. "The next evening, I was at Darryl's wedding, and I was content to be alone and in peace, I avoided the garter throw and went for the cold cuts tray, that reception was horrible, duller than the actual wedding." His brown eyes were wide as he recalled the moment he had met her. "Shar had come to the party because her father knew the friend of a friend of a friend of Darryl's, and she went out of obligation to her dad to represent him at the wedding. She was bored, I was bored, and somehow when I her saw at the cake line, that purple dress she wore sliding across her perfectly, those dark eyes, the way she laughed when someone told her an awful joke about Darryl's later wedded fate...I got butterflies. Just imagine me, trying to approach that impeccable woman, thinking to myself, 'is this the one? Is she meant for me?'. My hands shaking, cursing to myself in schoolyard Hebrew not to screw this up." He smiles and laughs at the exact moment. "And you know what happened?"  
   
"You fell in love?"  
   
"I tripped on the sole of my shoe and knocked her into the cake!"  
   
I shriek, shocked, because no one ever told me the exact meeting. "Daddy, you're kidding me, no way!"  
   
"Klutziness runs in your blood, Sweet Pea, I was mortified! Here I was at an event for one of my closest friends, I find the woman of my dreams, and she ends up with a face full, and a brafull, of butter cream! Oh God, I wanted to run, I had just ruined a wedding and any shot at Sharon because I was so stupid! My own suit ended up with lots and lots of cake on it too as she threw some at me, cursing me out and saying how dare I trip and make her fall into the cake."  
   
"So she didn't like you," is what I got out of it.  
   
"At first," he clarifies. "It took us three months to even get to that first date. We kept bumping into each other around Hartford, first at the dry cleaners where our wedding clothes went. Next, at a few events here and there, including a gallery opening, charity gala, wherever we were, we were both there. She wouldn't even look me in the eye because I took down her social standing quite a few points." I begin to think he resorted to drastic John Cusack _Say Anything_ moment to woo her as he went on, until he got to the thick of the tale.  
   
"Let me tell you, you have her anger, you have her drive, and damn right you've got her stubbornness. So I'm at a dead end with her, and finally it comes to me. No way she responds to basic wooing. And I'm hopelessly in love with her, like you are with your blonde guy. So I think about what I could do to get her, and nothing is coming to me at all. I think about giving her a replacement outfit, paying the dry cleaning bill, anything. It seems too chauvinist to me to do that, insulting to the independence of a woman. It gets to the point where your Nana and I are in the kitchen, her trying to tell me this crush isn't the end of the world, but she'd help me out any way she could."  
   
"So what did you come up with?"  
   
"I found out where she lived and I went over there to try to woo her. And wouldn't you know it? Grandma Martinez-DeBartolo has standards, she would never accept her daughter going out with a pharmaceutical chemist! But I went through with it, no matter what." He smiles, the young love like yesterday to him. "I knock on her door, ask to see her, and get refused. I tell the woman that I just have to give Shar one thing, that's it, I'll be out of her way forever. 'Fine, come on in'. She concedes, and her maid guides me upstairs to her door. The maid announces my presence. At first, she refuses to let me in, tries to have me go away. But I notice something in her voice as she asks me to leave." He stops, picturing the moment clearly. "She was crying."  
   
"I met her at the worst possible time, and learned the reason she rejected me...she was going out with someone already, some meathead discus thrower from UH. I sat down next to her on the bed and asked her what was the problem, and she said she didn't like him anymore, and she didn't know exactly why. He wasn't violent, nor mean, he was just kind of not the right guy for her. But, she was mad at me."  
   
"You didn't do anything though." I don't understand the reason, until he lets me know.  
   
"Dear, she wasn't mad at me because I put her in the cake or ruined her love life. She was mad because she fell in love with me, and didn't know how to approach it because she thought she was too good for me. It took some explaining and apologizing on both our parts to clear the picture up, but eventually, things smoothed out, and after a couple friendly outings, we finally kissed. And from there, we never looked back."  
   
"That's why she threw the cake at you in the wedding picture then, for a joking kind of revenge?" I laughed at looking at those old pictures of them, in happier times.  
   
"I deserved every piece of cake that hit my face...and I loved it." He smiled, bringing his graspy hug tighter. "And I love her." Then, a kiss on my forehead. "And you. Without you, my life wouldn't be what it is. You're both the reason I live on, because without you two, there's nothing to look forward to."  
   
"I love you too, Daddy," I said softly. "So a wish upon the sunrise?" The first peek of the circular object appeared in the offshore waters, and it was time.

"Yep, you can go ahead." I started to make my wish aloud, but he covered my mouth with his hand. "No, Par, it shouldn't be shared; it stays a secret, between you and the sun."  
   
I noticed the similarity that the Sun is actually a very close star. "Why do I have a feeling this is like wishing on a star?"  
   
"Just think of it as the most important star, Sweet Pea; your wish is to come true for sure."  
   
I did just that, holding back from anyone what exactly I did wish for, though love was obvious to my father. As we went up the stairs for the last time, I held hope in my heart that it would come true within weeks, maybe even days.  
   
My wish stayed unfulfilled for two years. And like a comet crashing into a planet, my father didn't know at that time in four months, his wish would fall apart, his heart crushed as the heartless woman who had borne me had reached her breaking point and fully fallen out of love with him. I don't know if he still believes that wishes are something not to be made, that they're just something silly created by a philosopher back then for nothing but entertainment value.  
   
Whatever they are, I have to believe they're true. Looking out towards the beach, I still recall that morning, remembering what I said into that largest star in the solar system.  
   
 _I wish that I would fall in love with someone, and they would have my heart forever.  
_    
I could've never thought that replacing "Tristan" within that sentence to "someone" would change so much, and it would turn out to be a person I wouldn't meet until the end of that month. That I would start out shunning and freezing them out from ever getting to know me, taking every opportunity to shoot down their roots, and use their past against them.  
   
Nor could I predict the person would destroy their bond to me so abruptly and with all the cruelty they could spare, and the one I didn't welcome in to know me would become the most important one in my life.  
   
I could've never even thought that instead of a male, I would fall for another woman, so innocent, unaffected, cynicism quickly shot down with her sarcasm, quick wit, while I awed at her attention to detail, how she would never get down on anything, that everything she faced was a challenge.  
   
For all the reason, facts, definites and reality in this world, that one wish on the sun would bring Rory into my life, I could never imagine that as I began my sophomore year.  
   
There's no way I'm giving up on her, ever. No one will stop me from keeping Rory's love. Sharon may have crushed my father's soul with the tip of her stiletto heel, but because of her, my heart is hardened, only letting a select few in. I'm not going to lose her, and I will give up anything to prove it true.  
   
Looking out the window, I know I'm in for a fight to give her my heart, fully. And as I shut the blinds and prepare to fall asleep, the moonlight fading from view as they close.  
   
Sharon can do whatever she wants to keep me away from her. Tonigh,t however, I've had a taste of what a relationship on all cylinders can feel like. Not even in the same room together, we have nothing but chemistry and mutual admiration for each other, and I know that soon that it will germinate into a full love...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	15. A Second Helping With Home Delivery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just another boring November Sunday night for both Paris and Rory...at least until Rory finds herself so bored, she decides to entertain Paris at the Manor in a way that doesn't involve either studying or a DVD marathon.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Fifteen | A Second Helping With Home Delivery  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Rory POV  
 **Spoilers:** Taking place outside of the events of the show, this is the aftermath of my rewrite of _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_. Since the show usually takes out the post-sweeps months of December and January as far as storyline, the next few chapters will be original and off-canon. This is still in the month of November, however.  
 **Rating:** Hard R (sexual situations, profanity, insinuations of semi-public self-pleasuring)  
 **Disclaimer:** I think we all know by now Warner Bros. Television and Hofflund Polone make the show, Amy Sherman-Palladino/DPDHP came up with the idea, and that David Rosenthal guy who runs the show is a hack, should go back to writing bad sitcoms, and should've never hired writers who know just as much about the show as Brooke Burke (those who watched the Backstage Special know what I'm talking about; "Oh, wow! That was a great clip!" as Liza and Alexis contemplate giving her Chinese water torture). The CW airs the show, and then makes feminists (and feminist males, like me) everywhere weep by having it lead into the _Pussycat Dolls_ "search for Nicole Sherzinger's wallpaper" show. Seriously, WTF CW, did Jenna Jameson reject your first idea for a reality show? Do you want Alexis to go crazy-go-nuts on the entire network brass? Still, better GG on the CW than on MyNetworkTV, I think that network got creamed by _All_ _$25,000 Watch Night_ on ShopNBC, some show in Farsi on channel 6294, and the outer space aerial footage loop on NASA TV, ouch!!  
   
Oh, and ABC...you have the Liza's hubby in the Addison spinoff...might I suggest looking towards her as a perfect cardiologist BFF for Kate Walsh? Really, you totally won't regret this casting decision, honest, cause, you know, Shonda Rhimes knows how to write for great actresses, something the current crop on GG cannot even comprehend. By the way, and if you could make them future lesbian lovers (say around episode 12), go ahead and slip that into the script, promise I won't tip anyone off to that future plotline, just between you, me and the readers of this story. Kthnx ;)!! PS - Have her teach Addison belly and hop-hop dancing, please?!  
   
Oh yeah, disclaimer. All trademarks within are the property of their various owners. Victoria's Secret is a Limited Brands company, while Carvel and Cookie Puss are owned by FOCUS Brands, Inc. Rachael Ray and whatever I mention about her, her shows are from Television Food Network, G.P. and Scripps Networks.  
 **Summary:** It's just another boring November Sunday night for both Paris and Rory...at least until Rory finds herself so bored, she decides to entertain Paris at the Manor in a way that doesn't involve either studying or a DVD marathon.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** That thudding sound in the background? That's me (and my beta), both shocked that I managed to get out the newest chapter in three months! Here we are, and I'm writing at a faster pace, getting these all out for your entertainment and enjoyment, along with a distraction away from the fact that DR is so deluded to think that Paris would volunteer where Rory was in NC to Logan! Uh, last time I checked, she'd rather watch a _Three's Company_ marathon on TV Land than even give Richard Rich the time of day.  
   
First, thank goodness for my beta Danielle for reading this over, I couldn't do this all without her, she's drilling things into my head that I'm finally taking to heart. That, and her love of Addison keeps me going on a naughty track to keep my writing strong, her glasses keep my eyes on the prize! She's the best :-D!  
   
I do have a fic rec this time...run, don't walk, and read Telanu's _She Likes a Prizefight_ immediately. Who would've thought a _The Devil Wears Prada_ fanfic between Miranda/Andy could be so damned hot; it's awesome!! Definitely one of the best so far this year :)!  
   
FF.net readers...there is plenty of lesbian action here. You want to leave now if you don't like that kind of thing, though after sixteen warnings, I hope you know what's up between the girls by now. Please, don't like, don't read. And as always, honest reviews, bad or good, I'll always read them and enjoy them, along with taking them in mind, no matter what!  


* * *

I've always wondered if it was possible for your life to change in such a short period of time, despite the concept's slow passage. It's something strange to me, thinking that events can go faster than they normally are. That technology can change faster than it really is, or some traumatic event takes you off from how you've always thought of things.  
   
Many times I've thought this way. The youngest thoughts were when I was five on New Year's Eve 1989. After watching what has to be many, many episodes of _The Jetsons_ , I actually had a thought in my then-germinating brain that the next morning, we'd have flying cars, high-in-the-sky buildings on small platforms, and swift space travel to everywhere. Imagine my disappointment the next morning when I woke up in the same bed, in the same downtown apartment, as Lorelai was still recovering from Miss Patty's 'Punch in the 90s' drink from the Inn's New Year's Eve party. Asking her when we'd have the future portrayed in cartoons inquisitively, she told me that it'll happen one day but that every change is slow and gradual.  
   
"Also," she reminded me, "there's no way they're going to build those places in this town. We have a 200-year history here, kiddo, and we can never lose our tradition. All that technology means nothing without the past as a foundation, and the people and community which makes living here worthwhile." It was then that I knew that I'd rather have the town square, the Inn, all of the businesses along Main Street, and the school, rather than food in pill form and holographic television. Change has to be slow; it can't sweep in and overtake everything that we have.  
   
But for love, it's different. Change in that emotion is more often than not unexpected, and in my case a few months ago, not always welcomed by others.  
   
For instance, all the way back in August, I was still recovering from the overload that was confirming Paris's sexual, albeit still secret, interest in me. The last three days after that evening where she went out with Jamie, then fantasized about me instead when she got back to Howard, it triggered my sexual curiosity in a way I never thought of. That I had stroked myself thinking about her after in the closet was still very odd, and as I came back to Hartford, Paris was on my mind.  
   
But sex was, also. Dean's letters from Winnetka had disappointed me over the summer, showing him as someone who didn't even broach any kind of sexual desire with me, in a forum that was supposed to have me thinking wistfully and with love for him. He could've written anything that he wanted in those letters, gone into detail that he stroked his cock dry, thinking about us two, together, making love together as he did what I assume every boy does thinking about his girlfriend, masturbate to those thoughts. Soliloquies about the plumpness of my breasts, the tastes of my month, imagining my moans as he thinks about sliding his fingers within me.  
   
Instead I get lame pleasantries that I'm missed and details about trips to Wrigley Field I could get from any book about the Friendly Confines found in the 796 section of the public library. Also not needed were details about bringing Clara out to Gurnee Mills for a day-long shopping trip. God forbid that I was pouring my heart out to him within my five-page prose per letter, writing about how I wanted to push things along, that the heat of Washington was getting to me and I thought about him every day, missing him those first two months and recalling the summer before. A whole letter, in fact, was pretty much a State of the Relationship letter, where I set out goals about where I wanted the relationship to go through the next few months. I included at least three paragraphs about my Prom night and whether we'd do Chilton's or the one at Stars Hollow High.  
   
The response for that? A Tribune Tower postcard that pushed all I asked aside under the line 'I miss you, see you in August. Dean.'  
   
It didn't get any better once he came back to town. Here I was, perfectly riled up after realizing that Paris likes me, and in a denial mode, trying to push those feelings towards my boyfriend. Somehow it works and I do think of him sexually as I work off tension in the shower every morning. I'm looking forward to my first date with him getting back. It seemed perfect to me, we'd do a Luke's lunch, and then move onto the house while Mom was working, where I could do whatever the hell I wanted, and he could too. I even dressed the part, going with ass-flattering jean shorts and a tank top that to any sane man (or Paris) would scream that I wasn't up to watching _Lord of the Rings_ for the 265th time since April. Maybe he'd finally take the hint, hopefully.  
   
Instead, as we make out on the couch, when I tried to get to the buttons on his shirt to take it off, he took my hands and batted them away. _OK, I need to warm him up a little bit more_. Three more minutes of making out, I go with another tact.  
   
"Cup my breasts, I want to feel your touch," I moaned out. "God, you're getting me so hot!"  
   
Now any normal guy? They would go for it and do whatever they needed to please me.  
   
Not iron-libidoed Dean, no way. Instead of going in to slide his palms across my erect nipples, he pushed away from me.  
   
"Rory," he tried to clarify, "We just got back together again, after spending two months away from each other. You don't want to do that; let's ease back in slowly."  
   
He was probably being silly, so I tried to argue for my pleasure. "I don't! I've missed you and I've been thinking about you getting back all summer. Now come on." I pushed back towards him with a seductive smile and slitted eyes, going in for a kiss, my hands wanting to go for his midsection to unbutton his shirt.  
   
"No, you don't want this," he argued for me. "This isn't the time, or place to do it."  
   
"What are you talking about? My mom's not home and I want you. What more is there to stop us?"  
   
Time for him to get out the 'it's Stars Hollow' excuse. "What if Babbette sees us?"  
   
"Her windows don't face into the living room!" I was getting all flared up. "Look, no one's around, so you can go ahead and touch me in any way you'd like." I made another approach towards him, giving him a look that told him he was studly. "It's so hot in here too, wouldn't you feel more comfortable without that button-down shirt on?" Now, turning on the flirt voice..."I'm wearing a tank top and still feeling sweaty." Then I moved my hands down towards the hem of the shirt, trying to launch into a strip and tease for him. "There were times when Paris was gone, where I just lay on my bed, ran my hands all over, thinking of you, and I would just--"  
   
"Rory, stop!" Dean was getting flustered towards me and this suddenly discovered attitude of mine. I was looking at him like he was hot and thinking that I could send him a signal that he was interested in me sexually.  
   
"Why, Dean?" I licked my lips. "Your friend feeling a little...tight?" My eyes wandered down towards the fly of his jeans, which seemed to have a bit of bulk to please me. I wanted him so much...  
   
"Don't do this; you're not ready, really. I'm not in the mood today." His voice made it clear that nothing I was doing was working. Meanwhile my inner vixen was making fun of him. _Wait, aren't **you** supposed to say you're not in the mood?_ My jaw dropped as he said he wasn't in the mood...was I in a bizarre world where my boyfriend felt nothing for me beyond kissing partner? I was getting really annoyed and pissed. Here I was open to expanding the relationship, and he wanted no part of it.  
   
"God, when will you **ever** be in the mood?" I said under my breath, trying to make sure that he heard it. Of course he did, and his anger came out.  
   
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
   
"It means that I've been away from the guy I love for two months and you're not ready to do anything!" I yell.  
   
"You're not ready yet!"  
   
"Who's to say when I am or am not ready?"  
   
"I don't know, why don't you ask your mother that?" he shot back with sarcasm. Oh, there went the horniness: now I was pissed!  
   
"Oh shut up!" I tiptoed to meet him face-to-face. "Lorelai says this, Lorelai says that. Lorelai is not here right now, and she knows that we're turning 18. We're going to get hot and heavy once in awhile!" I made it clear to him how if he pushed the right buttons, I'd feel ready soon enough. "I'm on birth control! I have condoms in my dresser drawer! Do you want me to get a diaphragm to make you feel more comfortable with taking my virtue, eventually?"  
   
"I won't wear a condom...it just doesn't feel right!"  
   
"How do you know that until you try?! I mean geeze, I've just spent two months of my life, away from home, in the nation's capital, away from you. I feel like we have to make up for lost time, and you're still treating me like I'm 16!"  
   
He turns around to face away from me, but I catch an appearance of guilt on his face before he notices. _Oh shit_ , I thought to myself, _he better not...he's...he does_. Here I am, spending way too much time alone thinking about another girl, transferring those feelings to him, and he thinks that I'm acting like a common floozy.  
   
"You...you do, don't you?" I said, downtrodden.  
   
"It's not that I know you as that age, it's just...you'll be uncomfortable with it once it comes. You pro and con everything."

Finally, feeling the frustration build, I ask him the question spinning around. "That's true, but that doesn't matter. But, do you feel anything for me, sexually?" I wrap my arms around my chest, feeling ashamed that I was ready for him when he wasn't.  
   
"I do, just...not right now. It's not the perfect time yet." He started to walk away, towards the door. "Maybe we can talk about this later."  
   
"Dean," I plead with him, feeling a deep sense of disappointment fall into my heart. _There's no way...he's been with you for two years._ But he doesn't turn around, leaving the house in silence without acknowledgement. Moments later, I'm in a ball in my room, crying into my pillow because the boy I loved had coldly rejected me.  
   
"Just...not right now." Oh come on! I had put it all out there for him to take in, and he would've made the decision right then and there! Instead, he doesn't admit anything and pretty much confirms how narrow-minded and conservative he really is. I start crying, but then as an hour passes, and then another, I realize that really, he isn't the right fit for me at all.  
   
"Why did I push them aside?" I said to myself, referring to my feelings for Paris, which were stronger and amplified coming back from Washington, overwhelming any I had for Dean. "At least she shares some kind of passion!" We matched up perfectly, just like I stated to her as I brushed her hair before the date, and complimented each other. Meanwhile, the guy I was with, our interests barely matched, he didn't respect me as an equal, and obviously from the result of that encounter, I was going to be waiting a loooong time before I was going to get anywhere near second base.  
   
Really, I think that was the end for Dean and I, that afternoon. I couldn't even muster many thoughts about him anymore, and my thoughts turned towards Paris, slowly at first, and then by October, things started to speed up as far as flirting and seeing each other more often. I still saw Dean but I didn't feel anything for him anymore. After his jealousy attack the morning of the sprinklers, it was clear to me that I was on layaway and he was way behind on his payments.  
   
Ending it with him, I felt empowered, and as I look back on things, I realize how much I missed stuck under the illusion of first love. I had let him go once, only to be suckered back with an ultimatum on his end that made me have an outburst that if I had thought six more seconds about, would've thought better of.  
   
But it's best not to look back on the past with any bitterness, live and learn, move on from there...  
   
Wow, I really am on Paris's wavelength, aren't I? Talking like her, so passive, man.  
   
Though it might also have something to do with being on something else of my girlfriend's. That is, my head, against her breast. And both of us are in her Manor bedroom, having an impromptu sleepover beneath the oft-modified nose of one Sharon Gellar.  
   
Funny how a change in relationship can change your own outlook and attitude about love. A change I am now pleased that I made.  
   
Of course, the tale of how I gave her a memorable welcome back to our fair Constitution State of Connecticut is so much fun...  


* * *

When I got up Friday morning early, early, early at 4am to a scene where Mom had circulars from the Thanksgiving _Courant_ all over the table, my heart was still pounding from the happenings of the night before. Again, I was in a mode where I listened enough to her to get the bare information needed for the Christmas shopping spree. That stayed left-brain, while right-brain was still occupied with Paris and what we shared over the phone.

I was dressed in my robe, nude beneath, my body still in shock that I was able to orgasm with not a touch from her, just her voice. The anticipation that she could do that to me with only that tool in her arsenal, I'm now in a full anticipation of the first time she touches me in a way that's beyond our flirting. Experimentation is fully out of the picture relationship-wise, judging from the connections we keep making through our talks together. Now I want the physical: we breached that step that night.  
   
It feels strange, alien even, to know that she's not in my state as Mom and I go out and tackle Black Friday. The back of every blonde's head gives me reminders of her each time, though I know I'd be disappointed each time I'd look at the front. Going through the malls, the crowds, it's the usual blur as we make trip after trip back to the SUV (borrowed from the Inn--you seriously think Mom would do heavy shopping with the Jeep?!), the Christmas funding fading which each swipe of her debit and credit cards. Not that I'm going to tell you what anyone's going to get either, it's not Christmas yet. She's also saving shopping for me until I'm distracted by exams since my list isn't currently well-formed.  
   
By about 11am Friday, we've done six hours, twelve stand-alone stores, and two malls, and finally she says the magic words of "Lunchtime!" that release me from her _Great Escape_ ish plan which resulted in at least 70 other shoppers denied of bargains and sale items, and a few unfilled cases of assault and battery. I tell her I'm not hungry for anything and with her blessing, head off to the mall's Borders store to start my plan of hiding my "personal shopping" from her.  
   
But you'll learn more about that later, for the rest of the weekend made me weary. Rest after visiting the grandparents on Friday night would have been welcomed but I had no time to stop since the Independence Inn on Thanksgiving weekend is, besides Valentine's Day, the busiest time of the year. Thus, Mom had me help out all weekend whenever I had breathing room. I had enough time for homework, but not enough to have much free time to reflect on Paris and I. Running up towels, newspapers, ferrying luggage, I did it all. The lobby of the Inn was a busy place all weekend as people left and came in, we had absolutely no vacancies to be found.  
   
I did end up with a little free time, but it was to catch up with Lane and go music shopping with her out in Hartford. We talked about everything that we could, and her progress with Dave is going well. But she keeps telling me about how sad and down Dean is about being let go, and I have to bite down on my tongue not to tell her everything going on over the last two weeks.  
   
Lately with Lane, I feel like the most horrible friend because both of our paths are starting to diverge. I mean when you look at things, without Dean and our past, there's a separation. I'm confiding much more than I ever have with Paris, to the point where I'm telling her childhood stories, and I'm drawing her out also. Since my life is singular outside of school, and my interest in Dean dwindled down to nothing, I don't care about the latest grapevine of Stars Hollow High: there's nothing besides Lane to connect me to it. Really, it was the worst year and a month of my life, being belittled for my mother's age and my lack of interest in any guy within that school. For instance, Lane tries to draw an opinion out of me about the school banning cell phones. Why should I care when I keep mine silent and in my locker all day, per Chilton's rules?  
   
I'm so conflicted. The shame of knowing the next time I go into the antique shop, that I've done something sinful in the eyes of Mrs. Kim, and that I don't know how Lane will react my to my new love, it's something that's sticking to the back of my mind. Right now it has to be because when the both of us come out fully, I want to know that Paris and I can stand the onslaught of disapproval and jeers sure to come our way.  
   
But for now, we have to build, out of sight, out of mind. The corners of the Inn, where no one strayed, the back office, empty since Mom was up front dealing with Michel and Tobin having to furiously check in people before the 7pm closing of the books. I dialed out, holding down one, listening to my voice mails. My senses flared up as Paris's 'message marked urgent' reached my ears.  
   
God, does she realize how much of a hidden jewel she is? Describing her day, the bitterness spat out towards her idiotic relatives, it disappears as she describes a scene set in Florida, the two of us down there, together, alone. She uses the five minutes she has to her advantage, describing a scene where we were in Miami Beach, the South Beach area. Surprising to me, we're both in a dance club, one where close dancing is encouraged. Her words paint a picture of her in a dress cut up to mid-thigh, wrapped around that voluptuous form, as I grind against her in a backless dress of my own. Music with deep bass surrounds us, laser lighting, colored lamps across the dance floor. And there we are, the focus, the rest of the busy club a blur as we abandon the world to ourselves. She uses the fantasy on both nights, teasing me by ending it just as she starts sliding her hands up my dress on Friday, then uncensored the next evening. It makes me shudder, and I have to hold back on stroking myself as I hear both voicemails.  
   
I go with my setting too as I describe my own both nights, but I do two stories. The first...oh, this is silly! I don't know if I should...it seems so cheesy and overdone.  
   
Fine, quit looking at me like that! But really, it's very cliché!  
   
OK, I thought of the both of us stuck in Luke's storage room. Yeah, told you your mind would be thinking _Hasn't that been a sitcom chestnut since the Benson era? _It's my fantasy, and I'll do what I want to! Yes, it's utterly ridiculous and Luke would never allow us anywhere near the place, but it's private, dimly lit, with plenty of boxes to do...interesting things on. Suffice to say that I'm sure I gave Paris some fantasy fuel with my description of going down on her as she sat on a crate of pickles.  
   
The next night I went with an old fashioned track, using the Inn for the setting, her as a guest, while I do the housekeeping. That one...I'm a little shy about sharing how explicit and teasing I got with her, but I did imagine myself in a shorter version of the maid's uniform, and catching her having rented lesbian porn on cable (yeah, the Inn doesn't provide **that** service!). I asked her some questions, she gave me some answers, and eventually after some more baiting and teasing, we ended up together. Sorry, I don't want to get into it, but it's about what you expect in a situation like that.  
   
So yeah, fantasies to keep us occupied, along with homework. But one thing kept bugging me about her voice mail on Saturday, and that is she ended it "See you Monday morning, Gilmore".

Monday morning, when I've been missing her all weekend, and the taste of her trademark mints within my mouth? She's going to come back tonight at 5:30pm, and she doesn't want to see me. Granted, meeting her at the airport would be a little too much and I know she has homework to catch up on, but that she wouldn't want to talk to me for an entire day and a half? It troubled me throughout today as I finished up my assignments. I know I didn't scare her off, but frankly, to not see one another was something I wasn't anticipating.  
   
Then my inner vixen reminded me why I was being denied. _It's Sharon._ I frowned, looking over my work, trying to think about what she would possibly do with Paris on a Sunday night. _Most likely use her to be her drink ferry for the evening. She had to hitch to the wagon to save face in front of the family, but she's back home, so it's time to attack a fully-stocked liquor cabinet!_ Hearing "Sharon" and "rehab" in the same sentence within the Chilton gossip circles was old hat, as it was her alcoholism that drove Mr. Gellar away from her fully in the first place.  
   
A couple hours passed and it was nearing closer to 5:30. My mind kept thinking and thinking of her, looking for possible things that I could do to see my girl once again. A text invitation to Stars Hollow would be too late for that time of the evening, and after last week's coming out with Mom, I was trying to put off our first movie night with her as long as I possibly could.  
   
 _Stop it_ , I chastised myself, _it's only a few hours, really. Tomorrow at 6:45 she arrives, you eat at Luke's, and you're both girlfriend and girlfriend again._ I tried to keep my thinking that way, neutral and unaffected. But it didn't work for long.  
   
I kept going back to Paris, alone in her bedroom, trying to recover from the hell of being with her relatives for four straight nights. From how she felt and tried to divert away from the topic in her calls, she was ignored, or else brushed aside, for much more than the fact she was Paris. No one on her maternal side cared for her at all, and though she hasn't told me, I sense that because she sided with her father during the divorce, they regard her as a traitor and use each Thanksgiving to drag her through the mud, in lieu of the actual man. Her nerves were probably frayed, and she was all stressed out.  
   
Looking through my work, I just kept thinking about her as the sun went down and five o'clock turned into six. She was on her way home now; her flight landed on time, yet no call from her to say she was okay. I would definitely assume that, seeing as in one of our ride home conversations, Sharon whined about her newly developed habit of text messaging rather than calling most of her friends, saying it was so cold and impersonal and took longer than a voice mail. I found no problem with it, used to it after having the AOL IM device for a couple years, though I haven't used it as much lately since Par tends to hide stealth on her screenname.  
   
I was ready to give up when I remembered something from checking my Chilton mail earlier in the day. A couple of writers had submitted their _Franklin_ articles this weekend; since I'm technically acting editor with Paris out of the state, they have to submit pieces to me so I can look them over. I pushed it off to the side because of busyness, but could look at them now.  
   
Of course, Paris had reclaimed her editorial control as of 5:39pm when her flight landed at Bradley and since I haven't worked on them...

"Hmmm." I smiled, looking over the articles in Apple Mail. In the usual behavior of sending email, a click of the forward button to pgellar.franklin@chilton-prep.edu. I could send them right to her. But...  
   
"I don't have any homework to go over, but the _Franklin_ always comes first." I thought about it for a moment, looking at the articles. 1,000 words for each of them, on first glance there wasn't much proofing to be done; it was something that Par usually polishes off in minutes with her red pencil. Still, I had some wiggle room.  
   
"I could claim my DSL went down," I say aloud to myself, "then I'd have to forward the articles by hand up to her in Hartford because I couldn't email them out." Sitting in my chair, I crossed my ankles together, pondering, thinking. Remembering that Paris's love for her "baby" always outweighed all else. She wouldn't be happy to know my DSL got knocked out, but she'd appreciate the effort made by me to get them up to her so she'd have something to do.  
   
In turn, I also have my golden ticket into the Manor. Oh, if you could sense the giddiness of getting to see my lady once again, bouncing up and down in my chair. I had a foolproof plan in place...  
   
And then it all came crashing back to reality. I couldn't use the Jeep this evening and drive out there, who knows if Mom needed it herself? I also didn't like navigating the 1/4 mile unlit road towards Gellar Manor at night because it led out onto a dangerous intersection.  
   
Luckily, I remember back to the night I came home after she asked me out, with her driver Henrico. Somehow despite my drunken state I remembered the important part of the conversation...  
   
 _"If you ever need a ride from there to here," he said as he took my hand and guided me out of the town car, "take this card. I'm on call for the Gellars at any time, and since you have a close relationship with Ms. Paris, I can offer you my services, for free."  
   
"Oh, no thank you, really. This is only a one time thing." I try to refuse the card, but he insists on giving it to me, sliding it between the cords in the compartment of my backpack.  
   
"I insist, ma'am. You'll need me again one day." With a tip of his cap and a smile, he said goodbye, leaving me appreciative for his kind services...  
   
_The card was now residing in the frame of my mirror, with Henrico's direct cell line on the bottom. I took it out, along with my phone, and looked it over. At first I was thinking about calling to Paris, seeing if she was open for a visit tonight.  
   
But I decided against that, opting instead for the element of surprise with her. I wanted to see the look on her face once I walked in that door to meet her. I'm sure I'd get a smile that would last for months, a girl so happy to see me.  
   
That's when I went into planning mode, looking over at my backpack...and then to the side, in a corner next to the desk, a certain pink bag with red writing on it...and then towards my closet.  
   
 _If I could get a ride there_ , I noted, _it's very likely I could stretch ten minutes of reviewing out into a little more..._ My grin went up in wattage to Cheshire-like. It was perfect! I had a Plan B if Paris couldn't see me, just drop off the papers and have Henrico ferry me back to Stars Hollow.  
   
However, I preferred going with my Plan A, which involved my entire backpack, a change of clothes, and possibly a sleepover with Paris under the most innocent of pretenses.  
   
Oh, she wouldn't know what hit her! I knew after the fun of Thursday night, we're both ratcheting up the heat together, and I was looking for some peace myself after a hectic weekend at the Inn, which for Mom wouldn't end until at least 11 tonight. She could use a break from her routine and want a rare Monday day off from not only work, but from me. She could sleep in to recover, and not have to do her morning Luke's trip. Basically, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone.  
   
My only other problem however, was the woman that had borne Paris. I needed to figure out how to get past Sharon without suspicion. I had good luck in the past, but with her, you never know.  
   
But I knew that Henrico was a good family friend to Francisca, Paris's nanny, along with being her husband's bowling teammate. Also, from the fact Paris has a Nextel in her room, the entire staff is connected. I could use that to my advantage; maybe give Fran some pre-warning so that the surprise can be hidden from Par until the last possible moment, and she could divert Sharon's attention away while I got up to the bedroom.  
   
There it was...it was all set. I was going to worm my way into a sudden sleepover with my girlfriend without Sharon's knowledge and do it once again using Chilton as a cover.  
   
Laughing to myself as I launched my sudden turn of events into motion, I wondered the exact moment when I became daring and willing to do things like this, just to see the woman I love. I certainly would've never done this before in my life, snuck tree climbs up to Lane's notwithstanding. _Lorelai Gilmore, you are a certified genius_ , my inner vixen interjected as I called out to Henrico.  
   
 _Also a horny genius_ , I thought to myself, feeling unnaturally funny about coming up with a plan even more complex than the simpleton strategy for getting into the school that Francine came up with for the Puffs.  


* * *

"Are you sure that it's OK with her?" my mom asked as I talked to her on the phone, as the town car pulled off the expressway in Hartford towards the west side of the city.  
   
"Of course it is. You know Paris, kind of obsessed with the paper." Turning on the charm, I knew I was lying to my mother, but I had good cause for it. "Besides, you need sleep; you've been running on coffee and muffins since Friday morning! That's not healthy!"  
   
"I've done it lots and lots of times before, hon."

I remind her that she's not in her mid 20s any longer. "Mom, you were sleeping on the desk last night around 10:30!"  
   
"No I wasn't! I was just...resting my eyes."  
   
"You were snoring!"  
   
"And my throat." I slapped my head, cursing myself for having such an overdriven mother.  
   
"Mom, please, get some sleep! I'm out of the house for the evening, so you can sleep in to your heart's content. I'll be back in town by tomorrow evening; I need to help Paris go over these articles."  
   
"Alright, dear," she said worriedly, finally giving in. "But don't do anything I wouldn't do."  
   
"Aw man, so you mean I can't put itching power in Mrs. Gellar's drawers?"  
   
"God I hope not! Paris as your girlfriend is strange enough, Sharon would probably be a handful!" Oh God, I just hate it when Mom does a dirty spin on my quips. I cringe, trying to get the _Idea That Shall Never Be Brought Up, Ever!_ out of my head.  
   
"Ewww, mom!!"  
   
"What, you can't tell me that she's beautiful," she joked.  
   
"And I won't, God, don't ever mention beauty and her again! Thanks for letting me go over there."  
   
"No problem, just remember, don't do too much."  
   
"I won't." I'm glad she keeps 'too much' vague, as she realizes that Paris isn't who she thinks that she has been in the past. "Love you, Mom."  
   
"Love you too; don't forget to steal a toothbrush!"  
   
"I won't...goodbye." Hanging up, I now officially had all of the obstacles keeping me from Paris out of the way. Sure, my mother may suspect that I'm probably going there under less than innocent circumstances, but judging from her waking me up on Friday, she was getting comfortable with my new relationship, if just a little. Though she had to learn it the hard way, since I shrieked at her to cover her eyes, as I struggled to get the blanket back across my naked body after she yoinked it out of my grasp to wake me up. I haven't been so mortified in all my life, but we came to an agreement that knocking before her entrance would probably be prudent from now on.  
   
"However, I will still be showing her your baby pictures next time she comes over," she said as we got ready to leave, making me groan and cringe. Knowing Par, she'll enjoy that blackmail material profusely!  
   
But for now, I had to focus on getting to Paris in the first place. I started to feel nervous as we made the turn onto Auer Farm, hoping that she'd react well to my surprise visit. Usually she was the one to spring up without warning, so it was truly a turn of the tables. Twiddling my fingers, my mind was trying to figure out how the night would go. Sighting the mansion, I suddenly felt nervous.  
   
I could still ask Henrico to run in the papers for me and forget the plan. But I had to face up to facts. Paris was there, and I wanted to see her. And most likely once she saw me, we'd both be happy to see each other once again. All weekend my body was in a wait for the moment I saw that small woman, her dark, all-knowing eyes piercing my soul, her long hair bouncing as she went about a bustle of activity. Feeling her hands lain across mine, strong, smooth, probably smocked with pen ink and greyed with graphite.  
   
I felt so weak, imagining those hands sliding down lower as she approached me, her throaty voice coming out of those lovely pursed lips, telling me how much she missed me as she...  
   
"Ms. Gilmore, we've arrived." Huh? I looked around my surroundings...  
   
Oh, we've pulled into the garage and parked. Did I really lose my mind track that fast? I blushed, hoping that Paris's driver didn't sense my erotic thoughts; but opening the door for me and guiding me out, he seemed ambivalent to what was going on in my mind. Grabbing my bag for me, he handed it to Francisca, waiting by the door into the kitchen, despite my insistence I could carry it myself.  
   
"Nonsense, those things are heavy!" She took me by the shoulder as we went into the kitchen. "Paris used to carry a backpack larger than this, weighed about thirty pounds. Like carrying a bag of salt pellets around school for eight hours a day, she was hurting and had to go to the chiropractor almost monthly. Finally, I talk her into stopping at her locker more; she doesn't need to carry everything all the time. We don't need her to be shorter than she already is!"  
   
"No, we wouldn't want that!" I said, trying to size up our surroundings before we headed towards the servant's stairs. "So, how is Paris exactly? Have you see her yet?"  
   
Looking down at her shoes, I could tell already from the caregiver's eyes that she was relieved Paris was finally home. "I think that she really needs you, Mistress Gilmore. _Deus_ , I haven't talked to her, but she looks like all the wind was sucked out of her. Sharon was yelling at her all the way up the staircase."  
   
"What for?" We arrived at the narrow staircase and started climbing it together.  
   
"I don't have an idea, but since Maureen is the maid tonight, she's on alcohol duty. I'm surprised she was able to fly all the way home from Florida." Frowning, I sighed, shaking my head that she probably took advantage of first class drink refills a little too much. "I just can't understand the woman, she used to be able to keep everything in control, but since the divorce, she enjoys tormenting her."  
   
We climb the stairs as she goes on about her Thanksgiving, how much she missed Paris at the table and was happy that she called Friday afternoon to express that. About how her daughters came from Lisbon after one of them was engaged to share the news, and how disappointed there were not to see the girl that they regard as a sister despite the lack of legality. "Paris would have loved seeing her ring, three carats! Beautiful, caring man Caterina is bonded with; reminds me of Harold."  
   
"I've never actually met him," I confessed, "he seems like a great father."  
   
"You'll take to him immediately _coração amável_ (kind heart), he's a wonderful man." We reached the top of the stairs and navigated the maze of halls leading to the main portion of the house. "Paris is going to tell him first. You can trust that he will be surprised, but kind. I just have the feeling in my heart he will accept you."  
   
Reaching the main hallway, I looked out onto the wide, dimmed expanse of the second floor, sighting Paris's room from beyond, at least 150 feet away from me. I shifted in my shoes, hoping I was doing the right thing in comforting her. But at least I knew someone here was on my side, Francisca standing behind me, handing me my backpack and giving me a pat on the shoulder. "I assume you'll be staying here until the morning." We made our way towards her bedroom.

"If Paris lets me," I answered, not quite confident enough that she would let me stay. If she wasn't feeling her best and was far from her Thursday mood, this would end up a mistake. "Or if Sharon doesn't catch us."  
   
"I wouldn't worry about her Mistress Gilmore, honestly." Surprisingly, she laughs heartily. "She doesn't even venture near Paris's bedroom regularly, only trusted staff holds the keys to it." Then, she reached into her pocket, taking out that key to her charge's room and turning the lock. "I hope you can cheer her up, she really deserves it. I'll see you both in the morning." After a goodbye to her, she smiled at me and turned around, as I steeled myself in front of the double wooden doors. I gulped at the tallness of the opening, seven feet having to be between my head and the top of the door.  
   
I delayed one more minute, rubbing a bit of lint off my newly-bought jeans, another purchase from my Friday spree. I gulped down, hoping that Paris appreciated my visit.  
   
Slowly my right hand formed into a knocking fist, and the fingers on my left, crossed tightly. Gulping down all I had, I shut my eyes, and knocked lightly. I expected the door to open any second, or her voice to call out for an identification, but instead, I heard nothing. Very odd. Maybe she's already gone to bed? Or else she's listening to an audiobook on her iPod. It's worth another try.  
   
Again I knock, louder and more obvious. Still no response. She's probably in a full daze with her headphones, most likely. I grin, thinking that I can slide them off from her ears, start a massage, and nip at her earlobe. I start to cheer at the thought, and decide maybe a sneak attack would be the best way to get this party started.  
   
I twisted the doorknob, and slowly opened the door to her now-familiar purple bedroom, peeking around to survey the situation where I'd be catching her in. The light is bright within the room as I walk in, the door well-oiled and making not a sound as I open it.  
   
When I bend around, I'm surprised to find that instead of a Paris buried within homework, I find no Paris at all. The room is empty, the only sign that its occupant is here being three suitcases and her messenger bag next to her work desk. I scan the room, looking for signs that Paris is there.  
   
I start moving towards the walk-in closet, trying to see if she might be changing into pajamas. Slowly I open the door, like a spy, hoping to sight her. However, the closet is dark and shut, and when I open it, there's no one in there.  
   
But then, my ears pick up the sound of a hiss coming from the right. That gave me a sign of sorts, and I moved closer, until my mind kicked in the reminder of Paris's private bathroom suite, contained in the deep right hand corner of the room and opening up to that amazing whirlpool tub and expensive shower of hers.  
   
Obviously the hiss is a shower. A shower that she is obviously taking right now. Which can only mean one thing to my inner vixen.  
   
 _Oh my fucking lord, a wet and nude Paris is in that room right now!_ My heart, previously calm, has hit triple beats, and my previously calmed body, with only my stomach in knots, is hot with anticipation. I drop my backpack next to the door and shut it, immediately locking it so that no one thinks anything amiss is going on. What had seemed like a regular surprise visit to see my lady for proofreading was suddenly turning into a situation you usually find in a magazine with the title of a skyscraper apartment on the top floor.  
   
I was expecting to surprise Paris, but for her to be in the shower as I tried to surprise her, it was something at first I couldn't comprehend. Nothing could have prepared me for this.  
   
But still, I was smiling, knowing that this was something that could possibly be one of the most romantic things I could have ever done.  
   
Now I know what you're thinking...the obvious track here would be that I could take off all of my clothes, slide into the shower, and then give Paris the ultimate surprise.  
   
Are you kidding?! That's the _last_ thing that should be done in this situation! Someone walks into the shower of a woman who has karate training, a stun gun, and the best self-defense skills money can buy? Do I want a death wish? Really, the seduction that I had planned would be even more pleasing to her than if I did the obvious.  
   
I didn't know how much time that I had, but immediately the beginning came to mind, the picture I would present to her as she walked out of the shower. Oh, if Lorelai could see me now. If she thought she could drive any man wild with desire, just you wait until she realizes I learned to flirt from not only her, but Miss Patty and some of the best books the Stars Hollow and Hartford Free Libraries could loan to a just-budding lesbian!  
   
I slid off my baby blue Chucks next to my backpack, along with my jacket, leaving me in an outfit that would make a repressed nun drool. Striped red/purple socks, matched up with very slimming blue jeans that showed off the tone of my legs, paired up with a thin cable-knit dark red shirt, v-necked down wide to give off a nice view of my décolletage, including some cleavage which had a nice boost, courtesy of Body by Victoria. Oh, just you wait until she finds out about my contribution to the American economy Friday afternoon, all for her enjoyment.  
   
Giggling to myself, I couldn't believe what I was just about to do. Thank God she had no need for an inhaler! I took a book from her shelf to pass some time reading, along with the article proofs, and then I slid onto her warm and comfy cloud of a bed, freshly bedded with a floral pink comforter. No need to disturb it yet and crawl between the covers. I faced the door, crossing my feet together,and started reading the chosen book, which was about philosophy. Not that I cared: I wasn't really reading the book. My mind was more taken up by the question of what she'd come out of the bathroom wearing, whether it be little, nothing, or whatever. However she presented herself, she was going to be wet and fresh out of the shower.  
   
In my mind, I spun up an image of her as one of those video girls from the 80s, though I was more welcoming of her Phoebe Cates impression while I passed the five minutes before I heard the shower turned off. Also, another dreamy situation buried in there of her on the school's swimming team, gliding through the water with ease.  
   
The words on the pages blurred, the saliva in my throat built as I anticipated welcoming my girl back into my arms. She was going to be so happy to see me...I hoped. The time starts to elasticize and stretch out, and I get antsy. I could hear her in the bathroom humming a tune to only herself that wasn't discernable to my ears, but it seemed light and carefree. For humming, it was nice, her throat deeply drawing out each sound.  
   
 _Here it comes, be ready_ , I warned myself, and in another 35 seconds, I watched the doorknob twist, then the door opening up quickly in my line of sight. I was prepared for almost anything to happen, good or bad.  
   
She came out of the bathroom, her focus on the vanity desk on the far end of the bedroom so she could brush her hair in the mirror.  
   
The moment I saw her though...I was lost once again in her beauty. My jaw opened wide as I took in the view of my fresh-showered girlfriend in what has to be truly her rawest moment of beauty. _Oh my God_. My heart skipped a beat, looking her up and down, head to toe.  
   
No longer was Paris Gellar the gangly sixteen year-old of last year fretting that I was more beautiful in my cake jammies than her in matronly sleepwear and pimple cream, hair askew. That image had disappeared from my mind, to be replaced with this new delectable likeness.  
   
There are few words that can describe her in that moment she walked out of the bathroom, besides 'drippingly beautiful'. Her usually full blonde hair, wettened and tamped down, needing her tender loving brushing. Yet, she looked awesome right out of the shower, sliding the antique bristle brush through her mane as if she were a woman possessed, trying to keep it in tip-top shape.  
   
Her full face, droplets of water dripping from her hair and down her cheeks, eyes elsewhere away from me. No makeup at all, exposing the entirety of her face, including her hearty blush and the freckles on her nose that very, very few people even detect, but I find such a uniquely sexy feature for a woman with so few of them. Her mouth, pouting lips, cool breath filtering from her lungs, exhaled out. What a lovely girl I revere...her face haunts my dreams, and this makes me remember why.  
   
Then I down, at her pajamas, and I'm seriously hoping that spontaneous combustion won't befall me. I was panting giving her a once-over, almost drooling.  
   
The two articles, the top and bottom, clinged to each of their assigned portions of her body. Pink silk top, and then pink silk pants. No patterns, just solids. The water from the finished shower hasn't all evaporated or been toweled off, and the clothes cling to her voluptuous form in all the right places.  
   
Well fuck me sideways...she was still very, very wet and damp, and I was already feeling myself get wet at the very idea of getting to her in this moment. I was enjoying the view of her breasts in the shirt, pressing against the silk, both still moist, clinging to the material. They were both fully defined, giving me an uncensored view through her shirt of her perfect nipples, the areoles perfect for her figure, not overwhelming, but not too small for her. Sort of between a half-dollar and a Chuck E. Cheese token, if you will.  
   
The pajama shirt is button-down, and one is left open, giving me an extra view of her skin. She's such a tease and I wish that I could have her do a pass-by just so I could get a look at her luscious butt swishing by me.  
   
Yeah, it was perfect to come to the Manor on this night. Thursday had breached our barriers of modesty fully, and now I was no longer censoring exactly what I thought of her, or what I'd like to do to her.  
   
First, I have to get her attention to get this party started. I could go with jumping her, but instead, I decide to go with my oldest line.  
   
"Hey, Paris," I chirped, like I always said it every morning. Her eyes turn towards me and for a moment, she seems to forget it's not a school morning, immediately smiling and seemingly pleased to see me.  
   
"Ror, hey." At first, she went about as if I was an invited guest, headed towards her vanity at regular speed.  
   
That is, until a pause mid-way between both points, as she stops to recall the day of the week, period of the year, and where we both are at that moment. She was about to be gotten.  
   
 _Five, four, three..._ I counted down to her realization, seeming to be lost in her thoughts. _Two, one...here it comes...  
_    
It's then that my girlfriend's IQ finally kicks back in. "Wait." She stops the sentence right there, turning to face me. It's like she's never seen me before. "Wait a second." Her recall is finally piqued. "What are you doing here?" She points towards me, and then is surprised and numbed at the same time.  
   
"I wanted to see you," I responded simply and then take the articles off from the nightstand.  
   
"But why?" she asked. "How did you get in here?"

"Fran's key."  
   
"Obviously." She sighed, trying to figure out why I'm here, damp and wet, trying to get near her hair brush. "Well, does Mother know?"  
   
"No, of course not." I think that this isn't a problem from her loathing of her, but I'm shocked to see the blonde suddenly freeze in fear.  
   
"You need to leave." she said, teeth clenched. "Are you crazy? What happens if she comes in and discovers us together?" I argue that Fran planned it so that she wouldn't and that Sharon is probably passed out downstairs, but she wouldn't have any of it. "Rory, you need to get going, now."  
   
"I just have these papers to proofread--" I hand over the articles to her, but she just throws them onto the ground.  
   
"I don't care; you can't come here with my mother in the house at the same time, I don't care what you're doing!" Oh no, this was turning out the exact opposite of how I wanted it to pan out. "If you stay and she finds you, she **will** have the policeissue a trespassing charge against you, no matter your business. Sharon hates you and can't stand you anywhere near me."  
   
"Whatever." I dismissed the threat like Paris would usually, casually. "She just has intimacy problems."  
   
"Rory, I'm serious!" She was in a full panic. "She hates unannounced company!" Waving her arms up and down in an animated fashion, she approached the bed, which I still lay on.  
   
"Par, she's downstairs and most likely passed out, and if she comes up here the door is locked. I can duck into the bathroom!"

"Look, thanks for the surprise and all, but I'll see you tomorrow morning. You can go back home with whoever you came with." She was trying to dismiss me, the cold demeanor of her past coming out of hibernation. She slid up to me, trying to take my hand, but I pulled it away from her, deciding that I wasn't going to give in to her mother. "Rory, please leave."

I just smiled at her, biting on my knuckle and trying to play the ol' cute card. "Oh, Par-Bear, you know you don't want me to leave." I ducked from a hand trying to grasp my arm, rolling in the bed. "You said you were surprised; you're happy right?"  
   
"Of course, but that doesn't mean I'm on call. Come on!" I watched her in frustration try to grab me, looking wild as her wide brown eyes showed her flustered state at resuming her Sunday routine. "I have to brush my hair and do other things tonight yet."

"No you don't," I replied knowingly, "all your work is done for the weekend, besides those articles I need help proofing."  
   
"I had the writers BCC them to me on my request because of my boredom. They're done already, thus you have no more business here." She pushed herself onto the bed, trying to grab at me. If not for her aggravation, she was looking very hot! I continued to take advantage of the situation, baiting her and being the cute girlfriend.  
   
"One less thing for us to do...come on, hon, you know you've always wanted this!" I move towards the end of the bed, still far away from her.  
   
"How do you know that?"  
   
"'See you Monday?' Lame! Judging from this weekend you couldn't wait to get home!" I try to make my point. "Besides, what am I really interrupting?"  
   
"For one thing, recreational reading!" I think I should mention by this point I was getting very lovely views of her bared twisting abdomen as the pajama shirt untucked from her pants, along with a couple of extra peeks down her shirt.  
   
"Uh-huh, I'm sure." I roll my eyes, dodging another grab. "Silk pajamas, negligible underwear, fresh sheets." Sing-songing, I rubbed it in. "Someone was about to get off!" I then watched as Paris turned a lovely shade of tomato red, my smirk piercing her armor.  
   
"I was not!"  
   
"Was too! Awfully long shower too, how long did it take you to finish up?"  
   
"Rory, you need to go." She pleaded with me to give her peace. "Please?"  
   
"And if I don't?" I slitted my eyes, lowering my voice, trying to soothe the scared woman.  
   
"Well..." I started moving up the mattress, crawling along it, watching her struggle with excuses. "Um...well I'll--"  
   
"Release the hounds, or the bees? Or the hounds with the bees in them? The robotic Richard Simmons, perhaps?" Paris was trying to reel back from me, but quickly losing her resolve to resist as I got all quippy and cute. I continued to crawl up the mattress, sidling up to her slowly and getting a nice close-up view of that delectable body.  
   
The anger lines along her forehead started to fade and I licked my lips as she was silent, trying to come up with a witty response. Sliding herself into a cross-legged position, I could note the realization in her look that she was reacting the wrong way to my visit.  
   
Paris kept her eyes on me as she batted wet hair away from her face and I couldn't help but notice that the remaining water was soaking her pajama top. "I just, you know, don't want you to be in trouble with anyone."  
   
"I won't be, I promise," I assured her, "I should've probably called though, if you were going to be this freaked out."  
   
She held up her hand. "I wasn't freaked. Just after so much time with them down in Florida, I'm not in my best mood ever."  
   
"Missed me?" I questioned softly, as she nodded.  
   
"Painfully so, I couldn't even really sleep either Friday or Saturday nights, I was so depressed that I stayed up late and fell asleep reading _War and Peace_."  
   
"At least that book is good for something." I hesitate, looking at her, trying to cheer her up. "Can I move closer?"  
   
"I won't push away," she promised and I slid up the bed until we were face-to-face with each other. "I've had way too much time away, so much that I started to go into hyperfocus and overanalyze whether I did anything right." Unsure, she looks down at her lap. "I haven't talked to you since Thursday night, so I started bringing myself to read into our...endeavor over the phone." Her conservativeness towards the exact term made me laugh hard, causing her to dart a death glare towards me. "Oh, like you wouldn't say it like that!"  
   
"I might not; three weeks have passed and you're drawing me out!" I looked at her seriously. "If you're trying to wonder if I'm having second thoughts over that call, I haven't, really. There's no doubt that we're moving at a faster pace than a normal relationship, but remember, we've been basically flirting non-stop over the last year, and thinking about this earlier than that. Both of us are making up for lost time, and I understand that you're a late relationship bloomer."  
   
"That's true," she looks down towards her lap, sliding the heel of her hand into my palm. "Just, I think you're a reserved woman, usually, and that you're allowing me to indulge in my fantasies so fast, so soon, it's surprising. I mean I knew you and Dean, the sparks were gone, but I didn't know you still had the flint and steel in hand trying to jump start your sexual wiles."  
   
"I don't even think the sparks were there, period," I confess. "I'm more thinking about what I did wrong in the first place. The first months were great, but once he tried to make me say 'I love you' in the junkyard I should've just known...It wasn't right. Going over all the times where I thought 'yeah, I could have sex with this man,' and wondering if he asked the same question about me." I huffed a breath up into my hair, feeling the frustrations spill out. "There were plenty of times which I had fantasies of him and I was willing to share, but he'd silence me with kisses or an excuse that he couldn't think of me like that yet. So many times where I'd flirt with him and it was never returned in kind, or in a romanticized light where I was in something lame like a teddy with a setting resembling a bed store ad."  
   
Now Paris was the one being concerned for me as my tangent turned emotional, and I started to sense that I'd soon cry. "Ror, I never realized."  
   
"You know, all I ever wanted to do was give him a romantic massage, he did so much to fix up the car, and when I got it I was so thankful, that I just wanted to show my appreciation for that. I tried to do that for him and take off his shirt, but he stopped it because he didn't like it. He actually said to me that he'd rather hold my hand than have it anywhere else." I closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears. "I couldn't understand ever why he held back from me when I was trying to show him my love, he was so Prince Charming and that was fine, but he needed to do a hell of a lot more for me than just kissing me until my lips were numb."  
   
Smiling softly, she listens, then concludes why I started off my physical flirting in RN. "So that's why you're so into massages for me; it's your natural form of affection. I never knew."  
   
"I just got really bored, knowing that you were right behind me, but we couldn't talk. So I just kept looking at your hair as we read, along with the fabric of your blazer, and then one day when we got into some of Dostoyevsky's worst, I started playing with your hair, twisting it around and just envying its silky feel. That got boring, so I tested bumping your back with my fingers occasionally, seeing if you'd react or talk to me about it after class. Then that one day I parted your hair, slid my hand across the skin above your collar and you never said anything."  
   
"Well I couldn't." She blushed, her eyes looking downward. "To me, it's like the most secret, but sensual thing that you do to me, that I can feel free to think of you in any way that I'd like. The first time, a shock for sure, and eventually I was thinking you'd be bored with it and move on, especially after confession. But...you haven't stopped. You still know what it does to me."  
   
"It relaxes you, that's why I do it." We were involuntarily moving closer, and I slid my hand out of her grasp to move my fingers through her wet hair, her face, so expressive, the lack of makeup worked for her. "Do you know how many flips my stomach did when you walked out of that bathroom?"  
   
"Come on, I'm fresh out of the shower, that's all."  
   
"Yes, but you smell so nice...." I sniffed her, using my other hand to caress her arm. She has the bouquet of baby powder as I take in her essence, a smell I never connected with her at all. _Maybe that's why her skin is so smooth and blemish-free.  
_    
"Do I look nice too?" She wonders. "I feel strange."  
   
I glance up and down, dragging my hand down towards her midsection. Her eyesight seemed to drag down lower, tracing the path of my index and middle fingers. "I think you look really beautiful in these pajamas."  
   
"It's not that I feel strange because of the pajamas," she corrects. "But I don't usually buy them to be meant as something to lure you in." My hand slipped in, with permission, between her waistband and the pants.  
   
"It's working," I flirt coyly, biting my lip as I bare that skin, playing with the lower-most button. "I was happy to catch you so off-guard."  
   
"You're working too." She moved her hands near me, eyes looking downward. "That sweater, wow. I didn't know it could fit that way." Skimming her thumb along my arm, she took in a deep breath as she eyed up my cleavage. "You must have just bought this outfit."  
   
I nodded yes. "Saw it at the Gap on the way to do the other shopping, knew I couldn't pass it up." I could tell that our clothes compliments were starting to heat us up.  
   
"That outfit, it sort of reminds me of this one woman I've seen on television before." She looked up, trying to think up exactly who it was. "She had kind of a New York accent; I think it was a cooking show. I stopped on it and she had this frenzied energy that you usually don't see in a chef, trying to make up a meal in real-time, and she used abbreviations for things, one of them was I think e-voo (she sounded the abbreviation out)." I had the answer, but Paris was describing the lady in her own complicated way, and it was so cute. "Ahh, she also had reddish brown hair, I remember! Not quite my usual taste in a woman, but there was this exclamation she used when she tasted her food. Oooh, what was it? Not yummy, or yum-yum. It was something childish like that, but it was a new word--"  
   
"Was it...Yum-O?" I mentioned, a bit of lust overtaking my voice. I shifted my sitting position further, moving in within her space, almost inches.  
   
"I think...that was it." I started to recall that first time we were so close, teaching her how to eat with chopsticks. "Yum-O. Though I still don't remember her name."  
   
"Do you remember her butt?" I started taking my voice into a deeper octave. "I know I watch her show all the time with Mom, she usually mocks her cheery 'you-can-do-it' type of nature. But for the last couple months since I've known I probably lust towards more women than men, I know I've been starting at her ass as I watched as she bends down to take something out of the oven."  
   
"I may have," she admits guiltily. "She's all tight tops and pants and that's sort of your wardrobe. Really not my type though, although some of my dreams involve you and I on her kitchen set."  
   
Now before, I thought the little conversation about journalist lust objects was hot, but to compare me to one of the Food Network's finest ladies? Well, you can imagine I had to run with this ball! Both of our gazes were steady, the want building up with each word and look. Her hair, still a bit wet, but drying, she's finding the nervousness of before starting to fall away as I scoot closer within her space.  
   
"To be compared with Rachael Ray is one high compliment, Par." I smirk, feeling my tight sweater start to shift up out of the tuck in my jeans. "Of course, I could also declare you to be quite the Yum-O material yourself. Just looking at you right now, from your bared feet all the way up to those deep brown eyes, I could just eat you all up." I was going to take the upper hand in this seduction, surprising the girl in front of me with my confident words. "If you could know what I was thinking all weekend, those thoughts spinning throughout. Just wanting to hold you in my arms once again, those hands against my back..." She's still quiet as I start to move out of my sitting position, into a lay. "...that telephone conversation, just driving me out of my wits. How I managed to awake Friday morning is a mystery, but as I took my shower, my mind was remembering the taste of your kiss, the curvature of your body against mine, the pressure of our breasts pushed together. I couldn't get you out of my brain."  
   
Our eyes still to each other, I took my hands, clutching her at each side of her abdomen, below her breasts. "I remember, Tristan teased me once in our early days with this stupid line trying to convince me to hop in the sack with him. Out of his mouth, it was something that could be expected from him. Something about him waking up in the middle of the night, calling out my name, loudly, after mentioning he couldn't eat or sleep."

She knows where I'm leading up to, my fingers rubbing the silk top, tempted to move eastward and westward. "Rory..." she whispered.  
   
"His words seem apt to me so much with you," I pacify, pushing her form into the same laying position. "I can't go one night without you on my mind, that caring voice ringing through my ears, ink-stained hands palming against my ribs, higher and higher..." Her head hits the pillow, and I lift the duvet, sheets and blankets off from the tucking into the bed, freeing them and allowing me onto the silk sheets below. Her gaze is now centered at my clavicle, looking down between that cleavage and the lacy cups holding back my small mounds. The sweater, no longer leaving much for her imagination to decipher. "You must be so wound up from time without me."  
   
"I am." She bites the inner part of her lip, her arms starting to wrap around me. "And I'm not really worried about my mother, honest."  
   
"Worried?"  
   
"About you coming here, tonight." I sidle closer to her in my grasp. "I said that I'd see you Monday, because I wanted to make sure that you..uh...you..." She looked back up at me, ashamed. "That you were ready. I was afraid if I were to come to Stars Hollow, I would be irresponsible."  
   
"Ready for what?" I asked.  
   
"Well, we took out a big barrier Thursday evening, the wall to intimacy. I know clearly now that the both of us, we no longer can possibly associate with being innocent and just friendly. I...after I woke up on Friday, I was scared that you had second thoughts."

"I didn't, at all," I assured her. "So you thought after-- _that_ \--I'd only allow you to allow intimacy over the phone."  
   
Paris was meek with her 'mm-hmm,' seemingly ashamed that all weekend I was going to forget that we shared something special that night. "By the time I was on the plane this afternoon, I was ready to go home and invite myself over for a movie night. Then I doubted to myself and never called. You were probably making a pro and con list about the call." _Oh geeze!_ I shook my head.  
   
"I never did, this is all-pro for me, sweets. Once you go Par," I started before placing a delicate, soft kiss on her lips, "it's too hard to share." I laugh at my horrible crack, Paris sliding her hands up my sides as I heard her groan at the cheesy line. "So what do you think I should be ready for?"  
   
She looked up, trying to summon her usual firm voice, but was too distracted by me to find it. Instead, it came out in a breathy murmur. "For more."  
   
"More?" I smiled, looking down at face, dream-like and content with her feelings.  
   
"You know...next step." _Mmm-hmm_ , I thought. _Tell me more Paris; I think I have an idea of what you want._ "If you don't want to do it, that's fine."  
   
"If I don't want to do what?" I played with her a little, feigning innocence at her vague, yet perfectly clear words.  
   
Thinking she saw that I was uneasy, she tried to reel back. "Never mind, I...I think I misread."  
   
"Well, I'm not sure." My hands were clearly trying to acquaint with her body, my right hand roaming across her stomach. "Maybe you still have a certain action on your mind, a place where my hands were, watching a movie mere feet from my mother. I could've sworn that we were doing some clothed groping, if I remember correctly."  
   
She nodded, my fingers finding their way between the spaces of her buttons. "That could be it."  
   
"Feeling like you've been shedding your layers like snakeskin, first with the blazer, then going from the sweater, to the vest version the day before you left for Daytona. Your blouses are being tucked in a little tighter too, you want these blue eyes brightening as I gaze you over and find you to my liking."

"Maybe...ugggggh." A tight voice, Paris responded with a deep push against her vocal chords, reacting to my nails along her upper stomach, very close to the underside of each of her generous breasts.  
   
"Probably hasn't helped that I've been keeping you in suspense all weekend with that thread of conversation I left you on in regards to my shopping, the shower and bed your only refuge to keep you under control in front of your mother." I watch her rushed breathing process, the slid up pajama top no longer hiding her stomach, showing it rising and falling with each inhalation. My eyes are caught on the section below her navel, the invisible line leading down to the pink fabric tie. I feel heated, warm, looking her over in such a blatant way. "All weekend, I just imagined you down there in Florida, running our talk through your head over and over again, going back to it during worst times of the weekend, just looking forward to getting back up here tonight, all alone in your bedroom, no one to interfere as you created your own satisfaction to rival mine."  
   
"Th-th-that's true," she stumbled out.  
   
"But you have me here now," I said with strong reassurance, "So there's no need to do it alone." I change my touching over to my left hand, preparing to straddle her as I shared my honest emotions for her. "I know this is unexpected, for the both of us to be going this fast with things. Really, I didn't picture myself having such intimacy until at least the start of next year. I mean you look at the roadmap I set up in my mind, and everything before this point set in stone long ago. But after the first date, everything has changed."  
   
I could let her go on, but I knew if she did, she would only doubt what Sharon felt about us, I could see it in her eyes. The draw to me was mixed in with how Mrs. Gellar tried to assert, the single-minded attitude of a morally corrupt woman. I couldn't have that.  
   
My hand slid up her shirt and I pushed myself down to her, and we met, eye to eye. This was the first time we were alone this close since she left me in a puddle Monday night in the foyer. But I went back further, remembering the hard frustration I felt at not being able to push along after Lorelai caught us.

Still, I needed that, and letting that lust for close contact boil help my thoughts, but not only that, the phone call gave me the impetuous to move things up.  
   
"I'm here for you, Par," I whispered, settling a kiss against her soft mouth. "I know you've been waiting all weekend to see me again and that you tried to create breathing room so you wouldn't do something to me that I might not want." Another kiss. "But I want you to know..." I lowered my voice into something serious. "I want you, hon. Please, don't dare think that your mother can stop me from seeing you because I will push her out of the way. It's always **your choice** to see me. Not hers." My free hand takes a hold of the first button on her shirt.  
   
"Rory..." My body settles right against hers, her curves against my form. I shush her with another kiss, this time deep, the intent clear. I'm not to be denied from her any longer. My hand, previously occupied with her top, cups her cheek. I nip at each of her lips with mine, her resolve and a tight positioning starting to fade quickly, her body going from stick-straight against mine to more relaxed.  
   
"Don't say a word." I'm firm and unwavering; the only thing I want is her. I go in for another kiss insatiable, rubbing her cheek as my tongue slipped into her mouth. I find some resistance at first, hers moving back. _Still some fear_ , I thought: _have to ease her into it.  
   
_My hands cradle through her long locks to get at her head, and I wrap my palms around it, tipping it back for easier and still access. I draw out for a moment to tip her mouth open. Then I went in for yet another deep kiss with the one woman who can gel my legs.  
   
This time, I'm softer, letting her have some control. At first she goes slowly, only a tip-touch here and there, she seems afraid to go deeper. I guide her along, hands grasped at her arms, fingers sliding up the sleeves, the hair on her arms surely standing on end. From her end, some gasps and grunts, she tries to follow my lead. I can tell she knows we're going further, but this is a new step for her. She goes with it, her tongue twining with mine, our breath mixing with each push. One moment I'm dominant, but then in a shocker, I suddenly find her pushing her tongue within my mouth. It's stiff and commanding, like she is, only there's a softness to her kind of kisses. The tip slides along each row of teeth, and she keeps it deep and full. Our noses are close together and both of our eyes are shut as we just enjoy the kiss. We're like that, wrapped around each other for the next few minutes, just letting how much we missed each other. Her body heat radiates up into mine and the sweater I'm wearing starts to feel heavy. Oh, and so tight too. She has the clothes advantage in the situation, those silky PJ's giving her body enough room to breathe. I could only imagine the heft of her breasts freed, but my entire body felt so tight and stretched out. I wanted her to feel sexy, and I willed myself to the personal cost of my tight clothing.  
   
Reluctantly, I released her from the kiss as I heard her heave for air, her entire face flushed, and forehead dripping. I left her with one last nip, as she groaned, wanting of more. I could tell by her closed eyes and the small smile flaring up the blush on her cheeks that the resistance was leaving her.  
   
Her hands slid up my sweater, towards my midsection; she does her own wandering. Her fingers and thumbs scrape against the thinness of my stomach, the pads of her fingers pushing along my belly button. A hotness flared through my body, her gaze upon me, overpowering the fears that came before. She pushes out words from her mouth, compliments about my body, the supple softness of my skin, that voice taking on a caring timbre. She even managed to get in an unexpected accolade about my own navel.  
   
"I like how it knots," she said, sort of in a tone that suggests some embarrassment over what I could tell was a developing fixation for her. Her thumb slides around the rim of the small indentation, arousing a gasp from deep in my throat, her hands on the more sensitive lower portion of my abdomen. Straddling over, I let her do what she likes, trying to make her more comfortable as her fears finally begin to fade. I stay silent but for moaning aroused from me, her short nails scraping along my stomach and moving downward...my conscience starts to put up the modesty alarms and trying to reel things back.  
   
 _No, we're not going to do that_ , I thought, reading her thoughts and seeing that the still damp woman in front of me didn't want me to be modest. Both of us have to move what we want along, and if that means pushing down long-set boundaries, so be it.  
   
I start to flirt with her, trying to ask her what she wants. "So you have a stomach fetish, do you, Par?" I push myself into more of a laying position, forcing her hands upward from my waist. "I do remember seeing your eyes wander down when you tore off my shirt accidentally."  
   
Hiding a blush, she tries to play coy. "It's...well, I can't help but notice it, it's a prominent feature on your body. The day after the dance marathon I was happy you wore that tank top for sleepwear. I...I just like that you don't show it off that often, that it's special when you do." We meet once again face to face in the laying position, her hands up to the pushed-up hem of my shirt, just below my bra. Her thumbs and fingers grasped at each side and it was heaven to feel myself cushioned against her breasts.  
   
I knew where things were going, towards groping and petting. The fingers pushed up the sweater until she could sense the fringe of the underside of my bra. Not venturing higher than that, she was playing cautious. However, there was no need, as I was on the same sexual wavelength with her, totally connected.  
   
Wordlessly, I put my hands atop of hers, our eye contact even as I communicated that I had no second thoughts about us being romantic without certain clothes on. I wasn't shy, my hands releasing as her thumbs pushed up the stretched shirt, the junction at her wrists dragging along my skin. I was nervous at her upcoming appraisal as my visual field below my neck was obscured by the pushing up of the top. I felt a sudden chill with my upper body somewhat exposed, but that was buffered by the heat between us.  
   
She worked the shirt up me until my head was through the neck, allowing me to push it off by the sleeves. Carelessly I tossed it off to the side, and watching her reaction, I knew that unlike times before, this was different. She was going to look at me, on top of her in my bra, in a totally uninhibited and sexually wanting fashion.  
   
Her stare was in shock towards me, mouth opening wide. There I was playing dominant, atop the self-avowed Queen Bitch of Chilton, stilling my girlfriend with my choice in bra, a light blue number that pushed my small amount of cleavage together in such an awesome and unexpected fashion. She was blank, her eyes going up/down as she took me all in as if I was a heritage Coke bottle.

There's no embellishment on the article besides a lace fringe, just the way I suspect that Paris likes it. Her hands roamed my side, startling me with each brush of her fingertips. The short nails scraped against my sides, through my slitted vision I saw her having the awe of a younger version of herself, as if she was at a zoo, the polar bear diving into the glass tank inches from her, and she's in a moving shock. Taking in my bared torso, for the first time, in a setting that wasn't held back by the decorum of the Chilton locker room.  
   
She could finally touch me. And despite her position beneath me, touch me she did. Her palms fully out, she moved them from my abdomen, towards my bra, reveling in the softness of my skin. I couldn't believe how ravenous she was in her wandering of me as she took me in, each of her fingers going over me once or twice as she brought me down to feel me up. They went up and down as I broke her into another kiss, this time going down from her mouth and towards her chin, the both of us heading into new territory.  
   
Paris's hands pushed higher along me, her rushed words acknowledging that my choice in bra was very well appreciated. At the same time, my mouth was near her neck, her rushed breathing telling me I was getting close to an erogenous zone she's dreamed of me near many times before. From my explorations during massages, she was very sensitive there and it was the only part she didn't want me near.  
   
Judging from the reaction I get when my teeth brushed just above the beguiling outward beauty mark (to me at least) residing on the lower side, it was probably for good reason. A loud and gasping whinny comes out from her mouth, and a tightening of her fingernails against my back, to a point where I think she could draw blood.  
   
"OH GOD!!!!" I barely nudge the spot and that's what drawn. "Ror...." Her voice sounds rough and beautiful, and I play with her a little more, my lips sliding along the mark, and then I lathe my tongue around it. She held back a shriek, biting at my shoulder to try to keep it in.  
   
"Very sensitive there?" She shakes in my presence, as if to nod. Hushed, with my voice deep, I drive her along further, kissing and suckling down. Slowly, she releases me from her control, intending to enjoy my worshipping her. Her hands drift lower towards the small of my back, and towards my ass; I know that my jeans are sliding down as my body tightens, exposing the waistband of the matching panties.  
   
Things continued to heat up from there as I watch her go from stressed and wired minutes before to beyond stimulated. I watch her from above; the pajama top completely clung to her, nipples prominent and transparent through the silk fabric. I unbuttoned down two places to get at more of her neck and a bit of her shoulders, my lips continuing to kiss along each square inch of her. I push the material sideward, exposing the skin below it.  
   
"God, you're beautiful." I said no more than that, taking her in. I wanted her so badly, a weekend away from her doing so much to strengthen the vixen within me. After pushing the top of her shirt to the side, I roamed my hands lower, pushing them along her back as I kissed and nipped at the soft flesh just below her shoulder. I didn't miss that her skin had a darker tint to it than when I last saw her Wednesday afternoon, but I really wasn't going to bring it up, since she was in Florida and all.

The heat built up between us, her arms wrapped up all over me as I kissed her all over the upper part of her chest, the shirt open as wide as it would go, her skin tasting so wonderful. Her eyes remained shut, groans and giggles the only thing coming from her mouth, along with the occasional 'yesss...'. She relaxed in my grasp and I tried to keep her desensitized in order to build her up. Soon, another button was unbuttoned on her shirt, cleavage starting to show. Paris was blatantly looking at my cleavage, her hands all over me, fingers tangled in my bra straps in order to push them down.  
   
"Par...not yet," I said to her soothingly, pulling them back up. She looked at me, seeming to think she was a disappointment.  
   
"I'm sorry...I just want to see you. What you're doing is nice, and..." she bit down on her lip, "I know I'm the plainer one between us." Even in the hottest moment between us so far, Paris's self-doubts were still making her think that we were not equals. No matter how much affirmation Dr. Birnbaum could ever give her, she could never get through the brick wall of her own skepticism that Sharon built up within her.  
   
The intent of my lingerie was to tease and it was doing its job well. But it was also reminding Paris that she didn't fit her mother's built up ideal of her. I still remember on the way to the Puffs initiation in the van how some of the girls made fun of her because of her wild hair and dowdy dress, which I myself found adorable.  
   
She quivered within my grasp as I brought myself up, positioning myself to have a conversation with her. I let one of the bra straps, loosened by her, fall, my hair undone out of an earlier knot and in my face, giving me some bedroom hair.  
   
"If you think you're plain, dear," I started, smiling, "you're wrong. You couldn't be more beautiful to me if you tried." She pulled herself up to sit against the headboard, downcast at her own opinion. "Stop thinking about what others think about you and try to see that you're the smart and poised lady you think you are."  
   
"Gilmore, that might pass muster when I'm trying to debate free trade with China, but in this setting..." her voice softens as she wanders off, the doubts overwhelming it.  
   
I had to finish her train for her with my own spin. "There's nothing here but you and I." Again, I moved closer to her, but this time, with a different and much less innocent plan, my hands reaching out for her. "Don't worry about screwing things up, feel free to explore what you want from me. But right now..." I cupped her cheek as I kissed her again. "...I want you." My free hand moved towards the top of the three remaining fastened buttons on her shirt.  
   
"Rory..." her voice was a tired, wanton whisper.  
   
"What do you want?" I asked tenderly, the index finger sliding in to undo that fourth button. "Do you want me to do...this?" The button out, I reached into the pajama shirt, my fingertips sliding along the damp skin of her right breast. She sucked in a hard breath, my hand not even anywhere near the nipple.  
   
"Ohhh, shit." She reacted to the touch, my other hand making work of those other two remaining buttons. The shirt opened down her midsection, keeping her breasts shielded from my view. "Baby..." She was enraptured. I took in her beautiful form, up close and without interference or my morals stopping me. Paris is such a wonderful woman as she is, and it's a shame that others like her mother try to dissuade her from her opinion. I drifted lower until I was at her stomach, parting the shirt from the bottom, while I continued to arouse her further with those debate skills she honed further in me.  
   
"What else is going through that pedigree mind of yours? I wonder..." I smiled, trying to get more details about what she wanted me to do. I threaded my fingers through her scalp, looking down at her and watching her features react to where my hands were, a mix between passion and confusion. "But I can deduce one thing you were going to do before I surprised you."  
   
"Huh?"  
   
"You were trying to get in the mood."  
   
Paris tried to deny it, shaking her head and pleading with me that she wanted to read, and that's all.  
   
The anguish on her face, however, was another story. From the recall I had, she was hot and aroused as she came out of that shower. My presence above her wasn't helping matters in cooling down. If this is the first night back home in my own bedroom after a few days away with people whose company I didn't enjoy, I know I'm not just relieved and exhausted, especially when the both of us have been full of tension for the last couple of weeks.  
   
I played with my movements down her body, experimenting. First down from her throat, noticing her hands gripping tightly at my sides, kissing her, my tongue and lips trying to provoke a deep groan from her. I pushed each side of the opened top off to the side, working it off from each of her arms as I noticed Paris going from a spectator to my touching and kissing, to a willing participant. Her hands all along my sides, pushing down the straps, but not taking off the bra, she knew that I was trying to tease her rather than race to get everything off. She was methodical on her side, just trying to get to know my body. We kissed even more, the ministrations being such a turn-on for the both of us. More touching along the upper parts of our bodies and arms.  
   
I looked at her from above, her breasts so enticing in my view, damp and shimmering. I breathed deeply, taking them in for the first time out of a communal setting. I bit on my lip, looking over her profile. It was unbelievable, seeing her out of her usual conservative dress, nude. My heart thudded in my chest, my throat constricted as I tried to get out some kind of compliment at her hidden beauty.  
   
"Par..." I was able to say at least that, but in a whispered, undetectable tone. I felt both of my bra straps droop down to near my elbows as she released contact and our eyes met, the both of us nervous. Both of us were bared to each other; despite my bra being on I might as well have been naked, the thin satin of the cups constricted against my hardened nipples. I stared down at her, she up at me as I scooted up between her legs.  
   
I've never seen Paris look so uncertain before. Not the kind where she was afraid for the future, but of what she was about to ask of me. First, she distracted from that with a compliment towards me, flushing from the tendrils of my hair brushing along each breast, her view of my cleavage probably pumping so much arousal through her.  
   
"You need to stop looking so innocent, Rory," she gasped out, "because what you're doing is so far from that."  
   
She was getting turned on...exactly what I wanted. "What were you expecting?" I asked, voice low, and rising up so that I was kneeling above her. I moved my hands from her sides, to my own. "All this time with Dean, it must've made you think that if you asked me anything, I might be corrupted, scared to do anything for your own pleasure."  
   
She nodded, playing to the fact the tables, at least tonight, had turned on her being the prey. "You were the type to bow out of any of Lou's lunch sex convos gracefully with your earphones."  
   
"Maybe that was because I couldn't stand to have the only quiet time of both our days taken up with thoughts of her going down on a guy." Laughing, I felt so out of my element...but so independent at the same time. "I remember the first day I ditched the hose, how your attention was off so much from eating. You took an extra ten minutes to finish off your salad."  
   
"I...I was...distracted." I couldn't help but notice the stutter in her throat. "It so wasn't helping my mood that Louise was trying to demonstrate a technique with her banana."  
   
"God, I hate that, like we'd ever want to copy her formula for finding someone to share a bed with!" I raked my fingers across my stomach, closing my eyes, knowing Par's attention was fully on me and my voice. "So you were thinking about something else, then?" She mmm-hmmed the affirmative in a dream-like treble of her voice. "The stock market game in AE, right? That was a bad day for the market."  
   
"Oh, no, not that. I just never did notice that you could look...so innocent, yet sexy, all because you alter only two items to your uniform, both fully approved by Chilton." I was warming, the thoughts of what went through her mind that day stoking my fire.  
   
"So, what are you thinking then?" I talk to her huskily as my index found its way to the button fly of my jeans and then between the top and middle buttons. "How much you want to use a 'conference' in the ladies' room to push my skirt up? How you've lost one more hurdle to seduce me?" I'm breathing deeply myself, watching carefully. I know I'm getting to Paris, watching her left hand twitch, sliding along the outer side of her leg, scraping her pajama bottoms.  
   
Watching her warm up.  
   
"My mind...it was taken up by inappropriate thoughts not meant for an educational setting." Her cultured accent betrayed the sexual banter of the moment. "It was one of the few times that I felt so hot in school that I immediately took a restroom pass for the class after lunch, which I misappropriated into a session in the closed ticket booth in the athletic wing." Those fingers, moving up, up, up her thigh. "Your words got to me from our talk-and-walk outside of RN, where I noticed your heightened skirt hem. My shock that you, of all people, would take advantage of the new policy."  
   
My eyes staying on her, I started to slide the first button out. "You asked me if Lorelai did it as a joke." Her numbness went on as my fingers undid the snap. "Do you remember what I said, Par?"  
   
A nod, then a re-wetting of her lips with her tongue, quick, yet still, a torture. Then, a reminder of my words on that early September afternoon. "That you thought your butt looked too big with the original length and the blue hose."  
   
"Then?" I still remember that moment, the first unguarded moment where I knew she may have had an interest in me.  
   
"I responded...that you had a perfect butt already."  
   
"Uh-uh." I shook my head. "What you **really** said." The middle button was ready to go. "Then you did." I was firm with my voice, comparable to a moment where I was fully serious about something.  
   
Her hand was showing me all the signs of what she wanted done, the fingertips now right at the waistband of the bottoms. There was going to be no stopping after it was out in the open what happened that day and would eventually lead a week later to the start of the pro/con notebook.  
   
"I...I...." her eyes closed and her face flushed, most likely from guilt. "I said you already had a very nice ass, and...since I was behind you, gave it a pat."  
   
"Paris." My gaze firmed up as I started to move the hand away...  
   
"Fine, not a pat...more of me copping a feel!" She was in total shock and about ready to explode, embarrassed that I caught onto that first slip of her feelings. "A two second squeeze that no one in the hallways would notice but distracted you for the rest of the day!" Her other hand, moving towards her breasts, body tight with desire.  
   
"If I was a betting woman, I would say you approved that idea not for all of the students to slut up, but to give each of us that extra half inch of thigh to get all driven crazy about." I undid the second button and started to push back down. My panties were now almost fully visible and her eyesight was trailing down earlier. "Lesbianism and legislation make for a great mix, don't they?"  
   
"That they do." Her hand was starting to dip in through her waistband and she was getting close to wanting relief from the hot foreplay between us. "Stop staring at me like that, Gilmore."  
   
Neither Lorelai or Dean's puritan hormones were going to stand in the way of me this time, and that's exactly how I wanted it.  
   
"Why?" I said, pressing my lips together as my hand grasped at hers at her side.  
   
"Because," she moaned out breathlessly, "I can't stand it. What you're doing to me."  
   
"How bad do you want this, sweetie?" I sidled up to her, kissing along her throat. "I know what you've been thinking about since I got rid of the hose...how much you eye them up. Frankly, I envy your legs." I peck along her jawline. "But I'd rather you fulfill number 74 in the notebook if you so desire." Pushing her hand along, I brought it between her pants and underwear, my fingers caressing along the waistband of the thin crème article. "You remember 74, right? The one your fingerprint made a heavy pencil lead mark near?"  
   
Her voice wass heightened, unbelievable as she read from her memory the pro noted on that line. " _Her deep and sexual moans during sleep talking dreams get me so damned wet; I want to hear them caused by my own doing_." I kiss her, lip to lip after she says it, pushing her hand with mine deepier within the article of clothing.  
   
"You've been thinking about that all weekend, have you?" I nip at her lip, shuddering as the tips of my nails brush along the top edge of her waistband. "My getting you off, not from sex, but from something you usually do yourself. Rubbing yourself off, what you do when you get home, in your room, or in the Jag just after you get out of town." She whimpered in affirmation, her breathing getting to me so bad. "Ever since Monday night, so close to the both of us grinding into each other, the space between us almost suffocating, how we both left the night with naughty situations that led us right to taking off all of our clothes, thinking of each other, fingering, opening up our lips, wetting our fingertips to simulate clit-to-clit."  
   
"Ohhhhh! Uhhhhhh!" Paris cried out through gritted teeth. I started to move my other hand into her pants as I continued to push things along further and further.  
   
"My room has your scent in it now, the pillows much more of a comfort. Stroking myself, calling out your name, rolling the 'R' within for a long, tortuous syllable." Yet another kiss, my hands have moved to each side of the pajama pants, index in, middle out on each side. "Thinking of you and I, leg to leg, my sheet, or a pillow, a very poor substitute for those velvet legs of yours...smooth, sexy...long. Thinking about me, freshly shaved, out of the shower, pushing into you, something only exacerbated further by the skirt."  
   
"Rory..."  
   
"And then, that morning three weeks to this day, you're pressing against the back of me and I wanted you to go ahead and press yourself against me. Use me as a toy. Not to be afraid to expend the built up sexual energy from the day before to fuck yourself." I start to work down the pants slowly, taking a cue from _The Itsy Bitsy Spider_ to wander down her legs with my walking fingers. "I knew you wanted me that morning; you've been anticipating this for weeks."  
   
Watching her look, she was white, not with fear, but with an understanding between us. I felt so warm and wanting of her to have her pleasure, to feel my body against hers for the first time since Wednesday morning.  
   
"That spoon," she says, speaking softly, "I thought you found it uncomfortable." My hands smoothed down her silk-like thighs, trailing down along her knees as I brought the pants down.  
   
I laughed, flashing my teeth as I described my real feelings for the embrace. "No, but it did make me wish I went for shorts." I took her in, her small body ever more enticing as I pushed her pants all the way down, and then went back up. I was breathless looking at her, amazed at how beautiful she was. She kicked the pants to the side of the bed, finishing her undressing, her arms at her sides, fingers fisted in, something to hold back from using her hands to shield her breasts from my view.  
   
"Oh my goodness." I had to keep myself in control, staring at the woman below me in nothing but a pair of panties, residually damp from the shower, clinging to her. I tried to stop myself from staring at her, but I couldn't help it, as the remaining water created another sheer effect in certain places.  
   
Including 'down there'. I was hyperventilating, shocked that I could make out the outline of her mound. It was far from what I expected. Picture me flared up, my hands at the sides of my waist as I look her over, a thin inch-long line of hair on each side. The only thing I had to go on was the outline, but my mouth watered at the future ideas of pleasure to be done.  
   
She lay there, stark and still, trying not to move a muscle as I appraised her. It was then I realized there was one different thing about Paris that hadn't been apparent on first glance before then. The right side of her panties was pulled down a bit, baring a bit of skin that would usually be covered by the string of a bikini.

Her skin had a slight tint that wasn't there on Wednesday. Naturally, being in Florida, she would have had a suntan coming back north a few days later.  
   
Usually though, you find some white and untanned spots from certain places you don't usually exposed to anyone else...the 'bathing suit area' where strangers need not be, as every lecturing police officer tells you during a second grade assembly.

My mouth was wide open as I took in my tanned girlfriend, and my inner vixen was just licking her lips at the new thing I've discovered about her. I'm gasping as a smile starts to inch across Paris's mouth and I start to feel her arms wrap around me at the waist, pushing me up towards her.  
   
"I see you've just discovered how I spent my 'sick day' Saturday afternoon." Her voice belies her nervousness, seductive and low. "There's only one great thing about spending Thanksgiving weekend down there, and that's this one place off Atlantic that's close to the condo. It's a small tanning salon, thankfully an all-woman operation that isn't frequented by the idiotic. $14 gets you an hour in a private room, a comfortable tanning bed, and the staff looking the other way at the 'modesty required' ordinances of Ormond Beach, freeing me of the required tanning suit I hate so much. Trust me when I say..." I'm shocked by her suddenly found wanting as she slid her hands into my jeans and palmed my ass. "I felt **much better** once my entire body took on the same shade I expected you to leak over."  
   
 _She's gotta be psychic_ , I thought to myself, tightening up at her words and feeling so turned on.  
   
 _She tans nude._ Even that shocked me. Here she alluded to her beauty regimen of leg waxing, pedicures, and the occasional haircut to keep her length mid-back. But a thin pubic hairline and full-body tanning? So much for Paris, plain and petite!  
   
Paris started to work my jeans down while explaining the reasoning for bronzing everything. "You know how much I hate having to spend time in the locker rooms, both in school and at the country club, watching women all tanned up, but with these ugly white triangles across their nipples and crotches?! It's one of my worst pet peeves; why tan everything but those? I've watched a couple of bad movies too where the actresses don't get everything done and it's like 'would it kill you to wear a damned pasty if you want to keep your virtue intact?' I really don't have any qualms myself, but it's more about taking advantage of the full service I'm paying for rather than my usual shyness." She sighed, and my eyes scrape their view across her breasts. "I'm not like Louise or Madeline though, it's not a weekly thing. I just find it nice after having a waxing to go into a tanning bed, spending an hour in my own skin, meditating about my life while recharging my literal batteries, and I'm lucky to have part of my ancestry be Mediterranean Spanish so I can hold a tan longer than usual."  
   
"What part?" I ask, ever curious, even in foreplay.  
   
"Valencia province, that's from my mother's side, with some Italian buried in there from her own father. My paternal side goes back to a Jewish enclave near the French border; they relocated into the southeastern part of that country after the Alhambra Decree." I knew the details of that from my reading so she didn't have to retell the story of what happened with that. "I have to consider myself very lucky, since Madeline's heritage is Hamburg, Louise, a dismal northeast town in England, they aren't as genetically blessed."  
   
"I have relatives known going back to the Mayflower, my grandpa has pure English blood," I mention, knowing others would be awed by that, but Paris would be non-plussed. "I know my great-great-great maternal grandmother was Argentine, and from there after a couple of those generations, I have Italian and Spanish descendants on Emily's side."  
   
She smiled, her eyes on my arms. "I had a feeling; your freckling seemed to not have come from the true Gilmore side of your legacy." She pulled me down and then kissed me along my right side of my shoulder, then up my neck slowly, until our lips met as she pushed down my jeans until they were below my underwear.  
   
"Look at the both of us," I said, my voice deep and rushed between kisses. "Usually foreplay is finding the sensitive spots and random bon mots, but here, we're talking about how our bloodlines are such turn-ons. God, I love this." I started to scoot my legs to work the tight jeans down, with my hands along Paris's torso, trying to find the sensitive spots hidden by her clothing. I listened carefully for rushed breathing and shrieks as I trace my fingers along the skin, continuing to melt her heart with my words. "I never expected that you'd be so beautiful up against me. Looking sometimes, I had this idea that you might not be receptive."  
   
"I am..." Paris tries to say something, but I've managed to find a sensitive spot, just above her stomach, my hands doing a bit of a tickle. "Oh my...oh God! Rorrrrry, please, not there! I didn't even know!"  
   
I shook my head, continuing to play with her. "Did I mention yet that you look so delicious with that skin tone?"  
   
"No, but thank you." Her words are broken up by bits of laughter between, as her hands grip tightly at my back and a bra straps. "I wasn't expecting to feel this way so soon, but you're turning me on, Gilmore."  
   
"Really, lil' ol' me?" I was being modest, but I wanted to hear exactly what was getting her into heat. "Do tell." I shimmy against her, my thigh meeting her juncture as I let gravity take my pants down to the knees.  
   
Suddenly, as I push the bare flesh against her silk panties, she grits her teeth and her eyes tighten shut. "Oh dear!" I did that to test the waters with her, how sensitive she might be feeling.  
   
"THAT!" Her body tightens up, strength pushing me down a little as her hand grips at my shoulder. "That...is really helping me out."  
   
At this point, my usual shyness is all but gone, replaced by my flirting. I push in against her again, finding her give to be loose. "By helping, you mean making you even wetter?" I nip her lip as she gasps deeply again.  
   
"You bent down when I was trying to catch you...I contracted." I lifted the free leg to get at the jeans, and started pulling them off, leg by leg. I wanted to be as physically close to Par as I possibly could. "There are certain things you do that get me aroused, usually subtle. When you bite your knuckle, it kills me."

"What else?" Enough give on the other leg to let the pants fall off as I take in the moment, the look on Par's face as she describes what gives her sexual anticipation. "You must hate it when the tuck of my blouse falls out, you always notice it and bitch that I need to tuck it back in right away."  
   
"Totally, that's my own self-preservation kicking in. Your hands get there, right near where the skirt snaps in...I think about you accidentally releasing it, the skirt falling to the ground in an unexpected heap." She goes on as the jeans hit the floor with Paris's two articles and the sweater. "I absolutely hate you on days when we go past 4:30, taking off the jacket, undoing the tie, your bra visible through the blouse." Her dominant left hand started moving towards her thigh. "And sometimes you drop something on the ground, a pen, eraser, something. You bend down...I can't help but stare."  
   
"Come on," I implore, "go on. You're so wet, I can see it...you must be pulsing down there."  
   
"You put on your headphones to tune out the world, pushing some hair aside and in the back, rubbing the inner side of your ear. I think about those fingers, soft, smooth, sliding against my clit, drawing me out." I find her grasp tightening, so much that other hand grasping the bra strap is starting to drag the article down. "And then during the summer, there was that heat wave through Washington. You got that nutty idea to take me to a McDonalds and order us both milkshakes to take back to the dorm. You didn't draw it out with a straw though, you let it melt for an hour so you could drink from a cup. Some of it fell from your mouth as you drank it, and down your neck...and then you took your fingers, lapped the contents onto it, and then...licked it off." She shuddered in my grasp and I hear a small snap at the meeting of bra cup and strap as she starts to convulse in my arms. "Another thing you do, in the car. You sit in your seat, legs open wide, and I can't help but notice you usually take your air/heat mix 10% console vent, 90% from the floor. Your skirt blows a little at the hem and I have to keep a stone cold gaze on the road, all the while thinking that you're getting wound up inches from me."  
   
"You'll never know," I whispered, getting my socks off my tugging at them with each foot against the footboard. She moved to rest her head on my right shoulder, tightening against me. "That's a good girl, let it all out for me. Just let yourself go, it's you and me, only."  
   
"Rory," she has a deep, throaty voice as we become more frenzied, "when I first saw you tonight, I was white as a sheet; I'm not used to being seduced in any way at all." She shifts herself into a receptive position, going on. "I don't even know how to really think about you anymore, there's something going on with my mind where that separation between school and non-school is blurring. I mean, I try to think how I used to about you, neutrally, friendly, looking for advice about your writing or WPM's. Frankly, I can no longer do that." I ask her why not, as her hand lightly wanders my thigh. "This isn't just a crush throwing me off from my game, like with Tristan, where I'd get tongue-tied and silent around him. You see me as I am and you respect that. You give me all this wanted attention, surprise me with everything that you do, stick to what you want no matter the consequences." She looks up at me, her free arm wrapping around to bring me close. "To put me in my place, like you're doing right now. It's such a turn-on for me."  
   
We stare at each other and I'm enchanted with how beautiful she looks, so raw, her words so touching and encouraging. She shifts her positioning to meet my thigh against herself, right hand on my waist, the other on that thigh, as if to be a guide to her clit. She's been anticipating this since I suggested my reason for being in that bed.

I had fathomed her words all night, but when she finally said it, a charge went down my spine, as if aroused by the way she stated it.  
   
"What do you want me to do?" I asked, and then I gave her a deep kiss as I started the rhythmic shifting.  
   
"Let me get off."  
   
"Are you aching?" She nods, her hand atop the crotch of her panties as she started herself off with a few strokes of her lips through the soaking silk.  
   
"God, yess..." From there, her words become almost incomprehensible as I start to bring her off. First, I watch her fingers, getting an idea of her stroking style. She's a down and up girl, getting more pleasure from the up-stroke than going down. At first, she does it slowly, the outline of her lips unapparent as her index and middle warm her up. I'm not idle at all, kissing her, my hands across the top of her body and along her neck. I stroke her scalp, backing her in so that her pillows rest right against the headboard.  
   
I feel so hot myself, but for tonight it's not about my pleasure. This is an even exchange, trying to show her how wound up I got taking off everything to the sound of her voice Thursday night. We tangle together, my hands tracing along her nipples as I look down at her stroking herself above her panties. Her stomach rises and falls with each breath, a sight that awes me as I finally start to know intimately the girl who presented herself with the strictest introduction I've ever known. Her eyes are shut, her body damp with a mixture of sweat and post-shower moisture that would turn out to be pointless due to my ministrations.  
   
She holds back moans as I trace my fingers around each large nipple, both sticking up at least just under an inch. They harden under my contact, still and unyielding, and I think to myself that I'm finally drawing out her long-held womanhood, stuck under Sharon's influence. Paris's breaths become rushed as I encourage her on to stroke herself a little more, enough to make the material up against her mound perfectly slick when I go in.  
   
I kiss at her neck, begging her to let herself go a little more. "Come on," I implore, moving towards an ear, "I want to watch you warm yourself up, just like you do, every time you lay down to have a fantasy about me." I take that hand by the wrist and hold it still, pushing it above the waistband. "I know you have it in you, I've seen you do it at least twice and it gets me all hot and bothered." I lick my lips as her eyes widen a little at the realization of my allusion.  
   
"You--you've seen me?" she squeaked out, softly.  
   
"I have, and both times, when you least expected it. I would have caught you off-guard if you didn't think normally. Once in your dreams, and the other time..." I finger along her wrist, encouraging her to dip in. "You were enjoying yourself just mere minutes after a certain boy you were disinterested in dropped you off from a date at a certain event this summer."  
   
"After Jamie?" Her voice is unsure. "But I thought that you were writing a letter to Dean, in the closet."  
   
"One I abandoned, because I heard this." I purposely slid my thigh against her pussy through her panties, and there it was, that beautiful noise she makes when she begins to stroke. She gasped out loud, grasping at my side tightly, and then cursing out my name with some spiritual profanity in front of it. "After you came, there was no way I could leave that room without releasing any stress."  
   
"Fuck!" she cursed strongly. "I thought you couldn't hear me."  
   
"I did. You brushed him off, I made the connection, and from there, after a horrible attempt to pawn off my want of you towards Dean, that was it, you were mine." I touch my nose to hers, and she pulls me in as close as both of our bodies will allow, my thigh digging right against her clit, her whole hand buried within the panties.  
   
This was it; there was no more time for foreplay. Without but only a few more passionate words between us, she stared me down from below, bared her teeth, and I was given the carte blanche to be grinded into for her release.  
   
"I **will** bruise you, Gilmore," she said with a animalistic tone. "There's no doubt about it, I can get pretty rough when I try to cum, I've ruined sheets before, stretched out my own pleasure for hours on end. Fuck, I've even fainted after getting to my peek."  
   
"But how do you feel now?" I ask, challenging her to take advantage of my thigh all she needed.  
   
"You really don't want to know!" With that, we both shut up, as I pushed down on her and let her control my movements, down and up, in the front seat as I watched her give into her desires, both of us sharing a deep, wanton kiss that was unlike our usual love busses or the friendly pecks. There was no doubt about how much our separation did to us; I was shocked myself as teeth gnashed together, lips were bitten down on, breaks in oxygen very few. I concentrated on both the kiss and the grinding, wanting her to feel what I wanted her to have.  
   
Her legs started loose to separate and memorize the wideness of the leg, but as things went on, touching became less planned, chaotic. Starting with her hand, eventually she pulled it away and closed each of her thighs in around mine, looking down a depression in the silk formed with the outline of her clit apparent through the material. I was shocked at how large it was swelled up and aroused, that it would be apparent through her panties. She moved her hands up my body, keeping her grip tight as I free reigned to palm my hands all over hers, the swell of her breasts, that spot along her neck, her back and beautiful ass. Her pleasure turned her from her usually reserved guise into a new woman I had only imagined would come from her. Her voice was high as she 'Yes'ed and 'Oh Lord'ed each push in and out, with all of the Carlin Seven mixed in for good measure (she's right, she has no qualms about them!).  
   
Nor was she idle, with anything she could use to make a mark on me utilized to kill any ideas of wearing a tank top outside of my house for the next two weeks. When she had to shift her panties back down when they rode up, she scratched deeply into my back with a scream, pulling at the bra when she tried to work them back up. It took all that I had to not want it off, but I kept it on, no matter what transpired.  
   
My original thought that her short fingernails couldn't leave marks was proven untrue by the hard scratching I felt during a thrust that caused me to shriek aloud. Still, I kept a strong front, showing her that she was jumbling me inside, but I was still confident outside. No matter what she did, Paris couldn't get to me, and my focus remained on her. My hands wrapped around her, breast-to-breast, my body overheated from the change in our attitudes compared to a half-hour before.

As she was nearing her peak, we were close together, and her kisses were down to one of my shoulders and she ended up biting on the blade as a hard tremor went thorough her. I listened to her frenzied want, her voice filling with other things besides sexual desire, and the feelings overwhelming her small and unaccustomed body. My panties were hitched up higher, and she was getting off against the highest part of my thigh.  
   
"Oh shit...shit...God!!" Voice higher, I picked up the pace, shifting my own self up and down to meet her contractions. Her body bounced up and down with each thrust, now second to second, her words becoming more incomprehensible, both of our bodies dampened with a mixture of our fluids, sweat, her arousal, saliva, the salt of some of her cried tears. Her grip tightened even more, my bra falling from the cups to expose a quarter of each nipple as I stretched the strap adjustments as far as they could go to push them off from my arms.

"Rory...oh Rory...yess! Yess! Ahhhh!" I encouraged her on, giving her dirty talk and begging her to come in my arms. I felt such a burden off from me, relieving her stress without threatening our virginity. One day would find ourselves there, but for now, rubbing, stroking, and dry humping was enough to suffice. If you could call it dry though, really, that has to be the very definition of a misnomer.  
   
Her arms were again near my waist as she helped with the grinding, her moans closer and closer together. The high tone of them, such a surprise after the phone session where she seemed calm and collected. That wasn't her state now, her nails hard into my back, sexual obscenities thrown my way exalting my abilities as her partner.  
   
"Come on, you're almost there! Baby, please, just another minute...I can feel it!" I felt each contraction, close and personal as her pussy against my leg pounded, the expensive lingerie she wore undoubtedly ruined forever from my doing.  
   
"I'm getting there! Getting there! Yeah..." I had my own little engine that could, she kept going and going as her thrusting went down to 3/4 of a second between up and down, in and out cycles, my leg coated with her fluids. She was getting there, body tightening, convulsing, she was getting so far gone, any interruption or urge to use the bathroom would have me thrown hard against the wall. She was going to come, hell or high water.  
   
"How is it?"  
   
"Almost, oh God, oh God, oh God!! Yes...yes...yes...." She released from me temporarily to extract herself from my shoulder, intent on letting me see her face when she orgasmed. Her eyes were barely open, her mouth wide open, all of her teeth displayed, nose wrinkled up, her face showed all the effects of what I was doing to her. I pushed into her several more times, her eyes taking on a dark, dark shade of brown, retreating into her pupils. That long hair, without the appropriate brushing tangled and stuck together, it was out for the night. Both cheeks, deep red, flush, trails of tears down each of them.  
   
"PLEASE, RORY!!" she yelled, my focus for a moment only on her face, but on command, back on making her come. I pushed into her hard, thrusts coming in together as her breaths became so close, one breath bled right into the others, she hyperventilated, gasping for air.  
   
A few more quick thrusts. She choked back, trying to hold her larynx in to keep the screams within and as quiet as she could.  
   
Nope, wasn't going to happen. Delirious and taken with her sexual beauty in that moment, I tugged the crotch of her panties aside, exposing her mound.  
   
"WHAT THE FUC--YUHHHHHHH!!! AHHHHHH!!" At first not expected, but it didn't take long for her to want herself released as I pressed my flesh to her clit.  
   
The last grinds were bare leg-to-cunt, her cries loud and reverberating, my ears rang and I had to kiss her to keep her quiet; they were the kind of screams that usually suggested something criminal.  
   
"RORRRRRRRRYYYYYYYY!!!" Her mouth was muffled as I kissed her deeply, the first thrusts of her come. More curses and vainness from her end and I couldn't believe that a girl so wound up could have such a vocal orgasm. I knew she would probably have a loud one, but to be more...reserved.  
   
So much for that. She was loud, vocal, and her face, it showed the full effect of what I was doing as she began to summit. Her mouth was fully wide, eyes opened as far as they could go, her throat lumpling as each cry went through her. She breathed through her nose, her mouth sore from screaming, her neck tipped back as I kept the pace going, stroke after stroke. I didn't know how wound up she was since it seemed that she would never slow down. I could feel her contractions below, the rolling of her pelvis continuing, and eventually it was too much to bear for her. Paris bit into my shoulder, hard, and I had more bruises from her to contend with.  
   
It was worth it though. A night which originally was going to be solitary for the both of us, in forced separation, another night in her bed imagining a facsimile of myself bringing her off as I sat at home counting the hours on my alarm clock, that was all gone. We were both in that bed, together, with her convulsing and twisted body up against mine, having something that just weeks ago I didn't think I'd ever experience. Her hand moved to her pussy as she started to wind down and I helped her start to calm down her passion-wracked form as her screams softened, she started settling down, her deep kiss along my shoulder blade going from deep with teeth to a soft buss slowly.

What started as a shoulder kiss slid up the shoulder, then towards my neck, and then to the bottom of my chin until her reddened gaze was upon mine, her eyes shining with the want she feels for me. Even if I was on top, she tipped open my mouth until we kissed deeply again, her words nil, mine gone. Our breaths, the rustling of sheets, our lips and tongues touching, were the only things to be heard, she kissed me as if it was VE Day in Times Square. The moisture against my leg and her raw scent guided me on, how much she was devoted to me present in the way she went from apprehensive about a sexual situation with me, to fully accepting.  
   
In that moment, I had to note that my seemingly shy nature had been overwhelmed by the power I am just learning to use when it comes to our relationship. Her lips softly nipping at mine, slowly retreating from her positioning; it's unbelievable to me how little it takes to turn Paris from the stern taskmaster that she usually is into someone so welcoming and wanting of my sexual advances towards her. I could have never thought to myself in the time pondering my crush that I would end up brazenly seducing her like I did. Or that she would reciprocate, refusing to yield her control my way. Sure, I'm just barely more experienced (Ha! If you can call it that!) than her and I'm the one who went after her, but once I got her, I thought she was going to be the type to want to control almost everything.  
   
I had to throw her off, keep her on her toes all the time. Suddenly, I've realized how much in two years of being subservient, that sparks were meant to be sudden, not planned. Paris and I can love, for sure, but we both thought of love as 'an event revolving around dates, events, movie nights, balls, and anniversaries.' Both of us had to prove that romance was not to be another checkmark within an Outlook window.  
   
 _She always has to expect me_ , I thought as she wrapped herself around me, her body relaxing as the end of the orgasm slid from her grasp. She was a total mess, the shower of an hour before nothing but an excuse to get wet before I walked in the door, her unkempt hair wild, the fragrance she had walking in the room long gone, replaced with our own scents. I looked down from her abdomen, rising up and down, panties hurriedly adjusted back on, but not in the intended wearing position by any means.  
   
If you think I was any better off, boy, you'd be wrong! My body was red and hot, hair ruffled from her tendency to grasp at it when she wasn't occupied with my ass or my face. The newly bought lingerie set on me would be tattered for sure if Paris had wanted me to go further, the bra far out of the fitting position I had it comfortably in before, the cups drooping down to barely shield my nipples from view. The bottoms were still intact, but the fine cotton of the article chafed against my dampened mound though not enough to take them off. I saw bruising all up and down between my shoulder and waist, and for sure there were some skin-deep scratches on my back I would need a flexible or 360° mirror to examine.  
   
My thigh felt a bit of burning from her friction, but when I saw her calming down from the effects of what we just did, I knew a few scratches on my end were nothing compared to how revered she felt in this time between us. She had gone from her usual short fuse, using the 'Sharon voice' to push me out of her bedroom, to now, relaxed, against my arms, her chest rising up and down, as her heart slowed down to normal beats, her body limp, head against her pillow, looking at me with those chocolate eyes with such want and desire, respect for the way I pushed myself to invade her space for the evening.  
   
"Rory..." She tried to get out something but her voice strained, whisper quiet to express anything, her intelligence temporarily blocked by overwhelming pleasure. I looked her over, starting to rise from the bed, much more calm than her. Her sweat-drenched body shone in the dimmed light of the bedroom and I felt an obligation to help my girlfriend calm from the feelings that have just coursed through her. I slid off from the mattress gracefully, my eyes staying on her as she tried to voice an objection to my going away.  
   
But I wasn't at all. Noticing how damp she was, her panties were obviously due for the laundry. "Where is your underwear drawer, hon?" Her mouth opened a twinge. I kept my stare fully on her as I made a reassurance that my personal probing was for her. "I just want to get you a clean pair."  
   
She pointed towards an antique dresser sitting on the other side of the room, nodding that it would be alright for me to do it. She was wordless, undoubtedly exhausted from our session of making out.  
   
OK, maybe the Good Samaritan in me was a little corrupted. As I made my way to the dresser, I put a little swagger in my walk, smiling at her, my mind filling in the blank that she was staring at my ass and the way I strutted around her bedroom. My innocent aura was still there, but it wasn't wrapped up in the usual blue and plaid package, so I worked that to my advantage, adjusting my panties so that the top of my thighs were visible along the sides. All the way over, I smiled as if to make it known to Paris that my intelligence was a turn-on, but she should feel free to enjoy my body that she wanted to.  
   
I opened the dresser, looking for just a bit, and pulled out a pair of panties which matched up to her skin tone almost perfectly. I closed it, then turned back around, seeing the nervous girl laying on the bed almost nude with her stare rooted deep against my chest, the bra beginning to fail to stay on. That's when I decided to play with her a little more.  
   
Keeping a sly smile, I handed the underwear from my left hand to the right, and then with my fingers spread them across the crotch of the article, and then down the elastic at each leg hole. I stroked the material slowly, walking towards the bed in a measured pace. A more relaxed version, of course, as I was basking in the feel of my exposed body in front of her, the satin material of my panties constricting against my opening in a way that was distracting and pleasurable. Watching me walk towards her, my hands massaging where her clit would rest moments later, it made Par flush hot as I came closer to her, my nimble fingers sliding against the material of her underwear. She moaned softly, the recall of what she went through keeping her wound up as I approached the foot of her bed.  
   
"Paris," I said to her softly, letting the panties fall onto the tip of my finger. "I don't know if we went over this, and I'm sure we didn't." I teased her a little more, moving my free left hand to run against my sensitive neck. "I can leave right now if you'd like me to."  
   
"Why would you?" She stayed still, not moving as I inched closer to where the small heap of our clothing was. "I mean, you have free will to go if you'd like."  
   
"I could do that." With a last slow feel of the garment, I tossed the panties softly towards her, where they landed against her stomach. My voice stayed seductive, soft. Dare I say...sort of like Lorelai's when she was driving Max wild, except mine had a coquettish tone. "But then again, I sort of have a problem, what with no ride back to Stars Hollow, and I doubt that Henrico would want to bring me back so late. Oh, and I promised my mom that I wouldn't interrupt her; she had a busy weekend at the Inn." She kept staring at me as I then used my now freed hands to run them along the profiles of my breasts.  
   
As she pushed up the comforter to hide her nudity as she changed out of her underwear, I tossed my hair back and then I scaled my fingers up from my belly button, bending down a little and then working my arms free of both straps of the bra. I worked them out with as much of a smooth swagger as I could, and I continued to move closer to her. I picked up her nightshirt from the pile, her heated stare weighed down my tall form, and I was so turned on by this first night of passion that we've shared.  
   
The straps fell down to below the bra line as I rose up and when I was able to bring my attention up, I knew where those dark, smoky eyes of one Paris Gellar were focusing.  
   
"You want this off?" I crouched down so that my cleavage was at her eye level. She was struggling to keep her bare thread of modesty, the small inch-long hook between each cup holding me back drawing in her vision. She licked at her lips, her breathing becoming rushed once again.  
   
"I don't know...I've--I have never gotten to this point before." Her usually firm voice was but a childish whimper, the teenager in front of me so nervous and wound up tight. Coming off her first real orgasm with me, she was struggling to overcome her usual drilled-in mores to not be romantic. "You have beautiful breasts, so small, quaint...pale." Her hands moved out from under the blanket, one of them holding the soiled panties, carelessly tossed to the carpet below at bedside. "You have so many more freckles...various dark spots." Holding up the blanket to shield her breasts.  
   
"Yours are nothing to sneeze at either," I noted, a constellation of small moles on each breast, three or four, including a very cute one on the right lower side of her left one. "You know what this bra is doing to me right now? God, my nipples are so tight, I just want to take this off, crawl into bed with you, and fall asleep." I held up the wrinkled shirt, still a bit soaked from the shower. "I do want to be modest this first night, however." I smiled, watching as Paris took the comforter and sheet and opened it up a little.  
   
"So, you intend to spend the night?"  
   
I nodded at her, and then laid a soft kiss upon her lips. "I'd rather be nowhere else right now than with you."  
   
"I suppose I should be truthful then." Ashamed, she admits that she's a panty sleeper, wearing nothing but them, and saying she would often wish she could've done the same back in Washington, that the nightgowns were only for outer modesty, not actual sleepwear. "But, if you'd rather I wear pajamas, I can, because I know that you're always fully dressed in bed."  
   
"Until recently," I corrected. "I can't even put on bottoms now anymore; it's that bad when it comes to you. I wake up dreaming about you touching me in different ways, every single night, my mind just going everywhere and nowhere at the same time." I took her hand into mine, and then slid it along the front of my chest, my pulse picking up with each word and movement towards the center clasp. "You don't have to change for me hon, in any way, I like you how you are, knowing you more intimately with each passing day, finding out these new things I never knew about you before. Like how you're touching me..." I'm able to release as her fingers slide along the front of my breasts, moving across the embellished cups barely them back. "...like that. Yessss...." I closed my eyes. "So hot..." I hold back a cold shudder, an index finger probing around my areole through the lace. "I get so damp, thinking of you touching me like this. And remembering the moment I saw that this bra was perfect for me, in that mirror. I saw you behind me, helping me fit into it, dreaming that your hands were pushing against each side of the cups. Your voice...complimenting me in how fucking well-matched this outfit makes me," I started to hyperventilate. "How your hands are so cool when you touch, the anticipation and shock I feel when your fingers meet my skin."  
   
"Ror...you're really enjoying this, aren't you?" I nodded, her voice still in that soft, wanting whisper. "You're so stiff..." her fingers round each of my nipples, the 4/5" height of each one fully erect. Then, she slides them in, pushing each cup aside, and then pushing in each one. "Hey, you think I can try something?"

"Wha?"  
   
Before I can even think or hypothesize that question, she unsnaps the bra, slowly taking it off to let both of my nipples breathe. I don't even see the undressing, focusing on the desk on the other side of the room, the chill of the newly exposed skin startling, along with my heart rate rising.  
   
"Tell me how wet you are," she commands, her voice still soft, but hitting a firm note.  
   
"Very," I admitted, my own pair of panties soaked within a small triangle, and realizing then I hadn't even thought of how stimulated I was myself.  
   
"Let's test that one tidbit of information you gave me on Thanksgiving night." Paris rose up in her bed to slide on the clean pair of panties, before she beckoned me to sit against her. I could only wonder her plan and what 'tidbit' she was going to experiment with.  
   
"Lay against my front, lengthwise, legs straight out. I have something that I want to try." I couldn't see her, so I had to assume that whatever she might be doing, I would have to trust her. I pushed back against her, her breasts against my back, her back propped against the pillows and the headboard. She was still damp with sweat, and her scent surrounded me all over. The wonder of why were in bed like this, it screwed with my hormones, my mind blank as to what exactly she wanted to do.  
   
Before I could share a guess with only myself, she brought herself close so that her mouth met with the back of one of my earlobes, running her lower lip against the top of the back of the sensitive cartilage. OK, I remember mentioning my ear thing in that call, this must be it, just a test...  
   
"Now," she whispered softly. "Keep your hands off, to your sides." _Whoa, what?!_ I was confused to her intentions. "You do remember what you said, don't you?"  
   
From the following twenty seconds of silence as my brain tried to reboot, apparently not! I was at a loss for words. A guess about the earlobe thing would most likely be seen as dumb in her view. "Uhh--I can't recall."  
   
Her lips continued to play at me, moving down the earlobe and down towards my neck. My attention was elsewhere, however. Both of her hands, at each side of my bared back to start out with, right in the center. The skin they were touching began to radiate outward in an east-west line from there. She rubbed, massaging me to start me into relaxation.  
   
"You've said you've done it before, probably multiple times." A beat of silence. "If I didn't know better, you may even attempt it in my car from time to time."  
   
"What are you talking about?"  
   
"You don't think I notice, do you?" She said, her fingers kneading my skin. "That extra shaking in your seat, your left foot in fourth hour, it bounces up and down nervously when you get really bored. I can't see you very often, but when I look back to hand back corrected papers or worksheets, there you are, legs tightly crossed in, that foot connected to that leg, bouncing up and down." A soft smile. "You're usually the calmest girl in that class, nothing getting to you, the massages you do for me expunging spare stress from your mind."  
   
Her hands begin to push to beneath my underarms, closer towards my front with each knead. "You get around me, suddenly you're not just the smartest girl in the Hollow any longer, you're my vice girl at Chilton, the one I share everything with. I can tell when you get all out of sorts, so it was nice to know that most of your lost attention is headed towards me, rather than some brainless jock." I started to flush up with each touch, her lips against the back of my scalp. "After going back through the last year and all the times I'd just observe you, doing nothing else, and I know what you're doing as you cross your legs together, tightly, like you do in those situations." Hands move closer towards my front. "You're thankful for the three, four layers of tops that you wear, bra, tank top, blouse, sweater or blazer. If you were just wearing one of those tight belly shirts, you would be too obvious. The way you dress normally however, it's all hidden."  
   
My neck hair stiffens up, each of her fingers spidering towards each of my breasts. I stiffen in her embrace, my body knowing exactly what's happening to get me all wound up. My mouth is open on the bottom, I can barely take what she's doing to me. My hands remain stilled on each of my sides, afraid one move will kill the foreplay.  
   
"Oh, baby." Another kiss, along the upper portion of my jawline. "I can just imagine how wound up you get during the day, stuck in those starched articles, your usual cotton lingerie scratching roughly against the regulation fabrics. I can see it when you rid yourself of the blouse at the end of the day in the car, tossing it in the backseat. You're all wound up, eight hours on hard work chairs and communal stools, two spent on a stiff office chair. At least five hours a day we sit in the same class, and your eyes stay on me when nothing is happening within the lecture. It's then you feel your mind wander to a situation you might want the two of us in, a place in your subconscious inappropriate for most everyone else. Panties digging against that tight slit of yours, your bra..."  
   
Almost all comprehension beyond her words and actions are lost beyond this point. Her plan from this point on, like every other Paris Gellar template in her short history, intended to get her way. I can't even think one more thought when I feel her slender fingers cup against the bottom of each of my breasts. Despite her distraction, her sexual monologue continues on furthermore.  
   
"You've probably not had a proper bra fitting, ever, because I can tell from tonight that finally, you have articles that flatter your goods the right way, not just reining you in with a modicum of support, you buy not for looks, but for comfort. You love comfort, it's like your upbringing in the sticks, the thing you're used to. But you're also learning that sometimes you must tease..."  
   
I have to keep my mouth bitten shut, her fingers begin to probe the sensitive tissue of my mounds.  
   
"Since the realization you liked me, you've been doing it your way, not the expected where you're out there begging for a look, just in your own natural way. You used your body to draw me in, noticing where my glances went in weak moments. you kept a good track of most of them. Every RN massage, each accidental brush and touch we shared at the table during lunch, when I'd hand you work at _The_ _Franklin_ or the gov meetings. I would look, you would note, be it mentally, or within the list. Then, you'd start to try to think about what you did to expend that energy, be it in sports or within the classroom." Paris's soft lips showered kisses down my neck as she kept her hands on my breasts. "It takes one day in class, one I probably wouldn't even know about, to come to a conclusion."  
   
So cold, chilly. My skin has that temperature as her words flow through me, each and every one meant to arouse me further, the intended effect. Previously hands-off, relaxed, I was still hands-off from myself.  
   
However, I was in my usual daydreaming position, thinking about erotic dream situations between Paris and I.  
   
Usually though, the girl in those dreams wasn't right next to me, helping to push me over the edge, lubricating me with only her deep, sexual voice.  
   
"You love getting yourself off in class, right behind me." The nape of my neck, usually hidden by hair, was exposed from an earlier push of my mane to the side. "One lip against the other, getting yourself all wet and wanting, using the cotton to your advantage. You don't need to adjust anything but your seating in order to find yourself fully satisfied. That's all it takes for you, something very few women could ever wish to perfect."  
   
Her fingers, now at my nipples, pushing them in, her fingers getting to know the texture of the buds already familiar to her when only within a tank top. Meanwhile, her teeth, scraping against the back of my neck.  
   
 _Fuck!_ I was totally in a daze, my inner vixen even shocked by her seduction. My only audible sounds were grunts and deep whinnies with each mention, I couldn’t even get out one regular word to express one bit of feeling about what she was causing. So wound up...tight...my pelvic muscles tightening up in anticipation....  
   
"Show me how you cum without stroking yourself at all, Ror. I want to know what I do to you in class, when you're bored, or here, minutes after bringing me to my peak as you imagine how I would to yours." Her hands rake across my pale breasts, the small handfuls encompassing each of her hands. I can't help but react, crying her name out softly in a whimper. "These are beautiful; I always wanted to touch you this way, see how you'd react, that I can drive you crazy with lust, my touch intoxicating to you."  
   
She gets blatant after that, her hands all over me, across my breasts, while her fingers work across each of my nipples. "Get off for me, let me see what exactly I did to you Thursday night." She pinches each of them softly as she starts to kiss the back of my neck, the tightness I felt before beginning to be released.

"Don't touch yourself, at all," she demanded, as I worked my legs into that position I know so well after two months behind her in RN. I know what I have to do, manipulate my lips open within my panties so that my clit dehoods, get my legs crossed into a steady position, and then just let myself go. It takes a little longer than usual since this is my first time trying it in a laying position, but eventually I'm in that position that I know I'm in as I get the friction started, my legs rubbing into each other, panties loose just that bit I need to start to stroking against the nub.  
   
I'm encouraged on, Paris proving that she knows massaging as well as I do. Her hands have such a tune that they know my body, even if this is the first experience she's had with them. I find that one of her favorite moves is to roll my nipples within the grasp of her fingers, back and forth, not enough to be considered a twist, but certainly a much hotter feeling than a hard pinch. I back my ass into her to give myself even more friction, beginning to feel my pussy slicken more. Just what I needed to happen.  
   
She continues to speak, trying to get weekend details out of me. Thankfully, not the mundane times. "So...I have to say you're matching skills, much more improved. You must have spent so much time in that shop, trying to find things that would catch my eye. Thinking about me as the sales lady, rather than some bimbo from Bristol."  
   
I answer she certainly wasn't brainless, she was aware enough to realize that my picks were hardly of the male-based fantasy variety. "Ohh...she knew I was more into girlfriend wear when I rejected on sight a slutty teddy, along with a overly lacy garter belt set."  
   
"I would've gone for that," she said, her palm raking the underside of a breast. "But you're right, overtly complicated, it kills the action quickly. The front clasp was a great idea." I can sense she's looking in my backpack in the corner. "You better not have Hello Kitty undies in that bag."  
   
I shake my head, almost wordless as I shift into the lovely position I know so well, the paydirt one where my clit is dead-center against the crotch of my panties. "When I tell you the amount I spent at that store, you'll kill me."  
   
"You said you budgeted $100," she remembered from estimation. "What could you get for that?"  
   
"Actually," I gasped out as her middle and ring fingers pinched my nipples hard. "$268.47!!" I started rubbing my legs together, faster and faster, anticipating her response. She was silent for a moment, trying to comprehend that I went over-budget. Me, the girl who can be found in thrift shops almost weekly, content with my own simple style.  
   
"How the hell did you get that much?!"  
   
"My purse...I have a checking account I keep $500 in to build interest...before I knew it...I kept keeping things I couldn't afford on the budget I had!" The breast play was even more furious as I built up her fire. "After I got the bra fitting, I found a couple strapless numbers that looked so sexy on me, and the matching high-cut bottoms I couldn't turn down. Ohhh...ahhhhh...and some boyshorts too, I tried them on and I loved the way they felt against me, and my butt." Which was now bouncing up and down on her lap as I quickened my stoking pace, recalling how I looked in that mirror. "I couldn't help it, I've been plain for so long, but now you're blatantly eyefucking me, it got to me."

Ahh, there's the hard pinch!! Thumb and index, right on the nipple, very hard! God, she's strong! "FUCCCK!!!"  
   
"How bad, exactly?" She asked, her voice tight with desire, teeth clenched. "Tell me, Lorelai, I get this idea that one of those purchases was of the 'you break it in, you buy it' variety. You're all alone in that dressing room, dressing yourself in and out of various articles. I don't think even you, of all girls, would be immune to the charms of taking advantage of that."  
   
I was becoming unglued as the recall of that Friday afternoon at the Secret, thinking of her as I tried on all kinds of lingerie. "Sweetie, I couldn't help it, I just saw you there, watching me try on things, my mind going back to how you'd regard each of my choices. A few times, I almost start rubbing my cleft, but I remind myself where I am, in a public store, in front of a mirror." I lift my ass up, trying to slow down the sensitivity in my core. "I would never, ever do that, ever. But then, I come back out, and I notice this display mannequin wearing a thin cut panty, the waistband almost a non-existent string, paired up with a semi-sheer bra. I'm looking it over, and suddenly, I know I have to try it on. I ask the sales lady to get them in my size, and in a certain color."

"A favorite of mine?" she asks, her mouth upon the back of my shoulder.  
   
"The one I most associate with you...it wasn't called it exactly...but the shade was Harvard crimson red."  
   
"The exact shade?"  
   
I nod. "I didn't tell the lady anything, except that you were a Harvard candidate, and she was pushing me towards the dressing room immediately, dollar signs in her eyes."  
   
"You had to try it on." Hands at the sides of my breasts...  
   
"I was out of my clothes so fast...pretty easy when I was just wearing a dress, pantyhose being a hindrance of course. Putting it on slowly, imagining your stare against me, that voice of yours hmm'ing in pleasure. First the bra, which had but a simple snap holding me within, the straps so thin...God, just describing it..." I felt a tremor go through me. "Just imagine how they would feel to you under a bare covering of lace, the fabric so thin and gauzy that if it fell the right way, my nipple would end up through a hole in the decoration. It covered just enough, but at the same time, not enough. It wasn't a bra that you'd ever picture me seeing me in, outside of your deep fantasy world."  
   
"You've got me going..." The nimble fingers continued to journey, going with each of my words. By then, I was so hard that I could probably draw milk out. "Go on."  
   
"The underwear...oh my God...even Louise would have second thoughts about putting them on, especially over the basic, boring pink Blue Light Special briefs I had on." I shook my head, hating that I had to remind her of the reality of the situation for the sake of cleanliness. She didn't bat an eye, and I continued.  "When I was sliding them on, they felt so fragile; I thought I'd break them once I lifted the band up to meet my waistline. Just enough in the ass, enough in the front. I mean damn, these made my skinny jean undies look like bloomers, really! I'm not usually so vain and self-centered, but they had this little keyhole on the top of the crotch that went down to just where my lips started, a small little bit of the top of my triangle exposed." I was working myself into the stroking once again. "Then I had this thought about both of us in the library, doing research for a class. I closed my eyes, the words that you do look up my skirt haunting me since the night before. I imagine myself coming down from that ladder with some old, old book, going all the way back to the Hiram Chilton Trust and the school's founding. You meet me down there, this...this heated look on your face. Like the one you had when I was getting you onto the bed earlier."  
   
Her hands are all over my upper body, freely roaming along my stomach and breasts, she's getting me all warmed up as I continue on. "I looked myself over in them in the mirror, shoes off, concentrating on how they felt against me, and then your reaction, how I looked in your personal color...and there I am, thinking of you in my daydream, attacking me the moment I'm off that last step of the ladder. I try to stop you, very lamely, but before I can protest, my skirt is unsnapped, you're on my lips, and your hands are unbuttoning my blouse, fast..."  
   
"So I was aggressive in this thought?"  
   
"Considering the soundtrack in my mind was that Tweet song where she sung about masturbation...yeah, I was getting wound up looking at myself and thinking about you." Oh God, I can't believe I admitted listening to that song! She's going to think so much less of me for that choice!  
   
"Good song choice." O-kay, color me surprised. "Better than the usual ceding to Divinyls when it comes to self-gratification. I mean an Australian trollop delivering a come-on like that? Those blokes always love you and leave you! At least Tweet, she's with Missy," she stops, "definitely a lesbian, she screams it out in every song she doesn't do with Usher."  
   
"Anyways," I diverge back on-topic, noting her breast massage never let up, "I'm in that dressing room, thinking of you getting behind me...stroking me through my panties to start out with...they were so perfect." My pelvic muscles start to reflex in and out. "I stand in front of that mirror, my hands all over, my body so tight from trying on so much stuff, I ended up with ten sets in all. But that one...it was truly the best; I can't wait to wear it. I kept running my hands all over, not even focused on the fact I was in a mall dressing room."  
   
She picked up her stroking as I went on, fingers rounding around my nipples. "How soon was it until you started stroking underneath?"  
   
"I don't even remember," I answered honestly, "I just fell into that image of you against me, hand on my cleft, getting me off...off like that...ohhhh." I had to shut my eyes once again as she used that opportunity to push me back down into her lap. "I was looking at myself, taking off the bra to put on my dress, and then I was in the mirror, staring at myself, wearing those panties. I end up doing some pinching, touching, rubbing...event...ev...eventually, I dipped my hand in, and I was gone. Thinking of you, sliding your hand in." I felt convulsions within my pussy, the dream material and her soft touching mixing in the right way. "Par...oh my God." I start to lose my focus on the fantasy as she decides to help me out.  
   
Still not touching me down there, but rocking me up and down her thigh to simulate a push in and pull out. Slowly she begins, her hands stuck to each side of my breasts, her fingers on my nipples, tugging and fondling them. Her mouth, meanwhile, moving to the side of my neck, she sucks on my flesh in little nips, enough not to leave a mark. All the while, continuing to dirty talk me with my created situation.  
   
Her leg against my cleft, it's doing the right thing, along with her voice. "Ror, come on, you've wanted this all weekend. I still hear your voice in my mind as we came, together. I want you to be satisfied, to fall asleep in my arms, fully sated." I clinch my muscles together, clit still in that right place for the self-fuck. "What happens when you cum in class?"  
   
"Not much...it's quick, I don't usually end up this slick, and my body wash usually hides the scent. Sometimes...I...I go in the bathroom. A couple of times, I stretched it out to lunchtime."  
   
That gets her even hotter, knowing I'm working myself into a tizzy right next to her. "But you...I don't know how I would have noticed. You're always still when we talk, your voice never vibrates."  
   
I have to let her in on another secret I have. "What do you think I do when I listen to my Walkman?" I smiled towards her, ravenous, as she kissed me on the lips softly. "I enjoy the deepness of the Chilton skirts."  
   
"Rory..." her voice is rushed. "Please, don't make it so easy for me to kill the no kissing at Chilton rule, because I am **this close** to rescinding it!"  
   
"I'm so close too...oh God. Get me off, that bouncing is working...ohhh....ahhh..."  
   
She pushed her thigh closer against the back, and I backed into it, my clit pulsing harder with each stroke. She continued to kiss, continued to play, time became a blur as I shut my eyes, lost in the sensations sent my way. My mouth, wide open, breath shallow, body wracked all tight. My gasps were close together and I closed my legs tighter to push myself out. I held onto one side of the mattress tightly, while my right hand fisted the sheet. She encouraged me on, with words, actions, everything that she could.  
   
I was lost, looking like a wreck, my neutral scent had disappeared. The scent of my arousal and the remnants of hers were within my nose as she went on about how she wants me to cum, she slides her hand teasing my stomach, flirting with my waistband. I was almost ready to spill over, getting there, getting there...  
   
"Aahhhhh...uggghhhh!" The tightness was building up, I hissed, willing myself to finish.  
   
"Come on baby, come on, you can do it. For me, do it for me."  
   
"Only...only for you..." She kept it touchless, a spare touch along my stomach the only sensation sent closest to my pussy. "Paris...Paris..."  
   
"You can get there!"  
   
"Oh damn...fuck!" I felt the beginnings of the orgasm, that familiar tingle down from my stomach. She stopped playing with my breasts, wrapping her arms around me at my abdomen. "I'm getting there...almost, almost." She pushed me up and down faster and faster, the feeling being pushed down.  
   
"Ror...baby, come on."

"I...I..." My words were losing as the release inched out. "Par...please...faster...faster." The clit to fabric rub was faster, at a pace I never went with before. Everything being done was helping out, and my body took a higher temperature. Her pushes became deeper, blatant, wanting.

I wasn't reaching the peak quite yet though. But one thing she did brought it all out.  
   
Begging and pleading, her eyes focused down, she did something that for anyone else would have earned them a one-way ticket out of a relationship. But for me, a fucking turn-on that I would feel the effects of for the next seven days.  
   
Without any permission or the idea that it got me over the edge, she suckled against the back of my shoulder. Not only that, but got a little bit of a bite in too. Before I could fathom, the tingles of that possessive mark were going down my body.  
   
They took me over and then they ruined me, violently and without any rhyme or reason. With that love bite, that first ever sign that I was hers, the signal was sent to my brain.  
   
I was her pleasure, and she was my pleasure, in turn. That's the message that was sent.  
   
After that, the inevitable happened. I could try to describe it here, go into details longer than what I've told you so far. But all I can say was her marking me, which will take tank tops out of my usual clothing selection for the week? It brought me off.  
   
It wasn't an orgasm like the one that made her spill over, but it was enough to numb me, I came in screams and gasps, the slickness between my legs bringing me off how I wanted to. Shouting her name, she muffled my mouth with her hand and freed me to go through the entire thing without being held back or stuck in my usual 'good girl' template.  
   
I was the bad girl tonight, coming over to make her remember that she was my girlfriend. With a simple command to see if I could actually cum without any touch beyond my breasts and other erogenous zones, she got to me.  
   
Paris got to me...she got to me, nice and hard. I rode through it, my form stiff and beyond stimulated, face aflame, going through such sweet desire as I finally fulfilled my first goal, to be brought to orgasm right next to her.  
   
Somehow, I held off the urge to say 'I love you' to her. But I did...for letting me come into here and let her be herself, and to be able to bring her off. And then, after her recovery, having the ability to prove my life, my future...it's building around her. That I'll do anything to keep her, even if it takes putting aside long held shyness, along with my bank balance, to keep her in my arms.

The foam over continued, my legs breaking apart as the tension in my clit became too much and I was over stimulated. I panted as I went through, Paris slowing her effects with her thigh, helping me calm down, continuing to kiss me near my ears and neck. The bite still hurt, but it wasn't a deep one, that, and the romantic reasons for it went beyond any pain that I felt. I continued to feel the effects for at least a minute or so, before the comedown started to take in.  
   
When it did...I was relieved, but more than that, I was spent out. Both of us were. From our weary voices, the hour spent together took so much out of us. I let the residual effects flow through me, still, while Paris continued to hold me, giving me all the time that I needed to relax. I was hot and flushed, my panties wet, but I wasn't up for changing them; they would dry, I didn't have as damp of a release as she had. Eventually, my body retreated to its normal state, and after five minutes I went limp and then fell to the right side of Paris as she released me and helped me roll my head onto the nearest pillow.  
   
The hyperventilating continued, and then her eyes met mine as she took a look at her damage, and I gave myself a status report on what I had done to Par since she walked out of that shower.  
   
Her voluptuous body, head to toe, looked luminescent, beautiful, well-done, her eyes drooping, tired from the sudden influx of activity she wasn't expecting. Both of us felt deep scratches in the middle of our backs, scrapes that thankfully were surface-only and didn't induce scars. Her breasts, lumping together as she laid next to me, both still tightened from arousal and being around me so long.  
   
Then, between her thighs. Hidden between her panties, I couldn't help but examine the work I did, bringing her off against my leg. The first few inches of them, between her opening, all red and deep, the material failing to hide the outward radius of the stroking. She had them closed, most likely afraid that she'd arouse herself further. She was wrapped into herself, positioned on the bed as if she was about to wrap around me. It was one of those moments where I wished I could have a psychic connection with her, in order to find out how she felt about everything that had just happened between us.  
   
I went through it all. This was still unbelievable to my psyche, that in such a small period of time, we had gone from the cute type of lesbian couple, having only minimum affection for each other, to this point, where we're both almost nude and coming off from our first uninterrupted session of clothed third-basing.  
   
I can't understand it. Before I found my courage and went through with admitting my affection to her, the idea of anything sexual was such a verboten topic in my relationship with Dean, I couldn't even make a crack about some hot big-screen actress being the thing Dean jacked off to in his dreams because he'd get all flustered and denied that he had a male mind. No admitting on my end either, he'd turn off the movie or remind me I could never score with whoever I was lusting for, becoming a total buzzkill. Any sexual expression gave him such a conservative pause that it was boring.  
   
With Paris however, it's a totally different story. She's willing to push at me, I want to push at her, and we're going thorough a complete transformation of our relationship together. The past animosity is still there, never to be forgotten. I won't do that, however, because it shows that both of us have come such a long way. That first day with her, she wouldn't even let me touch her castle project, agoraphobic to having somebody compete and get along with her. She always was used to going it alone, finding not one soul who wanted to know her how she was, not an artificial guise of aggravation and hate.  
   
In the space of only three weeks, that has all changed. No longer can we be without each other. The intimacy we shared tonight is sure to lead to so much more, a change in our lives, shuffling that will take a while to work itself out.  
   
As I think about this, I feel a tap on my shoulder and hear my name whispered.  
   
"Ror." I turn around on the bed, facing the woman who has turned my world completely around, smiling at me, worn eyes dark still with the dissipating desire of minutes before. She calls for my attention as I face her, to make sure I'm not in a dream fog.  
   
"I know that the question is moot at this point, but, will you sleep with me tonight?"  
   
Stinging and goosebumps spread throughout my body from the question. Even the way she phrases a rote question is something that gets to me. Her intelligence also is such a turn-on, since she has no need to disclaim the key words within that sentence. One of the major things about being with her I definitely love, 'talking smart' isn't being flippant; it's a normal function of our everyday life.  
   
I nod, moving closer to her, and applying a soft buss against her lips. "You have yourself a bed buddy for the night, hon." She smiles, and kisses me back, as she reaches back down to pick up the pajama shirt, long forgotten. She hands it over and, despite my objections, I know that if I don't wear it we might never get to sleep because of the temptation. Still, as I speak, I put it on with the least effort possible, with only the lower three buttons keeping me in the garment.  
   
Except I'm not the one to put it on...she is, doing every button. Which just adds to the dizzying sensations that are now a permanent part of my being, along with the constant butterflies and sudden need to impress Paris at every opportunity. I really enjoy how much she spoils me, along with her wanting me to sleep in something she usually does.

Things are more complicated, I know that now though. We've gone past the point where anything that used to be taken as silly experimentation is new serious between us; giving each other orgasms tends to do that. I've also done far more to give Paris insight into my life in these few days than I have in the last four years with Lane. People will be disappointed, angry, wishing they found a place to stop me before I decided 'hey, Paris, kind of cute, pretty sexy, should I go after her...why not?'.  
   
But I have to decide on my own. I'm no longer the naïve girl who walked into Chilton that day, the only experience with love I had being a bad date to the 8th grade dance. I'm an 18 year-old woman, finding my way in the world, romancing another girl who has gone beyond that point as far as her emotional maturity. Inside however, she's a lost little girl, on the fringe of the earth, with the smarts and looks to challenge all, but always a wallflower in all other departments.  
   
We're both together in that regard and both of us have to take that journey, united, the both of us. It can't happen any other way and I know I won't let it. As she falls asleep after we say our goodnights, I look at her, thinking of what we had just done.

 _I can't let her go, this weekend proved that_. That's the last thought in my mind as I rested in the crook of her neck and let sleep overtake me, her breath quickly wooing me hypnotically into slumber.  


* * *

That leads me back to now, midnight in Gellar Manor, darkness, the bright moon shining through the darkened curtains of the room. As I said, I'm sleeping on Paris's breast, her spoon such a welcoming and beautiful position that lulls me back into my deep sleep, interrupted only by my bladder and my thirst. I still remember her habit of having a bottle of Fiji water next to her bedside glass and I take a couple out from her mini-fridge below the computer after a trip to the bathroom. She prefers water from the glass, while I don't mind bottle-sipping, which I do to empty out a quarter of the bottle. I climb back into the bed, almost falling asleep, when she starts to have one of those moments I'm now getting used to.  
   
She's talking in her sleep, voice rough, her mind not focused on anything but building up her strength again and living out her fantasies within that wide open space that is her brain. I try to focus myself out of it, the scent of her pajama top on me and her below helping me try to fall asleep. Yet, I still look at her in the darkness and think she's the most beautiful woman I've ever known. Her 'talking' is more like random strings of words rather than anything coherent forming a sentence, like the political quotes she was using in the deep days of the leadership conference.  
   
I think I can relax, she hasn't mentioned my name in any one of her outbursts, she's probably having a happy dream, playing with her computer or having a dream about helping crack the human genome. Whatever it is, her voice is soothing music to my ears and her warm bosom is an amazing place to rest my head upon...  
   
"Gilmore!"  
   
Uhh, alright. Mentioning my last name, nothing odd about that. Probably just having a _Franklin_ dream where she's ordering around, something about as dull as you can get with her dream state. I'm going to try to get back to sleep again...  
   
"I mean it dear, I'm not one for chocolate, yellow is better. Comes out of the dress faster too."  
   
 _Dress? Yellow or chocolate?_ I don't know what she's going on about, but it has me interested. I spoon within her as I try to get my weary mind back to sleep.  
   
OK, good. I think she's calming down; one minute's passed, probably just hungry altogether since airline trail mix doesn't fill you up that well, as my pathetic meal of sour cream and onion Pringles with frozen tuna casserole before I left with Henrico can attest.  
   
"I'll say it one more time, I want it five-tiered, and your mom can't order it from Carvel, I mean it! Cookie Pusses® aren't meant for weddings!!"  
   
Uhhh....wow. Picture my face turning white. Ice cream cakes and weddings?! What **is** she dreaming about?  
   
"Don't give me the face...don't...oh, stop it! It's going to melt in an hour, really." I can't believe what I'm hearing, oh my God. "Rory, what are you doing? Uh-huh...if I give in, you'll promise to do that, really? For as long as I want?" Suddenly, she shrieks. "You will make it up to me after the ceremony? You better!!"  
   
Well...talk about giving me a window into her soul! Already dreaming about tying the knot with me, am I that good? I don't know, I feel like I should have some kind of reward...or...something...uh, er--  
   
What is she doing sliding a hand beneath the hem of the pajama top? Whoa, whoa, whoa, what did my dream guise exactly agree to in exchange for my favorite cake?!  
   
"I've always wanted to do it right here with you, in the bakery. No, really, I don't care who's watching, you want to give in and let me fuck--"  
   
DAMN IT!! Right in Westin's? Is she trying to test Taylor's indecency ordinances to their limits? Uh, well, I'm...flattered at all, but wedding bells and public sex, maybe we should get through the first month before we get to that step.  
   
Maybe she also should save trying to give me a multiple night for when I'm coherent too. Uhh, I have to wake her up, no matter how much the idea of ice cream wedding cake takes me to sinful and indecent places not exactly conducive to a full night's sleep!  
   
I softly shake her to wake her up, pushing her hand away from me before she can notice. Maybe a little bit of a kiss on her breast will make her eyes open for a bit too.  
   
"Wake up, wake up," I say softly, as she stirs out of the dream in a fog. Thankfully, she doesn't even remember what she is dreaming about as she struggles to open her eyes. "Wha...huh?"  
   
"You were having a dream, it was getting a bit loud, hon. I just had to wake you and quiet you down; I can't sleep," I say, trying to soothe her and keep her calm. "I'm sorry."  
   
"Oh..." she feels a little guilty through her sleepy condition. "I...it wasn't something, I was fine, right?"  
   
"Just lecture stuff." I smile up at her. "Very boring, dry. Nothing to be concerned about."  
   
"Good." Paris takes me into her arms and slides herself closer into me. "Thank you. I know it bothers you, my dreams."  
   
"Not really, just forgot my earplugs," I joke. "Keep some extra in your drawer next time?"  
   
She weakly laughs. "I can live with that." A kiss on the top of my head, small, but enough to take me through the rest of the night. "I'll see you tomorrow then, goodnight darling."  
   
"Night. Sweet dreams." She's going back to sleep without remembering her dream, and I'm so thankful that for once she forgot **something**! Oh, if she remembered, I think I'd overheat as she tried to live it out in real life.  
   
Though it's still a possibility, it hasn't happened yet. But do I want it to happen? So short a time, and our closeness is suggesting marriage in our future, at least in the eye of the mind? Too soon to think about it, really.  
   
But really, it's there. The link is building between us. We covered so much ground this evening. More than I ever expected. We're both so worn out, sleep is an immediate thing for the both of us...sleep...sleep...  
   
OK, that I can handle, her hand against my belly beneath the shirt, that's fine. It's soothing, her hands against it...a nice warm body...beautiful curves...eating a Cookie Puss® in a lascivious way often parodied on bad New York public access shows, the 1am kinds, where the Cookie Puss® is in the shape of a...

Well, there it goes. The last ever uncorrupted and non-dirty childhood thought ever in my brain, ohhhh man!! I don't have time for this, I need sleep! Maybe I could dream about something boring with her, reading product recalls from the CPSC web site? That could work, help me get to sleep.  
   
Oh, but her soft body is so much better. Might as well give it up, the next five hours in dreamland are going to be interesting. Somehow, I think an arctic cold shower will be involved once I wake up in the morning too...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	16. A Little Loving in the Morning Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the morning after and right back to school for Paris and Rory, right? Well, not if they can help it, for there's still plenty of interesting situations for them to get into.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Sixteen | A Little Loving in the Morning Light  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Spoilers:** Once again, outside the events of the actual season three, after _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_ , at the very beginning of December 2002. No spoilers for the show beyond those already mentioned.  
 **Rating:** Hard R (sexual situations, self-pleasuring and light voyeurism, oral sex, profanity, and disrespect to an adult (though well-deserved))  
 **Disclaimer:**   Ouch. So when the creator of this entire idea in the first place (Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions) got smashed and said she didn't even watch the finale, and our favorite blonde future Dr. Paris Gellar says she thought the closure sucked for the show? Not a good sign. Nonetheless, a good run, although our friend David Rosenthal (executive producer) from hereon out should stick to TBS sitcoms. Still, a great cast, and some of the finest writing in television history inspired me, and I'm glad to have been a part of it as a fan, despite The CW and Warner Bros. Television (the network and distributor) not having a good idea about how to market it (hint folks; bathing everything in green and putting more makeup on the girls than a Sunset Strip kabuki/drag show didn't help, nor did blaring Fergie, bless her soul). Good luck with _Chilton in a Moral Compass-less Bizzaroworld Manhattan Minus Lorelai_ , er, I mean _Gossip Girl_.  
   
Specific disclaimers include SOS Pads, from Clorox Corporation. WTIC-AM in Hartford, and their time tone, both owned by CBS Corporation, along with _Guiding Light_ (Procter & Gamble owns most of it though). Dunkin' Donuts and their various products are the property of Dunkin' Brands, Inc. Victoria's Secret is owned by Limited Brands. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.  
   
The chapter title is based on "Morning Light", a song from Chantal Kreviazuk off _What If It All Means Something_. _  
_  
Oh, and another thing, Warner Bros.; The complete series in a doll case? That won't fit on my shelf? And doesn't fit with any of the themes of the show? Your marketing department needs help; need Dr. Birnbaum's number?  
 **Summary:** It's the morning after and right back to school for Paris and Rory, right? Well, not if they can help it, for there's still plenty of interesting situations for them to get into.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** So I hinted on the Slash list that things would definitely be interesting with this chapter and I was vague about exactly why, right? Well, let's just say this chapter turned out larger than I expected. Very large. Like 55,000 words large. So large, that I had to split off the final scene into its own Chapter Seventeen. The original outline I had of the chapter is totally different from how it turned out in the end and I wanted to take the extra time to get everything right. I also made the decision to divide based on the fact the last scene stood out on its own, and I also didn't want to take a message post up to a [6/6] format, and I'd rather keep them at three per chapter. Just think of it as an August blowout special, all my model 2007 fic must go! I must be crazy to give you two chapters, but that's what I'm doing :-P.  
   
I put my beta and McShorty Forever Danielle squarely to blame for helping me plenty with this chapter. Mid-afternoon texting and late night lunacy on AIM often result in very interesting ideas, and plenty of them ended up in here. Without her on my side I don't know if I could write like I do. I would like to thank her for being patient with me through thick and thin, and I know that she relishes her role as a beta very well. You could say we have a good bounce-off :). I would also recommend reading any of her Caddie fic for _Grey's Anatomy_ ; it's definitely among the best out there. Our friend Sara also writes some great Caddie, and among them, they're an unstoppable team of naughty nurses writing hot fic about a fiery redhead and her voluptuously bootyful Latina friend.  
   
As for a GG rec, there hasn't been much slash-wise, but _Schoolmates_ by MichelleS-9 really stood out for me. It's a different, fluffier view of S3 through Prory eyes than _Longing_ , but definitely worth it, if not for Paris being confident in herself and Rory being a cute flirt.  
   
And ff.net readers, we'll go through this again. Lesbian relationships × sex + Yikes! = Back Button. (weird look from ff.net readers) Hey, it's back to school, just helping you out if you need a little math reminder :-\\. Anyways, on with the show...  


* * *

If there's one thing that I've never understood about falling in love, it would be how a couple feels after they have their first true taste of intimacy, when they've first begun to test the waters, as it were.  
   
Before, I've never experienced it (obviously), and I know very few people who have experienced it beyond the 'waking up drunk, what did we do' equation commonplace with a certain platinum blonde buddy of mine, followed by the regret and crying over a vat of Sanka.  
   
Of course, there is my mother, but I can never describe it as romantic, and I won't. A morning when she came down with Mohegan Man before I left for school, I wanted to take an SOS pad to each of my eyes. They were acting like teenagers and shoving their tongues down each other's throats, no matter that the staff was revulsing at his suggestion he wanted four eggs extra runny and underdone bacon. Her other conquests aren't all that much better.  
   
Madeline is probably the most 'normal' within my peer group, excluding Rory. She's not much for alcohol beyond flavored wine coolers; a couple will do it for her. There have been two times where she has had relationships that lasted four months, after she first slept with each of those guys, it was like she was a whole new girl. She would describe her man in glowing terms, along with the wakeup, how cute he was throwing a robe or sheet towards her direction, maybe doing a little chase into the corner of their venue of sex to talk her into a quickie before they dressed for class. Of course, she still hasn't found that person she can stick to, and seems to have given up on the idea of a special someone, preferring to double date with Louise, hoping the guy of Louise's choosing won't be a failure to her.  
   
Usually though, I just think of 'the morning after' within the usual clichés.  I thought of the awkwardness, trying to retrieve your modesty within moments of waking up, the contrast of the dark evening making way for the harsh reality of the light of day. I had always imagined my first night after sharing my bed with someone for the first time would be off-putting and strange.  Especially with Tristan, who in the dreams I had of my first morning with him usually was in the Harlequin role while I awed over his muscles, and then lifted me from the bed in a nude heap while...ugh, God help me for admitting this...shrieking and giggling girlishly at him being Mr. Studly while he took me into his arms. Please, don't remind me that infatuation with him was a dead end!  
   
Then the smells, of course. Bad breath, the remains of the activities of the night before, those usually featured in my opinions of how I woke up. My temperamental body doesn't help things either as it takes a cold chill that would pop open the eye sockets of the other person if they touched me, thus my want for deep layers of blankets.  
   
Finally, we get to the vibe of the afterglow. If you've watched any daytime soap opera in the last twenty years (or like me, followed the _Guiding Light_ since your Nanna introduced it to you at four during Passover), you know what I'm talking about, and if you know me, there is no way that I would ever behave like a silly bimbo, just enchanted by the very idea that I had an orgasm the night before from my lover's doing. I was bound and determined to never act that way the morning after. I would be firm, still, right back in my routine, with few hints beyond the memories of the night before that we had done anything, or maybe a kiss to acknowledge that we're moving things forward in our relationship. That's how it would go, like mother, like daughter. She has Mohegan Man sneak out the back door, while with Rory, I...  
   
With Rory...  
   
OK, maybe I can't just describe it as simply as 'Rory woke up, we ate breakfast, and we headed to school'.  That would be a discredit to how this long holiday weekend is ending. That and I'm not, and refuse to be, my mother. If I wanted to take relationship advice from her, I might as well head to Dr. Cohen's office and ask for a pre-emptive prescription for Valtrex, along with gutting my entire moral center as I tell the boys that I'm an open buffet. If I wanted to be with Rory in that way, I'd have just taken all of my relationship advice from Louise and Tristan.  
   
But I have to do this on my own, play seductive with her, even if I feel out of my element being a flirt. It was so worth it, however, and as we find ourselves on the road towards Chilton on a chilly December morning, I'm left to think that the best mornings don't always start with happy talk from Matt and Katie on Channel 30...  


* * *

I always find it hard to wake up between November and early April, self-admittedly, despite my sleep cycle being trained on eight hours exactly.  The lack of a sunrise before six plays a part, but the alarms in addition do not help. I have the choice between the audible equivalent of a joy buzzer, or I could awake with the radio. Alas, another conflict, as I have the choice of waking up to the news cycle on 880, the long-form reporting on _Morning Edition_ , or any of the various other stations in Hartford which have a 'morning zoo' and forced hilarity from people you'd usually keep 300 feet away from you in real life. My father received a crude prank call from the morning gang at Hot 93 once at his office, and it took me, Fran, and his lawyer an hour to convince him not to go down to their studios and wring the necks of their DJs.  
   
And you wonder why I curse that satellite radio reception in my bedroom is very weak.

This was no regular morning though. My alarms weren't set (yeah, that's an icebreaker, asking what time you want to be up), but I always keep a backup to the backup, and that just happened to be my PDA with a beep that was just slightly louder than a digital stopwatch. At 6:05am it went off, but I let it lapse, too tired to grab the device and turn it off.  
   
Mind you, I couldn't if I wanted to. Nor did I feel any pressing need to open my eyes. As the beeps faded out after the usual minute, I basked in the glow that was Rory spooning, wrapped perfectly against me. Leg inside of leg, her head on my bosom. Besides that, her breath breezed teasingly along my right nipple.  
   
 _So it wasn't a dream_ , was my first thought of the day. My eyes closed, hands at her back, I felt a serene calmness as I slowly woke up, uncompelled to open my eyes and wake up just yet. I loved this, the morning in front of us, the night before just a memory.  
   
I felt some trepidation, thinking about Sharon's possible reaction to having Rory over. I remembered the first thing I thought to myself as I walked on the bridge between our plane and the terminal was "don't call Rory," no matter that I was so stressed out from a weekend with Mother and that I was scared I would do something to Rory I might regret. Who could have ever known that four days away from each other, once a relief, could turn us both into longing and wanting women missing even being within the same area? Really, that Rory would even come over to my house, on a Sunday night of all nights. It was such a shock, along with the ensuing events afterwards.  
   
Her warm body, so soothing against mine, mixed with the plushness of my comforter, it's an amazing thing to experience. I felt some anticipation, her mouth only inches from my breast, and she had me grasped in a possessive grasp at the small of my back. The scent of last night was still in the bedroom, buffeted by the armoa of a plug-in air freshener emanating lavender in the outlet next to the end table.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
Cue my rare wish that we were waking on a Sunday morning, rather than two hours away from going back to the 'nothing to see here, move along' dynamic we have to have within Chilton. I sighed, my body still feeling a minor hum, flared up with Rory's thumbs against the waistband of my panties.  
   
The thumbs...they were moving. And she was pushing close to me. Time to hyperventilate, oh dear...  
   
My ears failed to note the repeat of my PDA's snooze cycle, the soft tone rousing my girlfriend awake. She stirred in my grasp, a couple of tired grunts, along with an unfamiliar sense of where she was.  
   
"Uh...where's Colonel Clucker? This...this doesn't feel like my...ohh..." It was as if this was our first time sharing a bed together, although it was our third. But it was the first time where we slept in **my** bed, not her perilous balance beam of a mattress where it took me five extra minutes to settle into rest for fear of falling off.  She woke slowly, her surroundings slowly coming to her.  
   
I kept my eyes closed, trying to give her a romantic head start to the day. I was surprised that she was pulling away and detangling herself out of my grasp. Who knows what she was doing, though I thought it might have something to do with strong morning breath on her end that she wanted to avoid sharing with me. Or else I was cutting off circulation to an extremity; I wasn't sure.  
   
But then, just as I was ready to return to the normalcy of my regular wake-up routine of wrapping the comforter around myself, then taking a couple of gulps of water to wash out the morning taste...  
   
"Wow, you must have a major grudge against shirts." Rory shook me on a shoulder, then I felt her wrap her legs around me at my feet. I pretended to wake up, stretching and slowly opening my eyes to moderate the morning glare. I thought she was talking about my nude sleeping habits as I focused in my vision onto her.  
   
But instead of finding Ror straddling over me In my pajama shirt, safely closed, the first thing I found myself looking at this fine Monday morning was something that would make even Garfield appreciate the first work day of the week.  
   
There, above me, was my girlfriend, still in my shirt.  
   
My **unbuttoned** shirt.  
   
 _Oh, shit!_ There I was, in my own bed, waking up to the sight of her in that undone shirt, breasts on full display. I felt myself strangle, feeling so guilty for letting one of my worst dream tendencies come out of hiding. I had been trying to stop since it became a habit (and the mitigating reason for sleeping nude), even talking about it with Dr. Birnbaum and trying to use medication to have a calm and relaxing sleep. I eventually learned to live with it and controlled it somewhat by this same time last year.  
   
Since Rory though, it hasn't worked. I'd dream of her, get all wound up, and in the morning, I'm all literally hot and bothered, my clothes either buried within the blankets or in a heap on the floor. I don't remember dreaming of her last night, beyond a vague situation involving cake. But either I dreamed of her overnight and acted in reality, or I was so cold that I wanted full access to her body heat.  
   
Whatever it was, if I thought Rory would freak out, she showed no sign of it. Instead, I saw her smiling and licking her lips above me.  
   
"I think I'll be wearing a t-shirt or tank to bed from now on." She sighed aloud, a blush coloring her skin, her fingers along my cheek. "Still, I'm very flattered your dreams about me are...like that."  
   
"Oh, you have no idea," I said in a tiny voice. "Uh, good morning?" My famously nervous laugh followed and I tried to direct my stare away from her breasts. She moved in closer, pushing herself up so we'd be face to face.  
   
"Good morning to you too, Par." We were both still tired, but alert. "And it definitely is, I don't think I slept that well since staying in that B&B last year before Mom and I toured Harvard. I feel so refreshed and reinvigorated."  
   
"Your bed isn't that bad," I responded, "might be a little lumpy. But it's a good kind of lumpy."  
   
"That's true." She moved her hands down as I kept eye-to-eye contact with her. "We need to sleep in bed together at least once a week; I like waking up to you." She brought her mouth to mine.  
   
"I do too." We then shared a simple kiss, which quickly separated when we were overcome by our breath. I wrinkled my nose. "We...probably should have brushed before bed, however." I smiled, assuring her. "I'm so used to coffee-flavored kisses."  
   
"Wintergreen here," she said, her voice still a little tired. "You're becoming a sap, talking about my kisses so cutely."  
   
"Am not," I demurred, trying to change the subject. "We need to get back into an academic mindset though; you know this morning is going to be the one where the instructors are going to throw some curveballs our way, right back from vacation. Out of left field questions, along with sudden tests on earlier units to make sure that we didn't lose any knowledge on a subject."  
   
"I'm not scared of that though." She looked down, her eyes scanning my bare belly and up towards my breasts. "That's child's play compared to the lacrosse unit."

"Don't remind me!" I closed my eyes, groaning. "Great, for the next week I get pelted by sticks and have a tiny ball whipped towards me at 85 miles an hour."  
   
"But you get to pelt Brad--he always goes for goalie! You can't tell me you don't enjoy that."  
   
"I do, but I hate the other problem that sometimes a few over-zealous players go for putting their stick where it'll really hurt." We both cringe at the same time at the thought of one of the class toughs getting us...yeah, I'm not going there. "My father may have played for the Crimson in college, but I won't be following in his footsteps in that regard."  
   
"It's too bad that it's getting cold outside." She looked towards my bedroom window, horizontal blinds letting in spare twilight. "I'd rather play against you on the field than on the rubber stuff in the field house." Eyeing me up, I felt a cold chill as her eyes scanned my form, a reminder of where we were but a month ago. "Just the way you looked that morning when I collided into you going for that ball; I haven't been able to get that out of my head."

I tried to say something, but I couldn't, not with the distraction of a leg sliding in between mine, Ror's warm body taking me off my routine very quickly. My heart was beating very fast as her hand slid along my waist.  
   
She was getting to me way too much. I never expected her to be such the aggressor type at all, but when she walked in that door last night and I was furiously trying to get her out of my bedroom, hiding behind the excuse of my mother, a woman who upon mention usually freezes up any member of the Hartford elite. To her however, she's just that one woman trying to get in the way of her goals. To have such a quick mind to take a conversation about a dreaded sport and turn it back into a flirt, it's foreign to me. I'm the one who usually one-ups her.  
   
Now I know it feels to be on the other side. The other side...it felt too hot, like I was losing control. I needed to gain it back. Or at the very least a little bit of breathing room.  
   
"Rory..." I felt dizzy, watching her above me, those damned breast freckles such an enticement. "Hon, it's 6:15am. Don't you need some coffee?" It was always a safe bet to use her drink of choice for distraction.  
   
"Of course." I was relieved that she might be backing off, if only for a moment.  
   
That was before I saw that she was moving in closer, morning breath or my unbrushed hair obviously not an obstacle to her. "There's a Cumberland Farms on the way to school. That is, unless you prefer Dunkin Donuts?"

"But--but--" She brought a finger to my lips to hush me.  
   
"I can live one day without Luke's; it's no problem." Then, before I could find any witty response, she touched her lips to mine, and kissed me again, mouth closed. I wasn't overcome, finding her soft kisses much to my liking. Against my own thoughts, I ended up returning the kiss with as much fervor. I couldn't believe she was getting me this hot so early in the morning, not even out of bed!  
   
That's where we lingered for five more minutes, our hands softly caressing, a kiss here and there. Both of us were speechless, taking in the relief that was a rare silent moment undisturbed by the drone of an instructor or Ms. Peters over our shoulders to make sure the student government didn't go the way of the Ultimate Fighting League. I let my nails trail down each of Rory's sides: her skin was warm, speckled with freckles. She was otherwise occupied with the small of my back, cooing to me that I was so beautiful with my bronze tan acquired over the weekend in Ormond Beach.  
   
I could go on, but the conversation was the very definition of 'small talk,' things of interest only to us. For instance, her asking for a few books from my father's library, for which I told her I could certainly talk to him about lending them out. I feel calm, reassured by her meticulous care of books, be they an older volume from her grandfather or some 10¢ pulp Pocket Book, circa 1974.  
   
I was trying to suggest movie ideas for our next night with Lorelai on Thursday night, but seemed to be failing to come up with the perfect title. Honestly, I'm more for serious dramas, so somehow I think my asking for _The Insider_ was considered out of the bounds of the usual Gilmore movie template, Russell Crowe notwithstanding. After several more unsuccessful choices, she told me not to worry about it and that both she and Ms. Gilmore would be finding something perfect for the evening.  
   
Eventually though, the small talk petered out, and with ten minutes ticking away since we woke up, I realized that the both of us needed to face the day eventually. 8:05 wasn't too far away, and though I'd be lenient and wouldn't mind for one morning arriving at five to, sweet nothings all morning weren't going to get us anywhere.  
   
"Hey," I whispered softly, kissing Ror on the cheek. "I don't usually do this with anyone else, but..." Nervously, I tried to relax as I offered a favor I hadn't given to anyone else. "Why don't you use my shower?"

I watched her pause, features stilling as she considered the simple question of her use of my bathroom. She seemed so modest, scared to intrude on the sacred ground of my routine, along with my private bathroom.  
   
"But, but...are you sure?" I nodded. "I don't want to leave you without hot water though."

Usually, a response to that would revolve around a biting "DUH!" observation that where I live has an indoor lap pool heated to 90°, a kitchen with professional quality fixtures and a garden which combined use 400 gallons a day, and 8 1/2 baths, all of which are served by a water heater the size of a small garage within the bowels of the Manor.  
   
I didn't react that way. Rory has numbed some of those observational outbursts from me, turning formerly bitter rants like that...  
   
I looked at her dead on, smirking. "I should be disappointed. I thought for sure your shower would be cold due to...obvious factors." I trailed my hand along the small of her back, towards the waistband of her tiny new panties. Then, without warning, I dipped my middle finger about a few millimeters in, watching her mouth open and eyebrows rise up. I bit down on my lower lip, pouting it out.  "I've been known to take a few late night ones with cool water myself; it's nothing to be ashamed of."  
   
"Oh my God." She looked at me, her pupils retracting, suddenly feeling very warmed up. "Stop...stop, please. I'm so not used to this so early in the morning!"

I laughed, continuing to play with her. "What, Deano never gave you a wake-up call to describe his morning wood?" She cringed and shook her head, whining at the image implanted.  
   
"You're very, very incorrigible. Didn't etiquette school teach you not to tease your partner so early in the morning?" She wrapped the shirt around herself to hide her nudity, getting up from the bed and away from me. "I mean, we have an AE test for sure first period; I need to focus on that and you're not helping me!" She huffed, trying to look for her backpack on the other side of the room near the door to retrieve her toiletries.  
   
I wrapped the bedsheet around me, feeling so liberated to have a conversation like this. "First of all, they don't teach that in etiquette school, and secondly, we do well enough in Advanced Ec to have a comfortable grade lead." I approached her, enjoying the peek of her perfectly round butt below the shirt as she bent down. I wiggled my fingers open, working them out of the fist I clenched them into while asleep. She was paying more attention to her Ziploc bag filled with bathroom stuff compressed within the huge bag than how the volume of my voice was increasing with each new step towards her.  My pajama top on her had a bit of transparency to it, and for the first time, I could see four long scratches down her back, easily obscured by the stiff cotton of a school blouse, but with a silk shirt, so apparent. I felt a lilt in my stomach, amazed that I was able to do so much to her.  
   
"Still, if I got a call from him like that, I would have been..." she trailed off. "Well, I have no idea, but I can't imagine that anyone finds someone in the morning adorable."  
   
"And if I called," I hypothesized, "what would you do?"  
   
"You'd never do that though: you're too focused," she reasoned. "I don't see you as that type, you're innocent about things, shy. I was surprised you'd even do the phone thing, you're always so formal on the phone."  
   
"So what you're saying is I'm reserved and conservative?" I felt a bit insulted, but also challenged by her words. "That I'm thinking on pro-con terms."  
   
"A little...there are times where you can be spontaneous on your own, but they're few and far between." She got up, clothes in hand, along with her toothbrush and toothpaste. "You're a planner, Par, and even that call Thursday night you went in with a backup plan if I wouldn't have gone forward. Am I right?"  
   
I wasn't showing it, but I was finding myself angry that my girlfriend was trying to tell me that she was the more spontaneous of the both of us. "Yeah," I said, ushering her towards the shower with a quick kiss. I watched her walk in the bathroom, that swagger in her hips and the voice that attracts cartoon animals humming a happy tune. I started feeling a bit down that even though she wasn't intending to do so, she was making me feel guilty about being the planner, not the doer, between us so far.  
   
I sat down at my computer and checked my email, finding not much coming in through the overnight hours. As she turned the knobs and various buttons on the shower to get it how she wanted, I sat in my bedroom, trying to go over what I had done spontaneously on a whim so far over the last four weeks.  
   
However, thinking it over for two minutes, I had to face reality.  
   
I wasn't one for whims. Planning has always been a part of my modus, even way back in preschool days. I was taught to live on a schedule from day one, having been one of the few sixth graders at Country Day with a PDA to coordinate my dancing, academics, and the two sports (soccer and tennis) which I participated in back in those days. Sharon had rejected several events I wanted to participate in over the years because her schedule conflicted with mine. Daddy had a different mindset, more apt to spur of the moment, but I couldn't ever think his way, at least in that regard. Schedules worked for everyone, and they always worked out for me.  
   
But so far with Rory, almost everything had been triggered by her. From the confession, the first day, all the way to that moment sitting at my desk, about the only sudden things I've done were to send out last second emails and the Thanksgiving phone call. The search for the Chinese restaurant, her wanderings beneath the blanket, the surprise of last night, they've all been from her doing.  
   
About the only other impulsive things I can think of are the trips to the park after school, that late night apology, the touchless come she had last night and...and....  
   
 _I've got nothing_. My mind was drawing a complete blank on the whole being bold thing. Maybe a few flirts here and there, but compared to her, I wasn't doing much to prove that I was an equal to being part of a relationship at all. Never mind that I do know she's trying to work things slowly to make me feel comfortable in my greenness about being a girlfriend and everything.  
   
Truly, Rory is the instigator of everything so far, and I've been following along with her, content to let her be the 'strong girl' while I build my way up from being meek.  
   
I looked at my screen, reading the _Courant_ front page, and then I just come to the conclusion that FriendParis and LoverParis are as of far, two different beings.  
   
I can overpower her when it comes to grades, but I'm stuck thinking she's my guide when it comes to sex. So much frustration thinking about that.  
   
But it's something that Dr. Birnbaum touched on in the confession session the week before. As we talked over how the impact of my being a lesbian would change things in my life, at the same time she told me that I couldn't be a bystander. "Paris, don't just sit there and let your girlfriend define the relationship. She may have been the one to push you out, but you have to keep her in."  
   
"Be bold," she implored. "Take chances, make her think you can go off the cuff. You can't schedule love like an SAT. You might be new to this love thing, but the only thing you can do to see where it takes you it to let her know 'yes, I'm willing to push things along, I'm not content with just letting you define everything.'"  
   
With that, I think last night I had a perfect opportunity where I knew I could have been bold.  
   
See, I **knew** that she was in my bedroom before I ever stepped out of that bathroom. My bathroom door, despite looks, is not as thick as the bedroom door; they couldn't find an exact match for the door wood back in the 60's when my bedroom was my father's and they first put in the bathroom. So I heard the bedroom door opening and the springs compressing when she lay down on my bed. Of course I didn't know it was exactly her until I came out and did the triple take, occupied with thoughts of her.  
   
All it took was just a yell over the shower to ask who was in the room and to adjust my flirting to invite her into the bathroom. Instead, I let the thought of Mother infiltrate me and ruin the start of things, the fear that we'd be found out overpowering any ideas that I wanted it to start out. My fears that I was doing too much, too soon, taking in mind Rory's virginity and shyness in relationships over that of her real thoughts about things.  
   
That I'm so far having to be drawn out probably closes her, thinking I'd throttle her if we get too physical. This, even though I know for sure that some of the dreams she has portray me as the sexual protagonist. It disappoints me somewhat I can't live up to her dreams and it takes her intervention to get a spark going.  
   
I even...I don't know how I had a reaction like this, but there was some disappointment on my end that she didn't walk in. I probably would have freaked out more than I did when she told me she was lying about her reasons to get here with Lorelai, but it was another missed opportunity. I was hungry for touch when I got home, but I put it off because of my intimate fears.  
   
 _You have to stop thinking pro-con, Par_ , I encouraged myself silently. _Just be natural and let things happen as they may. Variety is the spice of life, and just flirting verbally isn't enough for you anymore, you've been driven crazy all night!  
_    
I looked over the room and at, and then the time in the top-right corner of the screen. Like I always did.  
   
 _6:27am_. Time is a finite concept to me, and no matter what I've always been bound to it. Clocks were ruining this morning for me.  
   
In addition, my delayed recall of certain things was coming back to me.  
   
Like Rory currently within my shower. That image brought warm shudders through me. I felt breathless, and moved my hand down my thigh.  
   
 I needed to initiate something, if not for my own sanity, but to balance things back out between Rory and I. The last thing I needed was to break up with her because I didn't add any sizzle to the steak and my fears about being unattractive.

"Fuck you, time," I stated firmly to the on-screen clock, clicking on it and scrolling down to the option to turn it off from my menu bar. The satisfying click as it disappeared off the screen gave me a sense of revival as I took the bull by the horns.  
   
I wasn't going to let the usual routine get to me either. Grabbing the Nextel from the desk, I pressed the two-way button, calling down to the kitchen to let them know I'd be getting breakfast elsewhere that morning. I wanted to linger this morning, and an intimate moment between us wasn't going to be ruined by a maid wheeling in corn flakes, a doughnut, and orange juice. For once, I was going to do things on my own pace, not on a time schedule.  
   
The phone back on the desk, I smiled, thinking about exactly how Rory might be looking in the shower at that exact moment. Not that I've been able to get a steady linger on her within the girls' locker room, but my imagination can fill in the blanks. I shuddered, pushing back the sheet to drape over the desk chair, feeling so overheated as I basked in my nudity, arms against my stomach. I've never flirted like this before, cerebral being the usual way to get what I want.  
   
Dipping a finger into the side of my panties, I worked them off from my hips, feeling so nervous about being completely nude and vulnerable in front of another person. Still, I psyched myself over, looking towards myself in the mirror at the other side of the room and seeing how desirable I felt now that Rory was complimenting me at every opportunity. Pushing them all the way down, I then gathered up all of the clothes spread around the floor that were mine and gathered them neatly into the hamper near the door. I ran fingers through my hair to do a quick detangling, hoping to be as presentable as possible after fifteen minutes out of bed.  
   
Finally, it was time to act. I did a heel-toe walk towards the bathroom, trying to keep my stride as dignified as it could be nude. Again, I felt weird in my own skin, about to seduce Rory on my terms, in my own bedroom. I still feared she would reject me in the buff.  
   
But as I twisted the doorknob slowly, I knew that was silly talk. She wouldn't have pursued me if I wasn't attractive enough, so why doubt my looking cute naked?  
   
Then again, I'm so hidden usually that Madeline thought I needed a water bra to boost my cup size.  
   
I had to push that thought away from my mind though; it was too negative. I wasn't that girl anymore, willing to take any crumb offered to have time with Tristan. I needed nothing extra when it came to Rory. She respected me for who I was, and regarded me as beautiful, hot, all the words to tell me that I was cute.  
   
Really, it's time for me to realize that I shouldn't feel guilty for being in a relationship, and in turn, finding my sexuality. I was a little late to be sure, but I had a woman of my own in that bathroom, most likely basking in the glow of getting her girlfriend to open up so much over such a small period of time.  We've been together for only a couple of weeks, yet it's like a month.  
   
I took one last look down at myself, the scratches and friction burns from last night still crawling up my leg, disappearing where my legs met into a line of blonde hair on each side. I put each of my hands into fists, kneeing the door open and preparing myself for what I was about to do to Rory.  
   
 _I hope I don't startle her_ , I thought, looking towards the lightly-frosted tempered glass wrapping around my shower stall. If I thought asking her to be my VP was tough, seducing her in the shower was like trying to argue that Blair and Jo had absolutely no sexual chemistry whatsoever. _Here goes nothing...  
_    
I sucked in a deep, silent breath, walking in the dim room, the sounds of the shower apparent through the venting fan whirring above me. I could be a little cavalier as the floor below me was of a strong wood that was squeak and warp resistant. I kept my eyes dead open towards the stall, Rory's slim silhouette keeping me in a stunned state of silence. My mouth seemed to dry on impact, the water-resistant spotlight in the shower shining down into it, casting this perfect glow that before was only a feature in my dreams. Her hair slicked back, those long curvy legs cascading down towards the floor...  
   
I kept most of my attention on her breasts, however. No matter how many compliments she might feast on mine, I couldn't stand not looking at hers, tipped with those perfect rose-colored nipples, surrounded by puffs of areole. To everyone else, they were small; she was mocked as much for her smallness as I have for the heft of my own bust, thus our reasoning to stick together in locker room situations.  
   
I decided to stay still for a few moments to find where she was in the shower. The scent of my shampoo and conditioner filtered through the air, so familiar to me. Obviously, she was past that step.  
   
I looked towards the sink, where her opened tube of Crest was next to her toothbrush, with an empty Dixie cup resting next to it, filled with a few remaining drops of water. That was working in my favor, and I was thankful that I had the foresight to place a package of dissolving breath strips next to my keyboard, so I could freshen my breath temporarily. Morning breath was off the checklist of obstacles standing in my way.  
   
I continued to stand still, a twimmer running through my legs at catching my girlfriend in such an intimate and personal moment, by herself, all alone. Her hands slid up her sides, and at first I thought she wasn't going for the body wash, that she cleansed herself using only soap.  
   
At least that was my theory before I noted that I failed to detect the outline of a bar resting in her hand.  
   
Or that hand was moving lower and lower, the shadow of her arm melting within her muddied pink outline, which was moving closer towards the backmost pane of the enclosure.  
   
No, I'm just seeing things. I'm overheated from last night yet, my eyes were deceiving me for sure. No way that...  
   
OK, she was backing away, that was a false alarm. I think I would die if she was...oh, dear. I can't even contemplate the torture of such an action.  
   
I inched closer and closer, the glass partitioned between us. I could see the golden door handle right in the middle of my mind. I had to find a perfect opportunity to slide in without arousing her attention, and I had some time, her back turned away from my direction.  
   
I kept staring at her frosted form, amazed that of anyone, she had chosen me to grace with her desire and admiration for me. She was just so beautiful, kind, caring...  
   
And rising up to get at my loofah on a high shelf, so fucking sexy. I felt myself clench at the thought of her washing with my own sponge. It was like that morning within the Chilton showers a month ago, except there was no way anyone or anything that was going to ruin this intimate moment.  I bit down on my lip, feeling so warm.  
   
God, I wanted her. I wanted to hear those same moans from last night as she went on and on about her lingerie shopping. My heart was thumping hard, and I knew I was losing control of being reserved and neutral. I wasn't even thinking about the time, just how I wanted to show her much I appreciated her invading my space the evening before.

I could've used some liquid courage to go in, but this had to be all on my own. Pushing all my fears away, I got myself into the mindset of flirtation, pushing away any thoughts of Sharon, tossing my hair back, and inched in slowly, pulling at the magnetic latch slowly so that the click it made when it opened wouldn't be heard over the spray. I opened the door, keeping my eye contact dead onto one Rory Gilmore.  
   
Demurely, I slipped in, hopeful she wouldn't back in, but that was unlikely as she tried to figure out my body wash bottle. Paying for the best also means having a different way to close a soap bottle top, and mine actually slid a bit off the top to expose the opening. I shut the door, but she was too into trying to open the bottle to notice me.  
   
I was fully in. And as there were no gym teachers ready to use the cold tap to scare us both out of the shower, we had plenty of time.  
   
Or we would, if my dang girlfriend could open the bottle.  
   
"Come on, you're not behaving. Obviously you have to open, now open, geeze!" She kept trying to pop it open like something she'd find at the CVS, but it wouldn't work. "I don't want to smell all stinky when I get into school; Paris would definitely disapprove of it."  
   
Behind her, I smiled at her frustration. That emotion was an adorable thing in her hands and I watched the show go on.  
   
Now she was on to unscrewing the cap. It wouldn't work though, because the top latches tightly to the actual bottle.  
   
I could let her go on, but then I'm sure like you do, watching someone open up a bottle of body wash isn't your idea of foreplay in any sense. Trust me, I'm the same way, and as I've said times before, I'm a woman of action.

I moved closer and then grabbed at both the bottle and sponge in each hand, getting on tiptoe so I could push aside her hair to examine my damage. The scratches from last night down her were still there, still red, like each nail scrape was made by a chalkboard staff liner.  
   
Then, as I took the items from her, I laid a simple kiss upon the dead center of the nape of her neck. I felt her still, water pelting the both of us, and her breath deepen and rush from her throat. I felt my guard begin to slip, going full tilt into cornering my Farm Girl where she never expected me.  
   
I heard her try to spit out the first syllable of my name, but she was unsuccessful. I slid open the cap of the wash and went in for the kill as my teeth scraped across her neck.  
   
"You know, I might be bigger than you," I uttered in a deep and sensual tone, "but I think you fill a shirt in just as well, Lorelai Leigh." I made sure that the scrubber was wet and warm enough, then applied a nice soapy amount of body wash to it.  
   
"Paris..." her voice drifted low. "What are...are you impatient? Am I taking too long--" I shushed her again with a nip at her ear, working the soap into the loofah.  
   
"You can never take too long for me, Gilmore, trust me." I scanne her back, from the top of her head down to her ass. "I'm too busy enjoying the view. You might lack enough when it comes to your breasts, but it's a shame the uniform skirt does nothing for your rear." Inching my fingers along her side, I felt the warm, damp skin usually hidden by her shirt.

Any resistance she might have had seemed to be unfounded as she loosened within my grasp.  "Baby..."  
   
"Shh...shh...just let yourself go. I'm not bound to routine this morning and I'm not going to let you be either." I again kissed the back of her neck and then requested she move closer to the shower to give me more space to maneuver. "You were right about me to start last night; I was too high strung, but now, I feel like doing this for you."  
   
With that, I started to wash her without interference. I began with her back, trying to keep myself in control for Rory's sake; she didn't need to see me having a visceral reaction to her soaking nude form. She gasped a few times as I went up and down her spine, and then in a zig-zag and other patterns, but mostly kept mum, most likely owing to the shock of me in the same shower stall as she was. Watching her all soaped up, her face looking up towards the showerhead above her, I could tell she was looking for any distraction to mask that she was feeling so twitchy around me like this.  
   
Soon, I had done her entire back, and was ready to move on to the front. _Here comes the tough part_ , I thought to myself. I called for her in a hushed whisper to turn around so I could do her front. I felt nervous as she turned around, and then backed into the side sprayers to let the lather dissolve down her back.

Her skin took on a different coloring under water, more of a reddish hue that brought out her freckling. I felt dizzy looking her over, watching her slight smile, then a little bit of shyness. She wasn't ashamed of her breasts, but instead, brought her hand towards her pelvis to cover up her vagina. Her eyes, full of nervousness, reflected that she thought herself unworthy of me to look at all over.  
   
"Hands to your sides," I commanded in a firm tone. I was surprised to see that she was shy about herself/  
   
"I--I can't," she said worriedly, her voice stuttering. "You don't have to look at me there if you don't want to."

"Rory, I'm not going to be able to wash your stomach fully with your arm in the way." I tried to grab at it, but she kept herself still, looking up at me seemingly sad.  
   
"I'm sorry, I can't."  
   
"Why not?" I'm surprised she had some issues about her body, especially after last night.  
   
"I don't know." She bit on her lip as she tried to explain her reasoning. "What if you think I'm...off?"  
   
"Off?" I was confused. "What do you mean?"  
   
"Some girls in the past, they've teased me for not having a perfect body. I know I have a little paunch thing going on, but down there, they...they think I'm unsymmetrical."  
   
As she confessed, I smiled at her, suddenly realizing her nervousness. "Ah, so this is what it's all about." I moved a bit closer towards her. "Did these girls happen to be from the town of Stars Hollow?"  
   
She nodded that it was, but mentioned there were others who felt the same way. "Summer and her clique also made fun of me a little."  
   
"Oh geeze, come on." I kept calm as I pulled her hand away from her and started washing her front. "I'd take an off vagina any day over a monthly appointment at the free clinic like I'm sure she has. Rory, trust me, I'm sure you're fine, and whether you're symmetrical or not, it doesn't matter to me. I look at all of you, rather just one glaring part of you. Besides, if they're looking at your vaginal symmetry, what the hell are they looking at? Are they cracked in the head?!"  
   
"I know," she assured, "it still gets to me though."  
   
"Well, don't let it. After all, I heard that her yearbook picture was rejected for violating the honor code. Her shirt was too high for their comfort, so she's stuck with the default ID pic. She's also on the edge of being pushed back, and her father said if she fails, she's finishing in Hartford public schools." I ran the puff over breasts, enjoying the sounds of her moaning as I complimented her. "You haven't listened to her before, so why start now?"  
   
"Actually, that's not the only reason I have for hiding." She bit down on her lip.  
   
"What else?" I smiled, moving closer to her as I watched the suds drift down her chest.  
   
"I'm...I'm kind of warm from you here." She hissed, my hands along the bottom of her left breast.  
   
"Warm?" I curled my lips into a smile.  
   
"Yes, warm." She looked unsure, trying to describe what it actually meant. "Not as in 'I'm warm' but...well, you know."  
   
"The kind of 'warm' you use your hands to cool down?" She nodded, nervous as I moved in closer, my hands off to her sides, not touching.  
   
"Uhhh..." I found her starting to waver as I sensed that had I not been in the shower, she may have entertained herself. "I kind of, well...umm, maybe I shouldn't be talking about this to you."  
   
"About what?" I pushed closer, intending to invade her personal space, touching her with the sponge along one of her upper thighs.  
   
"Well, for one thing, I don't have time to do it." She looked down as I saw bumps form along her arm.  
   
"Really?" I exclaimed, then brushing a kiss along the back of her neck as I pushed the loofah closer towards her bikini line. "I could have sworn that like here, you had a hand shower attachment at home."  
   
She stilled in shock, struggling for words. "Huh?"

I wrapped around her as I washed down each of her legs and continued on as I grabbed the hand shower, jutting out from the side, pulling out the hose, the object whose texture and spray I had become so familiar with since my first accidental 'meeting' with it a couple years back. "Rory, you're in a shower, naked, your mind probably more occupied with me than exfoliation. You're a red-blooded girl coming off a hot night, and I know you're thinking about masturbation."  
   
"But it's your shower. It's wrong."  
   
Bending down, I did each of her legs, handing her the attachment while I finished up. "Go ahead, touch yourself. If you're so warm, you need to expel that stress so that you have a good first day back."  
   
"But I can't."  
   
"And why not?" I coyly played with her, looking up from her knees. "Is it because you could have a little performance anxiety? I mean last night you proved yourself in a pressure cooker, taking me from a full-blown panic to putty in your hands."

"That was different though."  
   
"How?" I started rubbing a knuckle against the inside of her knee, trying to distract her and send tremors up from her legs.  
   
"Because, I had to convince you before I went in, I had a plan. I didn't expect you to walk in here and get all lovey-dovey."  
   
"Rory, come on." My tone was firm and hard. "That hand shower in your hand has featured in so many situations after I came home from school where I needed to release tension. Compared to my fingers and vibrator, it's probably given me my most quaking orgasms, ever. Most of them of were from thinking of you. If you think I'm going to be offended that my actions are causing you to get horny and you'll have to wait until you get home to work yourself off, I can't allow that!"  
   
She paused, trying to come up with a response, but couldn't find it as I laid it down on the line that I was willing to let her work off her stress within the shower. Admittedly, she was scared, timidly sharing her feelings that she was afraid she couldn't get fulfilled under pressure with me behind her. "I've never even been discovered pleasing myself," she stated, trying to work through her nerves. "I pretty much learned how to touch myself through trial and error, some descriptions, that kind of thing."  
   
"So what's so different about last night compared to this morning?"

"We're in a shower, together. I can't bring myself off with you here; it's not relaxing."  
   
Finished washing her, I boosted myself back up into a standing position, scanning her body as I brought myself back up to eye level. "It's not relaxing because you're not in that mindset. You have time on your mind, routine, exams, all of that outside the shower on your mind." I moved closer towards her, getting into her personal space. "Right now, for all I care, its 10:45pm on a Friday night." I slide my hand up her side, blatantly eyeing up her soaked plumage. "We can't let time or the outside world define what we are for us."

I was face-to-face with her, eyes stark still on her, dead center in the showerhead. I never felt so challenged before to bring her to such a high, and as I looked at her, I realized what I had to do.  
   
I had to make it known that what I feel for her should never be bottled up for convenience.  
   
"Let yourself go, Ror. For me, but more yourself. I want to watch you stroke yourself, to look at you as we drive to class and not have to think for once, 'damn it, you beat me for the top mark by one question.' I want you next to me in biology, looking at me with that smile of yours, and to have entering my mind that hours before, you were in my arms, letting yourself go."  
   
She began to flush with frustration as her knees buckled with my insinuations. Her hand, tremoring, slid down from her side, playing tentatively near her belly. She dropped the hand shower down to the floor below, her clear eyes staring into mine.  
   
She met my lips and we had a deep kiss, not a word as we came together, the frustrations and fears beginning to melt away as we both pulled towards each other. I felt her tongue twining with mine, and she let me take the lead in order to wind herself up for what was to come next. I had one hand at the wrist of her right, while my left cradled her backside, just above her rear. I closed my eyes, reveling in the way that the girl could weaken me with just that one action, as time began to melt away from us.  
   
It was deep, very deep, noses touching, breast-to-breast, oxygen a commodity in the soaking atmosphere. I began to wander my hand around her bend, moving it towards her stomach, scaling my fingers across her. I was surprised the night before to find it firm and taut despite a bit of fat, making Ror even more perfect in my view. She pushed herself closer towards me, but I pushed away, silently communicating that this wouldn't be a thigh rub: she'd have to do it all with her fingers.

Still, she needed further encouragement to keep going because I was paranoid that she'd fake just to get it over quickly. The way her body was, nipples taut and hard, body relaxed and flushed. There was no damned way I could see her enduring the day without finding this situation erotic and induced to orgasm.  
   
I pulled away, but only for a moment. As she dipped her right hand towards her cleft, I slid my left hand over to clasp at her wrist. She was totally nervous, trying to get used to the idea of sharing her own selfish moments with me. I still went in tentatively, not pushing my grasp down until I had actual permission.  
   
At first, admittedly, Rory was surprised and shocked. Expecting to not have help, she was thinking either of faking or rushing through it, afraid that she'd ruin our schedule. She stumbled out my name's first syllable, trying and failing to ask why my fingers were sliding lower and lower to cup against her hand.  
   
Once again, I shushed her. "Time is on our side. Don't even look, think, or bother with what it is this morning." I intertwined my fingers atop of hers and helped guide her down her wet form towards her center. "For once, I want to have something floating through my head in RN beyond your fingers on my scalp." Her breathing deepened as we pushed down below her abdominal line. "You need this, and I want this for you."

"Oh God..." her voice wandered off. With that, I took her hand into mine and grasped it tightly as we dipped down and she widened her legs out for access. I knew I wasn't going to do much of the touching, but that I was there would make her spill over at a swifter pace than normal.  
   
I was surprised to find her so hot and wet, beyond the venue we were in. She pushed two fingers between her lips easily, and then out, grunting with a want for an orgasm. "Just help me circle it in, give me circles," she begged. "When I woke up, I was already wet."

Cue my esophagus drying from those words. "From my wanderings?"  
   
She nodded in the affirmative. "You weren't down there, but still, I was enjoying your attention on my belly."  
   
"What were you thinking?" I asked in a firm tone. "Hoping that I wouldn't wake up punctually so you could cool off before I awoke?" I closed my hand in tight as she began a slow, consistent rhythm with her strokes, up and down.  
   
"Oh, damn!"  
   
"Well, were you?" I smiled, trying to force the answer out of her.  
   
"The thought may have crossed my mind," she gasped.  
   
"Thank goodness you didn't," I warned, "I may have gotten in here and not been able to do this..." I pushed my hand deeper into hers. "Which would have aggravated me all day long."

She moaned deeply, and as she felt herself slipping, wrapped her left hand around the grab bar at the side of the enclosure to keep her footing. Her toes against the drain, the hot shower pounding upon the both of us, we continued with slow strokes, light touching, erotic kissing. I continued to nip at her neck, massaging her scalp and her back with my free hand, her groans of pleasure driving through me to go further and further on.  
   
I couldn't believe I was doing this and how cooperative and hungry Rory was for my touch. My free hand, roaming her stomach, her tight voice asking for more and more. I could feel her muscles tightening up with each new touch and the warm heat between her fingers as she continued to stroke at herself. Her fingers moved faster and faster along her clit with each minute until she had a steady thrusting rhythm.  
   
Her face flushed as she went on, and I encouraged her further on, eventually convincing her to push another finger in, bringing her to three along her slit. She tightly shut her eyes as her hair dripped down water, as I continued to help her along with my voice. Telling her how beautiful that she was, how wanting she must be to come, that I wanted her to feel the way she made me feel last night. I worked my voice like an instrument, finding just the right tone between cute and commanding to lure her. She pushed her ass against mine, trying to rile me up, but I told her this wasn't about me, that I would hold back for her sake.  
   
Eventually, I did let my hand go from hers to let her go at her own furious pace, and she stroked even faster with those three fingers.  
   
That's when I decided to end things with a bang, by turning her around to face me. I spun around so my back was to the shower and then took her into my arms loosely, kissing her torridly. The way she looked at me, those intense blue eyes wide as I roamed her body, a blatant look across her chest and down her belly and towards her triangle...it gave her such a push.  
   
She tried her best to keep her eyes open, and I kept kissing her wherever I could, on her lips, neck, cheeks, nose, wherever. She was fargone as I kept calling for her to come, my hands on her breasts, nipples fully aroused, so hard that they'd pierce her bra.  
   
"Paris, I want this, I want you....ohh....ohh...ohh..." I looked down, her hand between her engorged lips. She was furiously trying to get off and I pushed her against the back glass of the shower to keep her fully braced. I could only think of how fucking hot she looked to someone walking into the bathroom, her ass and back on the glass, my mouth along her neck.  
   
She went faster and faster, my hand was at her butt, working her in and out from her hand, a constant rhythm of "Oh God"'s rising up from her throat. I encouraged her on, telling her how sexy she was playing such a coquettish vixen, something only a month before I would have never seen her as.  
   
Her eyes were tight, hair damp and slicked atop of her head, and she was feeling herself just at the edge. I wasn't going to interfere however, no matter how much I wanted to.  
   
To watch Rory Gilmore orgasm, it's unlike anything that you could ever picture happening. I could really describe it in the terms of seeing a goddess-like figure come to satisfaction, that it's one of the most beautiful things in the world. Her face, with her mouth wide open, her throat tightened, her eyes forced shut from the mix of stimuli and steam in the air, and nostrils flaring out: that is exactly how she looks. Her skin, tinged a warm red, and as she slid her index finger those last few times across her clit, she tightened the grasp on my back hard with her free hand. Loud shrieking, shielded by the spray of the shower, her eyes then rolled back as a string of profanity came out from within her, "Fuck, Paris, holy crap!" her exclamation of choice.  
   
Then came the moment of fruition. A loud hiss and then a relaxation of her body as she widened her legs out to let the whole thing flow out. She shrieked..."ohh...ohh...ohh damn!" After that her reaction slid inward as the first twinges went through her. Instead of loud like I was, she let it out slowly, letting her pumping slow down to elongate the reaction. Hissing, eyes closed, her body tightened, and I let her go from my grasp just to watch her up against that wall. I couldn't believe how beautiful she looked, just how plain ravished she was. I felt my heart pump triple time watching her, my vixen reminding me that what I was watching was to be treasured.  I stood in the shower, completely still, as Rory went over the hump with a hard hiss, and then start a wind down by slowly inching up her fingers towards her belly. Her voice was still deep, each of her gasps ragged.  Undoubtedly, the doubts from before of masturbation with an audience of one were obliterated.

I continued to let her wind down, watching her as the final pushes of the come went through her. Eventually though she tired out, and when I saw her start to seem to lose her footing, I took her into my arms and let her brace against me in a close and intimate hug, smiling serenely as she slid her hands onto my back and rested against my collarbone. She was worn out, the orgasm I asked her to give herself while I watched taking so much out of her, and her breathing reflected that.  
   
"Paris, thank you," she said softly. "Oh God, thank you for being here, I...I didn't need that, but it felt so good." She kissed me on the lips and I rocked her back and forth reassuringly.  
   
"It's all right, Ror, it's all right. Let it out." I thought I heard her sob as I wrapped around her. "You shouldn't be afraid of me, and I can't be shy in front of you. You told me yourself that if I wanted to do something with you, it was OK."  
   
"I know, it is." She was definitely beginning to cry. "I wanted to do this last night...but I was scared. I wanted to catch you by surprise."  
   
"I enjoyed the actuality more than the fantasy," I assured her, my voice soft. "How did it feel for me to do this for you?"  
   
"Good, really good. I'm so glad I'm with you, hon. I've always thought of us like this, just close and intimate, unexpectedly taking control of things. You haven't had enough of that lately, and I'm willing to let you be Paris." She kissed the top of my forehead. "I was attracted to you as the commanding presence in my life, and no matter how inexperienced you might be, know that I am willing to cede to you, to help you learn."  
   
"I thank you for that," I said, truthfully, and then looked down at my love bite, left on her shoulder from last night. "You are mine, Gilmore, and to know that you're willing to do anything to show that, it makes my life feel less futile."  
   
We continued to softly talk in that shower, necking and kissing for ten more minutes, while she massaged shampoo and conditioner through my hair. We both acknowledged how we felt about the night, gazes stuck to each other, just talking about things both love and school-related. I enjoyed the trembles in my scalp as she rinsed out the shampoo and conditioner, and in a way, felt tired all over again from all the attention. We both spent so much time just being us in that shower, that indeed, I lost all track of the time that usually ruined routine.  
   
My shower radio then reminded me that we couldn't stay in there forever....  
   
" _CBS Radio news is next, it's now 7am. This is Newsradio 1080, WTIC-AM Hartford, an Infinity Broadcasting station. Good morning..._ "

In that moment we were in the middle of sharing a deep kiss when we were both startled out of our building dream fog, the station's famous Beethoven's Fifth time tone reminding us that school was 65 minutes away. Rory pulled away slowly, blinking her eyes in surprise.  
   
"So, that would be the backup alarm to the backup alarm to the backup alarm?" she commented, smirking as I rolled my eyes.  
   
"No, that would be the 'that's what happens when I lose track of time' alarm."  
   
"Well at least it worked," she said, smiling as she stepped out of the shower and towards the towels as we began the second phase of the morning.  


* * *

Ten minutes later we were all toweled off, relatively dry, our hair brushed as I gathered up a uniform shirt and skirt from my closet, and then lingerie from the dresser, while Rory was at her backpack taking out her wardrobe. There was a sure contrast between the both of us, as I was in my warm terry-cloth robe, while she was wrapped in the towel, brown tendrils of hair in an upswept bun. We were both chilled from coming out of the shower, the water temperature a stark contrast to the room temperature from the chill in the bedroom.

I sat down on the bed, laying out everything on the mattress, making sure both the skirt and blouse were pressed and starched, as was my usual protocol. I was sort of nervous, Rory in the same room as I was. I stared at my choice of lingerie for the day, off to the other side.  
   
My matronly, dull, boring panties, paired with my oldest bra, bought at fourteen when my cup size finally stabilized. Both were off-white, meant only for comfort and nothing else. I sighed looking towards them, trying to find a way that I could possibly get out of dressing with her in the room.  
   
No matter what though, I had to, no matter how hideously plain my underwear was. I don't usually get out anything from the silk and satins drawers for school (our first day was the only exception), and even then that's just about as reserved as can be. I rarely go for a bikini cut in anything, nor can I feel secure in any cut of underwear that doesn't cover up my upper thighs. Louise and I have gone lingerie shopping before, but more often than not I always shied away from her choices, along with any offers of help from the clerk in choosing something to flatter me.  
   
Of course, before, I had no purpose to glam it up beneath. _What is the point,_ I thought to myself. Frankly, if the only person who saw my underwear was some ER doctor when I was in an accident, I could live with that.  
   
However, everything when it comes to Rory is amplified. What worked before, doesn't work now. For instance, I wear a thin layering of lip gloss now, not enough to set off alarm bells; it's about the same sheen I have as when I lick my lips. Also, I might be tucking my blouse in a little tighter and making a slow transition to the sweater vest. But I knew that my underwear choices were sorely lacking. I had enough, but too much in the same three colors.  
   
You could probably blame my mother for that habit, more often than not willing to go slutty for her men, but when it comes to me, her daughter, hammering into my head that I must look proper, and somehow a thong doesn't do that. Nor does underwear in adventurous color shades such as red or blue.  
   
I stared down at myself as she came over, clothes in hand, along with a bag, which I assumed contained at least one of her new sets. She kept her eyes on me, smiling seductively and warmed at my sight.

If only they had stayed there. Once near me, her eyes landed on my lingerie and she gave off a disapproving frown. She shook her head and mumbled closed-mouthed at my choice.  
   
"What's wrong with them?" I asked, sort of offended. She bit her lip and sat down next to me.  
   
"Oh, nothing at all. Just thinking that according to the uniform code, regulation underwear was dropped in 1967." Insert that damned pouty smirk of hers right after those words.

"What?" My eyes widened, feeling even more embarrassed. "You're comparing my choices to that of a former era?"  
   
"Not really, they're just so...plain." She hesitated and took my hand.  
   
"I go fancy," I rushed out. "Just not that often."  
   
"Well, maybe you should consider it more. You encouraged me to go out and get a few things on Friday, and you boosted my confidence level loads."  
   
"Rory, what I wear is comfortable, and I don't need much more than that. End of the story." I thought that would be the end of it and we could move on.  
   
Over the last four days though, I should be used to my girlfriend laying surprises on me.  
   
"All right, so what if you could stay comfortable, yet at the same time, feel sexy beneath everyone else's noses?"

Confusion set in. What was she leaning towards? "Comfort and sexual confidence?"  
   
"Mm-hmm." Her hand slid along my wrist. "You see, when I was trying on things, I was talking to the shopgirl about you in vague terms. Not using your name or anything, just describing you in general. She got out of me that you were prone to plainness, and well..."  
   
She took the small VS bag to her side and laced her fingers on the string loops of the shopping bag. Moving closer towards me, I felt nervous, knowing that despite a fog of anonymity, there was someone out there who knew we were together. I stared at Rory, as she then placed the bag in my lap. Her eyes, wide, full of admiration for me, as I was a doe in the headlights.  
   
"Open it," she whispered softly, her hand in mine.  
   
My mouth dried; this had to be a mirage. Or a gag. Why would she buy **anything** for me? I didn't deserve it surely, and I knew she was on a budget with limited funds. I would never expect her to spend money on me.  
   
"I can't," I said, handing it back to her. But she put it right on my lap again.  
   
"You can." She caressed at my hand, her softest and most caring touch. "Please, Paris."  
   
"I might not like it," I told her firmly.  
   
"Then you can go back and find something you like, I kept the receipt." I felt my heart beat picking up as I unlaced the strings holding the bag. I had a feeling whatever it was, Rory was surely wrong to buy it. I only buy fancy dress stuff at the Secret, not something for the everyday. I may be able to afford their prices, but I just feel so weird and out of it when I'm in sexy lingerie. For instance, on that first date night, it probably wasn't the best idea to go with a thong cut while I made out with her in the 911.  
   
I ventured into the bag, not looking inside of it, my fingers feeling around for what might be in it.  Preparing myself for a gag gift, I didn't look.  
   
Imagine my surprise when it turned out that Rory's surprise was hardly a gag at all.  
   
I felt a heap of materials in my hands, and taking out the first item, I was presented with a kind of undershirt I'd never seen before in my life. I tried to describe it in my mind, in complicated terms. It was sort of like my usual camisoles, but instead, had the shaping and support of a bra, with a strap and hooks. The article was colored a shade of purple and surprisingly flimsy.  
   
I was in awe as Rory filled in the name, which should have probably been more obvious to me.  
   
"It's a cami-bra. I told her that you had a large chest, and she suggested this; she said her good friend swears by these."  
   
"Oh." I was turning white, so shocked. "It's...it's really nice." I spread it out across my front, trying to get a vague idea of how it looked. "I thought of buying one of these a few times, but I'm always leery of anything that shows up through my shirt."  
   
"It won't, it's thin, but supporting." I got a feel for the fabric in my hands, a comfortable stretch cotton. "They had a mannequin wearing it under a sweater, and it took looking up close to find any sign of a strap." She smiled, bouncing on the bed, excited. "There's another couple things in there, they go with it."  
   
"But I--"  
   
"Paris." Her voice had that mothering tone to it, the one she used with Lorelai when she wasn't acting her age. I felt sure doubts that I could wear them and not feel like a wanton tramp. _It's just school_ , I reasoned with myself, _the girls see my underthings like what, four minutes a day? What use is there to wear nice lingerie underneath except for special occasions?  
   
_ Leave it to the other side of my id to remind me of how much Rory had changed, yet stayed the same since our first kiss. My inner vixen chimed in. _Remember when you told her to match in the locker room? That was a sign to her that you look closely at her in a sexual way outside the classroom, and you care enough to boost her confidence to say in a silent way 'you look beautiful to me, but if you thought more about your underwear choices, you're going to make me think you even more gorgeous.'  
   
_ That was true; it was meant as my first hidden flirt, and I was surprised that she took it so far to blow $270 that with her would usually go to at least eight or nine good books. That she did that for herself, and also me, it gives me hope that she thinks enough of herself that she shouldn't hide.  
   
 _Maybe I shouldn't hide anymore_ , I thought, trying to continue on the thread of spontaneity. I gave her a boost in confidence that Dean could never deliver, and frankly, I'd love to rub it in that stupid face of his.  
   
But first, I needed to take that advice Dr. Birmbaum always gives me just before I get up from the couch at the end of our appointments. "Go forward, Paris, and live for yourself, because no one else can." Every session, like clockwork for the last four years, she's closed with that advice.  
   
It was time to do exactly as she said.  
   
"So, you want me to wear this today?"  
   
Rory nodded. "Along with everything else in that bag."

Nervously, keeping my eyes on her, I set aside the cami-bra and reached into the bag, fingers trembling. I felt like a contestant on _The Price is Right_ playing "Three Strikes," afraid my next reach in would reveal the X on a red disc. I pursed out my lips, oblivious to what I was pulling out.  
   
I felt my breath strangle when I took the item fully out, and stretched it out between my hands.  
   
Again, it was another item in the same color (plum, as I found out later).  A pair of panties, but not in a style I've known before.  
   
"What are these?" I asked, embarrassed that I was so stuck in my ways, I never tried out new things.  
   
"Those, are boyshorts." Rory smiled at me, and put her hand on my shoulder.  
   
"Boyshorts." Yeah, I was dumbstruck, looking them over. They indeed, were like shorts, except the cinch at the crotch was tighter and the article seemed the type to flatter. The top and bottom of the garment was embellished with a nice fringe, and the fabric had a good stretch to them. "Why?"  
   
"They kill panty lines. My mom loves them, especially for her business suits. I was also kind of taken with a dream where you undressing and were wearing them."  
   
"Really?" I bit down on my lip. "What exactly was I doing in this dream?"  
   
"Oh, you assume that you were doing anything?" she teased, laying a kiss upon my cheek.  
   
"I could guess," I suggested.  
   
"But you'd be wrong." She got up from the bed. "I'm going to change in the walk-in, if you don't mind."  
   
"Go ahead." I smiled, trying to steel myself, knowing we were going to compare clothes. I reached into the bag for the third item, a pair of short socks which would barely top above my saddle shoes, the same style as Rory's. I look at her, feeling special that she would do this for me. "Uh, thank you."  
   
"I wanted to get some knee-high socks for you, but they really didn't have any, and there wasn't time to hit Nordstrom's before I got out of there." She opened the closet door, keeping her eyes upon me all the way through. "One day, you'll have to come with Lorelai and I on a shopping trip; you might find something you didn't expect would look good on you."  
   
"I know. One day, really." We finished up the conversation, and she shut the closet door, leaving me alone with my new gifts to try on.  
   
I got up and untied the robe, shrugging it off and letting it fall onto the bed, leaving me fully nude. I put everything back into the bag and made my way to the vanity to get an idea of how I looked within the mirror. Think of me, a bundle of nerves, trying to find the courage to look at myself as more than just Paris, but as a sexual being, at least to the woman behind door number one.

I kept reminding myself that I wasn't with Louise, looking for something thin and as removable as track pants. Rory was taking in mind my needs in getting a gift for me, and more importantly, didn't let her sexual feelings for me overpower that of knowing I'd rather be comfortable and sexy, not just one of the two.  
   
"Well, well, well, Paris, we meet again." I spoke to myself in the mirror, as if I was back in the girl's room at Stars Hollow High. I took the cami and panties out of the bag, staring at my reflection.  
   
The girl of those three weeks ago, cursing herself out as if she was stupid, was gone. In its place, a girl still unsure of the future, but secure knowing that the one she was after was with her. That one had left her marks upon me, and I was able to inspect myself for the first time since the shower last night.  
   
I held back a breath, noticing the soft nips upon my neck, trails of long suckling left by her as she ravished me. All easily hidden by the blouse thankfully. They extended towards my shoulders, and then a deep and bruised spot, on my right side, along the top of my right breast.  
   
"On my heart," I gasped, noting the anatomy beneath as I trailed my hand across it. My lip trembled as I looked at the possessive love bite Rory laid upon me, something I didn't even remember, but since my mind was a jumble right after I lost my shirt, I probably reacted to it in an encouraging way. I tried to hold back a few tears of joy, my ducts provoked from how tender our making out was. Still, they fell, and I wiped them with my fingers as they trailed down my cheeks. It was unlike anything I ever imagined in my dream, and not at all what I thought of when it came to Tristan.  
   
"You have my heart, Rory." I was glad for her not to be in the room, looking over my small form. The usual confidence I had, that I was the tops when it came to my class and no one can stop me, was tempered for the first time. I usually psyched myself up going back to school after a break, with a war quotation of some kind, or else a line from a sports figure, usually Vince Lombardi.  
   
But this morning, those words seemed hollow. I knew I was the best, that wasn't in doubt. But now, at least in the eyes of one small-town girl, I was also sensual and desirable. I was wanted, and in turn, I wanted her.  
   
She also tried to do one of the most audacious things she could possibly do, to buy me intimate apparel without my opinion. Rory was taking a gamble and she knew it. I wanted it to pan out, but I wouldn't be afraid to lay into her if it didn't work out.  
   
I gulped as I bent down to put on the boyshorts, really hoping they didn't look like those spandex bicycle shorts I occasionally wore when I was younger. Let's just say I have bad memories of Duncan and Bowman teasing me at the country club when I wore them and leave it at that. I slowly slid them up my legs, and decided that I wasn't going to look down until I put on the cami-bra, to get the full effect. I pulled them up until I felt that cinch and ran my fingers along the sides to push them up so that they formed perfectly tight against me.  
   
Next came the shirt. I sucked in my stomach, expecting it to be a little tight, pushing it down and over my breasts, and then positioning the bra shelf until it met perfectly with the bottom of my breasts. I then reached back to grab at the hook and eye in the back and stretched it closed at the proper adjustment, closing my eyes as if to not spoil the picture presented.  
   
I released my breath and let my stomach settle again, expecting to feel tightly uncomfortable in an odd amalgamation of a shirt and supporting device.  
   
Imagine my surprise when it wasn't uncomfortable at all.  
   
As a matter of fact, nothing at all was either too tight, or too loose. Both garments flattered my body as it needed to be, and I didn't feel anything digging in to leave an uncomfortable red mark. The boyshorts felt wonderful without any glance. Yes, they were tight on all sides, but unlike a thong, it was a secure kind of tight, something that I couldn't usually find in either the usual materials and cuts I wear.  
   
I then opened my eyes, focusing on the bottom layer first. I was expecting the tightness to feel good, but on the outside, have the appearance of a control garment. Exactly what I didn't want, as I see myself as still young and vital and not a future member of the DCW.  
   
I didn't expect the first words out of my mouth on first glance to be "Fuck, I'm hot!" however.  
   
Indeed I was. They not only fit perfectly but looked damned good. The plum garment flattered my stomach, giving it a nice slimming effect that worked well with my abdomen, plunging down to a few centimeters of my navel. It wasn't overwhelming at the least, although I still felt an old-style vibe from the panties, thinking if they worked for the front, certainly it was at the expense of my butt. I turned around to gaze at my ass in the mirror, expecting it to look either unflattering or loose.  
   
I had to shake my head when I looked at it though, admitting Ror did her homework. I lifted my leg to watch how the fabric wrinkled mid-step. It was fluid, tight, stretching across my upper thighs perfectly. And what wonders the underwear did for my backside, for they flattered me at every angle, from the bottom of the cheek all the way up to the small of my back.  
   
"Looks like the nice Jewish girl finally has her ass back," I off-handed, knowing in my dance hall days I was a thin rail of beauty, but the Gellar and Martinez-DeBartolo genetics had changed my body drastically since puberty. I had focused more on my obvious top half since then, leaving my bottom half neglected from my attention. Not in the regular sense, but in I thought no one looked at it, so why flatter it?  
   
Now, I have a reason, smiling as the other name for boyshorts came to mind, from Louise. She called them 'booty shorts', boasting she had more 'junk in her trunk' than either I or Madeline (I'm cringing just thinking about that term!).  
   
"I look good," I said to my mirror image, a smile overtaking me. "I look...really good." That's when I got a gander at Rory's other purchase. Once again her money was well invested, as the bra shelf of the cami flattered against my breasts perfectly, the straps were secure, and the cami portion didn't ride up during a stretch. With my tanned skin, the effect of both was even more flattering than had I stayed pale all weekend, the plum giving the effect that my tone was more intense than the shade I had actually taken.  
   
I felt intense, sensual, even more alluring than before. I took a couple steps towards the mirror; everything felt both right and comfortable. I'd even dare to say it, but I felt like I wasn't wearing anything at all. My breasts, pushed together into a deep cleavage. The cami fit so perfectly that you would have to get up close to see there was a bra beneath.  
   
I couldn't believe how great I looked. I wasn't even in my uniform yet, so I had to judge through that also, but still, my God. I was definitely going to make Rory's eyes pop out.  
   
Speaking of which, she chose just that moment to walk out of the closet, calling my name to get my attention in that honey-filled voice of hers. I turned around to make a conversation with her...  
   
But it never really got off the ground, as she was also in her lingerie.  
   
This time, her wear was more conservative and less 'I know you want me', but no less alluring. Again, she matched, a muted shade of orange with a polka dotted pattern across both the bra and panties. She wore a different style, meant for low-rise jeans, but it still had the desired effect, as we moved towards each other, my eyes showing how beautiful I felt she was. She looked at me with the same ferocity, and neither of us could keep our eyes off each other.  
   
"Wow, you look...indescribable." She was in awe at how I looked. "I thought I may have been off from a size or two, but I got them right."  
   
"How did you find out?" I smirked her way. "I never told you."  
   
"Well...I may have taken a peek at your order form when you put in for new skirts and blouses a few weeks ago."  
   
"Rory," I warned. "I know that I don't disclose that information on the order sheets." Walking closer to her, I scanned her up and down, noticing how much the bra was doing for her breasts.  
   
Also, that she was still overly aroused, with her nipples easily prominent through the fabric. She looked down, admitting where she got my sizes.  
   
"I saw your bra in your clothes basket in gym class, when you weren't looking. The tag was out, and I couldn't help but look at the size." Her voice lowered, as she probably thought about my reaction to breaching my privacy.  
   
"And the panties?"  
   
"Remember when I'd do your laundry at the dorm at Howard during Junior Leadership?" I nodded. "Yeah, that's where I got that size from."

"And after doing loads and loads of whites and crèmes, you must've thought I had no idea how to buy undergarments."  
   
"I actually didn't get the idea until last Monday, when you had that camisole on."

"Didn't want me to repeat my coming out experience ever again?" I was blushing, the mortification turning into a humorous direction after a week of letting it settle in.  
   
She laughed, smiling at me. "I just wanted you to feel special, that's all. Think of it as an early pre-first night of Hanukah present."  
   
"Well again, thank you," I said shyly, pushing some stray hair back from my face. "I didn't expect you do to do this for me, and I appreciate it." That was perfect opening into complimenting her. "And I know I'm appreciating you too. I never figured you the type for orange and polka dots, but...wow." I was indeed impressed. "You look quite fetching."  
   
"It fits nice too. I'm pleased you appreciated it." Another kiss from her, and we moved towards the bed. "I thought you'd enjoy this pattern, since it seems like you love to stare at my freckles."  
   
"You should've been in my mind last night; my eyes were full of spots!" I giggled and we flopped onto the expansive mattress, covers tangled around the bed, the soft feather cover cushioning our flops. I knew I was getting silly, but at that point, I had no need to care, I was enjoying every moment. She crawled towards me, grabbing the socks out of the bag and pushing me towards the headboard.  
   
That was catching me by surprise, what was she doing? Apparently taking my feet to help me dress, which was more than a little disconcerting. I tried to pull away...  
   
"Rory, I can dress myself!" I shrieked, uncontrollably laughing as she tickled just above my toes. "I learned at two, really!" I tried to pull away by bringing my feet higher into the air, where she couldn't reach them. That also brought my legs out to a spread-out position, which only encouraged her further.  
   
"You don't want me to be chivalrous?" she cried, her toothy grin apparent. "Come on, Par, let me help you out..." she wagged her eyebrows in my direction. "I'll make it worth your while."  
   
I felt myself starting to have sexually overwhelming feelings, but tried to keep them bottled up, for my sake. "You don't even tuck in your blouse until three blocks before the gate!"  
   
"Like you don't notice, I hear that disappointment when I do so. It's a deep sigh, and then eyes back on the road." I hit the back of the headboard as she finally grabbed at one of my ankles. "I'll do it for you, this morning, I promise. Please?" Oh no, there's the Gilmore Pout. She knows I can't resist the pout, damn it, I can't...  
   
I also can't resist her hands rubbing my ankles in a very relaxing and pleasurable way...  
   
"Fine." I sounded completely broken and defeated, while Rory reacted in a way more appropriate for her mother than herself. Sometimes I have to wonder how much of Lorelai really is in this woman. I lay back and relax as she slid the light purple socks onto each of my feet. They blend in so well with the coloring of my saddle shoes that they probably won't be noticed by the staff during a uniform inspection. Besides, I'd like a break from the rules for once.  
   
I felt like there was something I was forgetting though. _What is it_ , I thought, letting whatever it might be fall in the direction of the back of my mind while Rory massaged both feet as she slid the fabric up from my toes and towards my heel. I kept trying to recall what it was, but failed as somehow Rory elicited a moan from massaging in the space between my great and index toes, which really felt nice.  
   
She pushed them up from my heel and her hands ran along my foot and onto my ankle.  
   
And then, she suddenly stopped. Just like that. My left foot's sock was pushed up all the way, but not the right. What was she...why did she stop?  
   
"Paris?" She seemed to be startled, judging from her voice. I noticed her eyes staring at my right ankle. Still, I couldn't figure out why.  
   
"What's wrong, Rory? Why did you stop?" She drifted her eyes from my legs, up towards me, and I could see that she was truly in a kind of shock.  
   
"Well, I...I thought I knew everything about you." Her voice was shaking, a mix between fear and something else I couldn't place.  
   
"You do, I haven't hidden anything," I explained, truthfully. Her index finger scratched my inner ankle.  
   
"I haven't noticed it ever before." Around that small spot, she continued to probe.  
   
That's when my mind communicated exactly what I forgot, as she mentioned it.  
   
"Why do you have a tattoo?" She bit down on her lip as she looked at me, her eyes wide, and disappointment apparent in her mannerisms. She was nervous.  
   
And I was exposed.  
   
 _How could I forget?_ Of all the things I could have failed to mention to her, I never expected it to be the blue star on my inner ankle. I didn't even remember I had it; I tend to because no one except my father and Francisca even know about it. Oh, how to explain this one, the complexities and story behind getting something I usually discouraged, but I felt very right at the time getting.  
   
"Rory..." I called for her to move towards me, shame written on my face. I had meant to tell her about it, but it never came up and usually that skin is covered up by a sock, or blending into my hosiery.  
   
"Did you...did you get it for Tristan?" I expected that, knowing he had his _TJD_ initials in Gothic script on his right bicep, which both Rory and I have seen at times. "I...I thought it wasn't allowed in your faith, and you don't seem the type to have one."  
   
"It...it wasn't for him," I said, solemnly and subdued. "As for my faith, I feel that if I've lived a good life up until my end, getting a tattoo with a meaning to me doesn't take away from how I lived. I'm not in a strict synagogue, and the leaders and elders don't care about tattoos like a more conservative sect, as long they have meaning and they don't overtake you."  
   
She moved closer to me and I crossed my legs, letting my right foot rest on top so I could show her the tattoo, and tell its story. "I got it a few days after my Nanna died. All of my relatives were here, sitting shiva for her, and I was talking to my father and my cousin Dolores; she was the only one on my mom's side to pay respects. We were sitting in the library after my mother and he had fought over a DCW party she had to cancel because of our mourning for Nanna. I had been in an emotional fight with her too over school. I never told you this...but she was considering forcing Daddy to pull me out of Chilton and send me to Choate Rosemary Hall, as a sort of punishment for being more with him than her as the separation began."  
   
"That's a...that's a, boarding school." Her throat caught, realizing just how close we came to never being more than enemies, never being able to heal our wounds.  
   
"It is." My throat tightened as I recalled Sharon's biting words.  
   
"A really strict one. Grandpa attended it for a year and went back to Chilton because they broke his spirit."  
   
"Yes." I saw her whitening with fear.  
   
"Oh my God. She's a monster." Her fists clenched in anger. "I would have thought I drove you out, because you'd never have come back after winter break, and...you would die in that school, be emotionally numb."  
   
"That's why I didn't go," I said softly. "I have friends and so many activities, along with my social order within Chilton. I bleed Chilton, and it's my life. She tried to make me not see that, and used my emotional upheaval to change my direction on everything. That's why the divorce became such a quagmire. It started off quietly and relatively peaceful, but once Nanna passed away, she and her cruel divorce lawyer jumped on it. She saw a distraction and did all she could to drive me away from him. She called him a bad father, classless, neglectful. Never mind that he was fighting with his board to offer a breast cancer treatment they thought unprofitable and that was wearing him out. It was all I could do not to scream at her that she was wrong and a manipulative bitch."  
   
I moved the story back into the library. "The story behind why I chose a blue star is pretty simple. My father always called me 'his little star' when I was younger, no matter what I did. Be it at dancing, in the classroom, or slapping a backhand that scorched the net, he always yelled from the bleachers or the auditorium, 'That's my little star.' It also goes back to how I got my name, the Parisian sunset he saw?" She nodded that she remembered, and I went on. "I was conceived...in his office." I laughed as I saw Rory suggest I was giving too much information by using a Mr. Yuk-like facial expression. "My mother had come by and flirted with him, and they watched the stars from his office window before they did that thing they did to have me. He told me after we sought solace in the library that he had wished to have a child before Sharon came in his office, on a bright star. It may have been Jupiter, actually. But he did, there were no condoms in his office...and nine months later, he had his 'little star.'"  
   
I felt myself calming as I told her the story, Rory touching my ankle in a caring and thoughtful way, her hands stroking the inked skin. "I wanted to show my support for him, in any way that I could, so we talked about it. We ruled out a necklace charm because I felt the Star more important than a heart-shaped locket, and I didn't want to wear a tennis bracelet or earrings that I might have to take off. A ring didn't work either; I didn't want to have to explain every time the meaning of it and have people ooh and ahh over it.  
   
"That's when Dolores suggested the tattoo. We thought at first that it wasn't a good idea, seeing as I had a fear of needles and infection. I asked her how she thought of it, and she showed me a simple heart symbol on her inner wrist, that she got in tribute to her best friend Jordanna. She assured me the process didn't hurt, and that they wouldn't care if I got such a simple symbol, she didn't want something she could regret later in life, and she knew Jordanna would be a good friend for years to come. She assured me of the safety precautions and referred me to where she went, a place run by a woman who kept her parlor clean, sanitary, and immaculate. When I asked my father if I could, he said that it was a worthy gesture that he would never object to, and actually gave me the money to do it as an early birthday present.  
   
"When it came time to choose where and what to do," I continued, "I just kept coming back to those words, 'my little star.' I thought of another couple things, wording, a character, but they didn't seem as timeless or beautiful as a star. I kept thinking about where I wanted it, and it came to me that my ankle would be the perfect place to have it. It's easily hidden by hosiery, not a focal point, and it would be in a place where I could see it without being a contortionist. With my father's blessing, I went with the star, and when the artist asked what color I wanted, I didn't need to hesitate and tell her I wanted it in Chilton blue. The only thing I regret was not having a crimson outline, but I think it has more significant meaning to me than what schools I'm defined by. After I got it, I felt more confidence, but although my father didn't get everything he wanted, he kept his daughter, knowing that she had nothing special that signified her relationship with her mother." Staring down at it, Rory was in awe at the simple star, scaling her fingernail around the points. "I wanted to tell you about it, but I was scared about how you'd react to my being inked."  
   
"Par." Her voice was soft, her attention jarred towards me as she looked towards me. In her eyes, where I thought I'd see disappointment and a loss of trust, her pupils were wide and she was crying, which I didn't expect.  
   
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier," I apologized. She shook her head, and twined her index finger around my left ring, that first assuring move from the newsroom after my first freak-out so familiar now.  
   
"Paris," she said, brushing a tear from her cheek. "I don't feel any anger for you not telling me about this. Obviously you and your father have such a close bond, and it hurts me to hear that your mother was, and still is, so cruel. But at the same time, I feel a bond with you. You could've told me anything, that you didn't get it in tribute to your father, it was just something silly. To know that you trust me enough to give me the entire background on why you did it, what it means, that I'm the first person outside of your family to know you have such a special tattoo, and what it means to you...I could never imagine the pain and heartbreak you went through those three months, and I can see why now you were so desperate to get the focus of things off your mother and father." Moving closer, she unclasped my hands and took me into a close and intimate hug. "I think of this as the most special thing you've ever shared with me. That you have a tattoo with actual meaning, to keep your father close by you, no matter what Sharon might do. It makes me see you even more as the most beautiful woman I've ever known." I wrapped around her, everything hitting me at the same time.  
   
My soul felt a sense of release, a catharsis. I figured no one should ever know, and that in the future when I came to a job interview and they asked why my ankle was marked by a star, it would be a silly thing, a Spring Break whim. I wouldn't allow anyone to feel pity for my life, for I was entitled and an heiress, I had no reason to be unhappy.  
   
But not Rory. She sees me, faults and all. She examines me, knows when I'm in my best mood, or at my worst. But unlike others, she doesn't back down when I'm irked, instead pushing me further to reveal the rawness in my heart. That she found my tattoo endearing, rather than a mutilation, and she actually touched it in a way that showed me she felt for me.  
   
There was still a tension in the room between us, the both of us in such a warm and wanting embrace of empathy for my situation. I knew there was probably a trigger point coming, the both of us still not changed into our uniforms, our minds not on the clock. I closed my eyes, taking in the hug, the brush of her fingers across my back, the smell of both of us lathering with the same shampoo. I felt her body form into mine, warm, soft, inviting. I pushed in closer to her, my mind further drifting from my scholastic focus. I knew it was probably a horrible idea to not break apart, thank her for understanding, and move on with the day, but my body was stating otherwise. I was all wound up, thinking of her so close to me, her moans from the shower echoing in my mind. That we had confided in each other, my paternal ties, her fretting over having the perfect body, our relationship was changing from more than it had been in the beginning.  
   
"I should also mention," she whispered into my ear when I didn't expect it, "that I also find beautiful tattoos like yours to be hot." The last word came out in an aching murmur, just before her hand tipped my head back and mouth open. Like a domino effect, it didn't take long for me to take in her invitation for a deep kiss.  
   
At first, things were completely soft and innocent, the regular sort of making out I've become accustomed to, the soft and caring kind which lead up, both in fantasy and reality, to our situations on Thursday and last nights. The situations we built through our calls too, they were in my head as I felt a warm feeling rise through me. I felt myself collapsing to Rory, letting my walls fall away as she brought me even closer within her, our bodies pressing tightly as she took the lead I was all too willing to cede. The story had taken everything out of me, all of the momentum of resuming the routine.  
   
I couldn't understand, rationally, what I was doing. I felt her hands move lower across my back, and actually sliding beneath my camisole. Our kissing, even deeper than before, if that is possible, with teeth actually clashing together. She moved her hands up and down my exposed sides, those warm hands all over. We were fully vertical on the bed, our clothing pushed off to the side onto the floor.  
   
I tried to will myself to stop responding, but I couldn't once she made a nip on the corner of my lips. I was backed into a corner, literally, and soon, before I could realize that it was happening, that warm, familiar slickness I had felt since that last-second substitution as Romeo was pushing from my legs. The hot pulsations, that loss of friction, the stickiness I felt. Despite my best intentions to hold off, I was becoming wet.  
   
It probably wasn't helping that I was enjoying the stretch cotton so much I had opened up my legs to enjoy the foreign sensation. Or that Rory's thigh was pressing right against it. The slickness of the silk from last night was gone, only to be replaced by something else even more inexpressible.  
   
I wasn't pulling away from her, welcoming the rocking. My mind told me to be rational and just let myself build up throughout the day, maybe let out all the sexual stress on the lacrosse pitch by flagrantly fouling Jeanette McCord with a trip and stick charge at the same time.  
   
My body though was under other control, and instead welcomed Rory closer towards me. I heard her express how much she wanted me, that this was the best night she ever had, looking so fucking wanting in that polka dot ensemble.  
   
Yes, I lied about the 'you know you want me' vibe from earlier, I did want her indeed!  
   
I found myself so riled up, that I clenched my legs around her thigh, wanting a furious and fast get off as quickly as I possibly could. Whether my panties were brand new or not, I didn't care, I just wanted her so badly. Her kissing was furious, full of desire.  
   
"What do you want?" she encouraged, before going in for another kiss. "Do you like it when I do this?" Her lips kissed down my jawline, using me as if I was a test subject to experiment with certain stimuli.  
   
Nor was her body idle. She pushed herself closer into me on purpose, while her legs crossed around mine, which made me even hotter within the clasping. She pushed her thigh against me and I was gritting my teeth, the agony getting me so wet. I was dampening, my eyes glazing over with each new push. All over again, it was a repeat of her seduction of last night.  
   
Soon though, I came to think that she wasn't interested in just frictioning between me to bring me off. From my jawline, her kisses trailed low down my neck, and onto my chest. Her words, at this time of morning usually more innocent than a born-again Strawberry Shortcake, weren't at all in the mindset of preparation. I was struggling with losing her lips, but then I had a thought to jar my thoughts.  
   
 _What if this is foreplay?_ I wasn't willing to call it that at first, but soon, her actions began suggesting that she had finally taken herself out of the confines of routine like I did. The light of day made everything different from the dimness of the evening before.  
   
"I really love your scent," she purred as she moved lower and lower, beginning to move her leg away from me. I began to relax a bit and settle down, having nothing to push against any longer. "And how soft your skin is."  
   
"Rory...oh dear..." Somehow I thought I was sounding normal and affected by what she was doing. I brought my thoughts back to the upcoming school day, of a particularly tough calculus formula I was expecting to have brought up by my instructor today. I was so prepared that my TI-85 was pre-programmed with that formula, which I had been playing with out of boredom Friday afternoon as my stupid relatives played what had to be the worst Monopoly game I ever watched. Four people per token, and they were thinking no one would kill each other if someone bought a property they didn't want. Seriously, what were they thinking? It's shocking no one left Ormond Beach with a red hotel jutting permanently from their forehead.

I rehearsed in my head my answer after my hand-raising, trying to anticipate what might be the answer...  
   
Then without warning, my mind went blank, completely.

After that, I gasped out Rory's name in utter shock, as her lips kissed lower and lower down from my navel, onto the waistband, and then lower than that. The short-lived calmness had been taken away from me, to be replaced with something else. Her head popped back up as she heard my reaction. I had been content with eyes closed for moments, and she used that time to...well...what can I say, really.  
   
Still, she remained innocent, trying not to play her hand with a lopsided smirk towards me.

"Someone should take her own advice; you seem really bottled up."

"Huh?" I was totally clueless as she crawled back up towards me and grasped me up off the pillows with her hands. "Whatever it is, I'm not bottled up."  
   
"You lost your mind," she mentioned, moving back within my space. "Your eyes glazed over, and when you blanked out there, I swore you said you wanted me to move lower."  
   
"No, I didn't." _Did I_? Even I didn't know myself, my thoughts so relaxed that my attention span drifted from her kissing as she moved lower. "I would have remembered."  
   
I found her to have surprising strength as she crawled off the bed on the side, holding both of my hands. I kept my attention from her very hardened nipples, shielded by the bra. Dragging me off, her voice was deep and throaty, while her eyes can best be described in the definition of the bedroom type.  
   
"You want to work yourself off, don't you?" she suggested as I got up from the bed. Her hands remained in mine as she stepped backward in a slow pace. "You were wrapping your legs around me so tight."  
   
"Rory." I tried to sound serious and sway her away from that track. "Of course I'm going to: you were pushing against me."  
   
"Only because you were so overpowering." She enveloped me into her grasp and ran her fingers through my hair. "You started out with open legs, your breathing became rushed, and all the sudden you're pulling at me." I felt her backing towards the direction of my work desk. "I know what you're thinking."  
   
"No, you don't." OK, I did, but I wasn't going to share that with her. "Let's just get dressed--"  
   
I was interrupted by her hand sliding out from my hair, and then down my back, where she applied a squeeze to the lower part of my ass.  
   
"Par, I see that you're frustrated." I bit back at my lip to strangle my reaction. "You're distracted, mind running in different directions."  
   
"I am not distracted!" I claimed, but knowing it was futile. My steps within the tight panties were not helping at all as my lips rubbed against each other, sending stimulation through my clit. I thought unsexy things to try to kill the mood, but starting at Rory at the same time was definitely not helping. Especially when her still-damp hair hanging limply on her shoulders gave me this picture of beauty that was so hard to resist, along with the dimples in her seductive smile.  
   
I wasn't helping my case at all as Rory's hand cupped at my ass, meandering all over as she got a feel for it. I felt myself near to the desk, not knowing what might be floating through her mind. All I knew was that she was purposefully getting to me in order to further things along. I tried looking towards my alarm clock on the far side of the room for the time.  
   
Just as I had a line of sight towards the green numbers though, Rory blocked my view and moved her other hand down towards my lower half, and began to bend down to my level as I felt the back of the old wide desk, the broad piece of furniture now so perfect to not only do homework, but keep my computer on. I pushed my hands down on the edge of the surface to brace.  
   
Her eyes were wide as she gave me such an unsettling look, from my face down into my décolletage, my bust on full display for her perusal. My mind tried to think of her as just teasing me, that in a minute or so she would leave me hot and bothered, just enough of a taste to get me through the school day. That's how she worked in the past, a tease that left me at the end of the day with my mind blown and panties ruined.  
   
She stared at me eye-to-eye, her hands moving up towards my waistline at the sides. I was stilled, preparing for the inevitable pull-away and the changing into our uniforms. The return to routine. The end of twelve hours of pure bliss.  
   
"So you're completely aware that I've wanted to go down on you since the moment I woke up?"  
   
  _OK, she's just teasing here, Gellar, we haven't been together that long. Go ahead and humor her; she's not going to do it. Lorelai probably uses this line with her guys all the time to break the ice!  
_    
"Of course," I said, fully confident I was on script with her.  
   
"That I've wanted to taste from you." That voice of hers took on a possessive growl, unsettling me. Yet, I stayed still, waiting for the end of the flirting. "You get so wet when you're aroused, perfectly slick to accommodate my fingers within. But my dreams, they keep going back to me, eating you out, fucking you with my tongue." Her eyes focused downward. "I just have been thinking all weekend about taking things further between us, that even before Thursday night I wanted to take things slow."  
   
My mind kept thinking this was all a joke, words to get me horny and nothing else.  
   
So then why were her hands sliding into the waistband of my new lingerie and her face getting lower and lower?  
   
"I've taken things slow for too long," she theorized. "I lost so many opportunities to advance things with Dean. Our first summer, I was helping him wash his truck and I just had this urge to take him into my mouth on the seat as we both got soapy and wet. A few times, I wanted him to finger me in a back room at the Inn. Last year, I was going to bribe him to stay away from the play rehearsals by giving him a handy, but once he saw Tristan, he went all Neanderthal and killed that desire in me."  
   
I was shocked at how Rory was talking to me, as if she had this entirely other dark side that planned out her sexual escapades, always stopped by Deano just as they came to fruition.  
   
"Now I want to know something before I do this." She looked up at me, her usually light blue eyes taking on a tint more dark blue and menacing. "You're not going to stop me from doing something just because of your pre-conceptions of me, right? Or because seems wrong to someone else?"  
   
I felt my throat tighten and my heartbeat pick up, hammering as hard as that old bear toy from the 80s within my chest.  
   
She was serious. Fucking hell, she was actually going to pull down my underwear, get on her knees, and take me with her tongue! There was no kidding, this wasn't foreplay...she wanted to do this.  
   
"You've shared so much with me...now I want to share something with you in appreciation." Her head dipped below my breasts as her nose drifted down my midsection. I panted at the very idea of her...down there.  
   
My eyes rolled back within their sockets and I was so deeply in trouble. How could she even think about wanting to please me, like that?  
   
"Rory, stop," I commanded weakly. "You have no idea what you're doing; I know you've never done this. This isn't you--"  
   
She blew out a hard breath against my belly, causing my legs to gel in place and become wobbly where I stood.  
   
"No time like the present then," she intoned, her voice deepening in a way that sent shudders through my spine, goosebumps along my arms. "I know how. I might not on an actual clit, but I'd like to think I'm a..." She began to unroll the boyshorts down my legs as she finished off the sentence, along with my sanity. "...fast learner."  
   
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, she was indeed trying to kill me. Her thumbnails scraped my skin as she pulled the panties down, exposing me full-frontal to her for the first time. Before, she self-policed how much she actually wanted to see of me; I had never really seen her look lower than my navel in our flirting and making out. All of her experience below that line was with her hands.

She backed me up so I could take somewhat of a seat against the desk.  I felt the goosebumps flare up my skin, trying to relax myself as best as possible. I tried making more conversation as much as I could, no thanks to the dopamine and adrenaline mixing up together in my brain blocking any rational thought.  
   
"From...from the books?" I asked. My voice was creakier than ever before.  
   
She nodded, her eyes stark across my junction, pushing the boyshorts down to my knees. "Partly from them, yes. I've...I've also been lurking at some educational websites."  
   
"Thank goodness you have a Mac," I lamely noted. "They could carry spyware--"  
   
My lecture on computer safety was rudely cut off as her hands, on my thighs, spread me open a little, to examine my inner workings. One of those fingers happened to brush against my clit, causing me to spasm in place. I yelped, trying to control my jaw so I could keep it closed.  
   
I felt her breath upon me, making me react. I've pictured this moment so many times before, whether it was in my dreams or a carried out sexual fantasies. I thought that I knew how it would be.  
   
Oh, how dreams can be wrong.  
   
 "Spread out for me," she intoned. I felt myself in a panic, scared to widen my legs. The words of earlier, where I told her I didn't care if one lip was higher than the other, they were thrown back my way. At least there I wasn't touching her, but here...she was definitely going to. I took in a deep breath, trying to steel myself for a sudden jerk if she touched me where I didn't expect her to. I slowly brought each of my legs out to the sides. I was so wet and the cool air on my labia sent a dizzying rush through me. Her hands gripped at my thighs to keep me still.  
   
She drew out the inevitable to calm me, trying to counter her own nerves. We both hadn't talked about this within our phone conversations or in the car rides, probably afraid of what one another would think of the idea, so this was wholly new to us. I just didn't expect it would be so soon and with me receiving rather than giving.  
   
 _It's better this way_ , I told myself. _She's been the one behind you the last three months staring at you in class, thinking about all those ways you can come together sexually. Last night was wonderful, what you did, what she did. But you know you want more. And you have to think about it this way: it's spontaneous, not what you expected. You're turned on from the idea that she's about to go down on you and that you managed to turn her on in your underwear. You have to enjoy that power you wield with her and just go with it.  
_    
I knew I couldn't fret. If I tasted funny, so be it. I felt her lay a few tentative kisses along each of the outside of my lips, her nose touching each of them. It was a soft exploration to begin, as she got to know my intimate anatomy. Her lips were pursed closed, surveying the outline of my vagina. I thankfully stood still, knowing the best was still to...still ahead. That first word choice is a little too close for comfort.  
   
Her breath was still steady, strong. She was focused on what she wanted and it was almost if she had fully taken the Chilton Way to everything that she does. She opened up her mouth and began the tease.  
   
That's when her mouth opened up and she let her tongue come into play within my damp slit.  Immediately I reacted by gripping the edge of the desk as I groaned deeply, throwing back my neck. I hissed her name as she laid kisses along my bud. She barely had much experience at all, yet so far, she wasn't awkward.  
   
I let myself float within the first waves, conscious that she might move too low and startle me or do it wrong. My mind analyzed all the wrong things she could do, like lick above my clit, bite too hard or move a little too low. Rationality was trying to ruin it for me.  
   
 _Stop_ , my vixen warned. _You're not going to ruin this moment by reliving America's Worst Sex Tapes!_ I let myself try to stay focused on the task at hand, my stomach a twisted morass as she tried to find my most sensitive areas.  
   
She kept below my clit, continuing to kiss at the sensitive flesh below. She parted me further, just enough to get a good look at things. I felt tingles through my spine as she used her lips to nip just below my nub. I shuddered audibly, helping guide her through where to go through audible cues, both vocal and grunting. She moved a little off to the side where I felt nothing; I whined for her to come back, and if she was hitting the right spot, I acknowledged with a deep "Yes."  
   
I clenched as slowly teased, her mouth seeming to be doing well for a true beginner. I could only imagine how she used her debate exercises as practice to do this, her mouth in circles as she twisted her way around a citation from a translated French medical journal where she had to mention the title in that tongue. Looking down at her, all of her attention was on me, not straying at all. Still, she was tentative, afraid to break me if she dipped in too far.  
   
More teasing and tongue play followed, my eyes straying between a full focus on her and squinting closed when a slight twimmer went through me when she did something right. Slowly she moved up the flesh, going with nips and kisses as she moved up.  With each new movement I tightened, at the same time becoming aware that I was slickening with anticipation at what she was doing.  
   
I sucked in my stomach and felt myself go with each of the building waves. I could feel the erectile tissue of each of my nipples harden as she got tantalizingly close to bringing me to fruition, my toes curled up where I stood and I lifted up a few inches. My nails were dug right into the counter while I stared up at the ceiling, noting how well the contrasting tan went so well with the lavender shade of the walls. I tried to use that as my Birmbaum-imposed focal point to just focus on myself rather than what she was doing.  
   
 _I want to feel good. I want to feel good_ , I little-engine-that-coulded internally. Higher, higher, higher, I felt breath take leave of my lungs...

In a few moments, I began to feel myself rise out from my being, her teeth scraping my clit as it came out from the hood. I yelped out loud, trying to bring myself used to the new sensation of her down there. Her mouth took it into both lips and I felt myself immediately react as she got her lay of the land. I called her name out roughly, trying to make myself sound as I was, taken away and well-revered.  
   
Instead, I came out rough, commanding, and unwelcoming. She immediately pulled back as she saw my teeth clench, not in rage, but in shock. My tone suggested I didn't welcome her advance and she pulled back, resting onto her knees.  
   
Looking up at me, unsure, I saw her mood shift from playful and silly, to scared. I had to reassure her, but in a way where she didn't have to say a word. I know she'd go into an apology ramble if I stayed silent, and I didn't want that to kill the mood.  
   
I scooted even further onto the desk and then brought my hands up.  
   
"Pa--"  
   
One of them I placed at the bottom of her jaw to close it shut. Then I placed both on her cheeks. And then I brought her back towards me, my look saying it all. I was serene, yet neutral, wearing the most confident smile I ever had as I communicated to her via eye contact that it was shock, not disgust, that caused me to react wrong. She didn't have to stop because of that and I could read her like a book. If I encouraged her, things could go forward.  
   
I opened my legs up about an inch further, running my fingers through her hair to reassure. Her smooth locks would be something to calm me, so much more than the edge of a desk. It was to show that I care for her, and what she's doing for me.  _Come on, Rory, you can do this. Make me feel good. Please, don't pull away based on a knee-jerk reaction.  
_    
She licked around her lips again, to re-wet them, to add to the act she was about to do for me. I lost my mind trying to imagine her reaction to her own taste intermingling with mine.  
   
Then I looked down towards her, trying to communicate that I was ready for this. That she should not look at my outside reflection as a channel into my inner psyche. My clitoris, swelling with blood flow, my lower body numbed to not move. My eyes were nowhere near a clock and my attention was fully on her.  
   
I pulled her towards me as I gave her that final signal that I wasn't going to pull away, that kissing against a tree in the town square wasn't my idea of enough to get me by. I wanted her, unrestricted; damn the entirety of the Gilmore family, the town of Stars Hollow, and the Chilton student body.  
   
 _Finally, fuck you Sharon_. I echoed that loudly through my mind to make it clear that Mother had no stake in this at all.  
   
I stared Rory down, my voice picking up strength, and with my fists in balls as I pulled her in I gave myself over to her fully  
   
Her warm breath across my clit, I succumbed to the finality of the situation.  
   
"Please, Ror," I said with anguish, in a soft whisper. "I want you. I want to feel this all day long."  
   
She closed the last of the gap with those words, took my clit into her mouth, and claimed me as hers.  
   
I looked down at towards her as she tentatively poked and prodded within me to start, making sure I wasn't going to do something I didn't want it. Playing with me, she started in a slow circle pattern, starting at the right side of my clit, then moving towards the left, and then dotting the "I" so to speak on the tip-top of the pleasurable appendage. Indeed, it started slow, caring. Very Rory-like, as I expected. She kept up a steady pace, her slick tongue on my clit helping me to start the journey towards fulfillment. I went back to last night, how aggressive I was pushing against her, furious for the release I wanted to experience.  
   
My cries were soft, my head far from thrown back. A strap of the cami-bra fell a bit down my shoulder, but not enough to pull everything down. I kept focused on her to start, encouraging her audibly and vocally where to go. Thankfully not much guidance was needed, for she had me memorized, trying to find my sensual spots to start out, combining that with her readings, and going from there through trail and error.  
   
Looking towards the window, I was thankful for being on the second floor, the warm early sunlight bathing the both of us in a glow. I jerked with each touch of her tongue, closing my throat when a moan was about to be let out.  
   
I had to wonder if she hadn't done this before, even though I certainly knew it was her first time. Like a researcher, her hands were not idle, staying at my sides, her thumbs brushing against my lips to add a building sense of stimulation. Her fingernails traced the outline of my folds. She continued to lick at my clitoris with a steady pace, taking on a sweeping circle motion counter-clockwise.  
   
Yes, I memorized the direction of tongue travel; you would too if you had a seemingly innocent classmate and rival eating you out minutes before school! Well, maybe not, but still--  
   
Still, without mathematical terms, she was doing the right thing for me and that's all that mattered. I began to lose control of my thoughts after that point, letting myself become swept up in what Rory was doing to me. To state it simply, what she did was indescribable. Teasing me, she had me in a daze. My throat began to dry with each sweep, forcing a gasp, a calling of her name, something indecipherable out of my mouth.  
   
I pushed back more as she speeded her strokes and began to push her tongue in and out, thumbs keeping me widened. I threw my hair back, my hands tangling through the slick wetness of her brown hair. I felt warm thinking of her focus on my slit, her field of vision between my navel and all the way down to the bottom of my mons. Her tongue kept up a swift circling motion and I began to feel arousal force out, bubbling from within me. I begged her to go faster, closing my eyes, trying to change my focus within my mind of her point of view.  
   
Rory began to hasten the process of my climax by pushing her palate atop of her mouth. I was hyperventilating, concentrating on my fulfillment...  
   
"Hmmmmm...hmmmm...hmmmm..."  
   
I screamed loudly as she did that. _Oh my God, she's humming!_

My eyes rolled back, and my reality began to bleed into my fantasy. Moving up a smidge, she took me into her mouth as much as she could, and began to suck my clit, pushing it in and out, and continued the humming barrage. I began to clench, the waves of contractions flowing through me hotly. I swore the darkness in front of my eyelids turned a bright shade of white as she went on.  
   
Moments later, I was leaning back against the desk so much that I probably could have been laying on it. I kept shouting her name in conjunction with 'fuck' and 'oh, shit,' my filter completely off and my mouth out of control. My heart pounded within my chest and I could feel the dampness spill from me. Rory pushed further and further, stimulating me dead center on my most sensitive spot on the outside. I glazed over, trying to imagine the moment she pushed in to find that certain spot which would turn me into a complete mess.  
   
"Rory...oh damn...Rory...Rory!" She kept her humming going, my clit swelling all the way out as I felt myself coming to a peak. My hands on her head for a powerful brace, I pushed her as closely as possible into me so she could get me off. Quickly I found myself impatient for a release, begging and pleading for her to give it to me.  
   
Thankfully, she was being charitable and didn't hold it off. My lip bit down onto as hard as I could without drawing blood, Rory suckled and licked me, as if insatiable for me. I ground my hips in and out, in and out, trying to finish myself off. My lungs filled with air taken in hard; I let myself fall into the long but sudden waves. I couldn't believe this was happening and though I knew it was real, I still thought it was a dream.  
   
The orgasm starting to cut through me though was definitely a reality. With my clitoris between her lips, Rory finished me off with the tip of her tongue. I reacted rather violently, screaming out in a way that if not for my mouth, would be on par with a murder scream. I mumbled her name, my eyes shutting as the big waves began to hit me. I sucked in my stomach and curled my toes as hard as I could as everything hit me: the weekend that had just changed everything between us.  
   
I screamed out Rory's name, between much clenched teeth and I felt myself spill over in the literal sense; I could only think about how much aware she was that I truly did ruin bedsheets when I had time with myself. I barely remember much of what happened during the actual event, for it was that overwhelming.

I lost my bearings as I hit a hard part of the orgasm, blanking out for a couple of minutes. Apologies for that, but truly I had never felt what I did in that moment; it was so very foreign and unknown for me to have a girlfriend giving me such hot, focused, and unrelenting sexual attention in the way she did.  
   
And for her to be from a town like the Hollow...sometimes you have to wonder if the best relationships really do come from small town girls.  
   
Soon though, I had my bearings back within my bedroom as I began to settle down, overheated from my climax. I needed to get a new look at my surroundings, my legs numb, breasts straining against my cami, and the space between my legs so sensitized that I thought any touch would anger my body.  
   
That's when I noticed that I was back in my bed, laying my head on a pillow.  
   
With my bearings restored, I found myself looking at Rory to my right, with her uniform on, but with the blouse unbuttoned and untucked, while she rubbed at my cheek. She smiled, looking at me as if I was to be revered, licking her lips. God, even dressed she looked so beautiful.  
   
"Hon," she said, moving closer. "I didn't think that you were that...wound up."  
   
Looking down at myself, I then noticed I had my own blouse on, though no skirt or shoes. I felt all out of sorts, wanting to spend time with her, though I kept reminding myself of the impending time of 8:05am, the start of school once again.  
   
Nervously she bit down on her lip, considering that my slitted eyes were a sign that I was annoyed with losing my mind through the orgasm. "Are you all right? You seemed to almost faint against me when you came. I'm sorry if I did too much."  
   
I shook my head, my voice tired. "Better too much than nothing at all." I shifted my hand up along her slim waist. "Really, Rory. I will get used to it. I'm just in a stunned state of shock that you would even want to...want..." Damn, I couldn't find the words.  
   
"That you wanted your running mate to go down on you?" she questioned, bemused. "You were so...so...wow!" We moved closer towards each other. "I can't imagine what will happen when you do that to me."  
   
"I felt so filled up...perfectly happy." I beamed, trying to locate my skirt, wherever it was. "We didn't have much time though so I couldn't elongate it further than we have, but really, I felt the beginning. It was plenty enough for me."  
   
"Are you sure you don't want more?" She teased. "I suppose I could--"

I reacted with shock but kept my sanity despite her promise of another encounter. "Seriously, Gilmore. You're worse than Tristan and Louise combined at times!" I laughed as she stared at me in shock. "What? I'm telling the truth."  
   
"Oh please, I am not!"  
   
"You used a _Franklin_ article to get to me! I should make you write the lunch menu for that!"  
   
"You wouldn't dare!" Her jaw dropped before I pulled her in close for a kiss.  
   
"Probably not," I admitted as I pulled away. "Louise did something like it though. She called a baseball player on the varsity once, disguising her voice as the pitching coach, beckoning him to the tub room for some massage therapy. Imagine his surprise when he found a naked Lou in said hot tub, pulling down his shorts and getting to know his--"  
   
"OK!" Rory interrupted me. "I know the next words out of your mouth involve a sphere of cowhide and possibly a wood hitting implement constructed into an entendre. I don't want to think about her!"  
   
"I'm not," I said softly, finding my focus drifting off topic as I realized her mouth had no hint of mint within it. In the time I was coming down she hadn't rinsed, which meant I was going to continue to live up to my title as Archduchess of Delayed Reactions with my next statement. I moved back towards her, a hammering heart and my pleasure lobe overloaded.

"Oh, Rory." I ran my tongue along the inner rim of my lips. Shuddering, I took in my familiar taste, so turned on, looking at my girlfriend, only moments after her first try at oral sex, looking at me with so much wanton desire and admiration. I could have never dreamed this morning would have happened the way it did. Not in the least at all. This was just...  
   
She placed her hand on my arm and nodded, bringing herself to me once more for another long and lingering kiss. This time, tasting my own arousal within it brought me to a level never known before. It was deep but caring and soft, both of us pushed together close as I enjoyed the feel of what Rory had done to me, so much. We molded into each other so perfectly and to hear her compliment my taste...it was such a stunning thing to me.

We stayed like that for long minutes, teasing and exploring, talking to each other. We were so infatuated with each other; time melted away, both of us lost, together.  
   
As a matter of fact, we almost ended up drifting off to sleep again, her hand at my waist, mine on hers, when my attention caught on the long since neglected alarm clock on my nightstand.  
   
When my eyes landed upon the glowing green numbers, there was no delayed reaction at all. I became white as a sheet and began to panic, immediately rising up in the unmade and messy bed.  
   
"Paris, what's wrong?" Rory asked, concerned. I darted a dead stare in her direction as I got off the bed and ran towards the pile containing my skirt and sweater in a full panic.  
   
"Why don't you look at the clock?" I off-handed, trying to keep the fear I felt out of my voice. "We spent too much time being silly, and now its 7:43!" I was freaked; I considered twenty minutes before school to be the perfect time to get in, to gather up my books, socialize, and plan out my day at my desk in Advanced Ec.

"Oh God!" Rory, despite her lack of a years-long non-tardiness streak, was just as startled, hopping off the mattress and trying to look for her tie in the mess of her clothing from last night and a couple of discarded sheets. We both were in a frenzied rush, trying to locate our uniform parts and put them on as straight as possible. I hopped into my skirt and tried to close it, only to find that it was on backwards, with the snap on the other side entirely. Our hair was a mess and I didn't even have any time to take my messenger bag from luggage to school mode from last night! As I tried to button up my blouse. I unpacked the stuff that didn't belong there, such as my travel toothpaste, a cheap hairbrush, some brochures I threw in the bag at the airport.  
   
"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry! Crap, this is what I was afraid of!" As I started to put things into perspective, I watched as Rory went back to two years ago and Mr. Medina told her there wasn't any way she was going to take the test as I looked on and laughed at her misery. She had every reason to panic, afraid that her GPA was down the toilet because she was late by seven minutes. "What happens if he doles out a test and we can't take it? You're going to hate me forever because we can't take it! I mean...fuck, you've never been late. Never, ever, ever!"  
   
The language she used startled me; she was annoyed at herself that her idea to seduce me last night might end up being our downfall. I looked at her and saw the panic and disappointment in her eyes. I seriously had not meant that being silly would ruin our getting to school. I wasn't at all angry with her.  
   
Frankly, I was more worried about the streak more than I ever was about any grades we might lose. And even then, a test that means more than ten percent of our grade must have advanced notice per school rules. Mr. Mercurio pulled that in 1996 with a quarter of the grade pop quiz coming back from autumn/Yom Kippur break, but the results were rescinded on Charleston's order when 11 out of the top 25 for that year's senior class blew the test and he saw that Mercurio was trying to influence graduation towards his star pupils rather than give an even assessment.

I knew Mr. Silvestri would never do that, however, since his class is one of the toughest to even pull out an A in. He knows that his curriculum is demanding, and prefers to dole his tests out in huge chunks around a set of units, rather than smaller tests about each unit. If he did spring a quiz, it would be a quick one with ten questions only going back two weeks.  
   
Truthfully, the tardy mark meant little to me in reality. So I would be late one time out of 20,160 hours of education through fourteen years going back to August 1988. I could dwell on that fact.  
   
Or, I could dwell on how my eyes, in that exact moment, caught Rory in a state of sloppy dress that two years ago would have brought me to a full-blown rant about how she was disrespecting the uniform by draping the tie loosely over the collar, that her skirt should not be unhooked a bit, her socks shouldn't be drooping down, nor should her hair not be perfectly thrown into a simple ponytail that didn't draw any attention. I would have also seethed at her not having her sweater vest on at all, still in her backpack and probably wrinkled up.  
   
Instead, I stared at her. Thinking about why she wound me up so much through the space of twelve hours, to get me into this state of disarray where I had thrown off routine and become spontaneous putty in her hands. That she brought me to orgasm...twice. That she now knew of my tattoo, a fact that I would have preferred would be between only my family and myself, and that it wasn't on the surface just something that looked pretty; that it connected with my soul.  
   
Staring at her as I clasped my tie closed, I decided for the first time, without an excuse, that a Chilton teacher would mark a half filled-in box next to my name in the December 2, 2002 line.

Because I was going to give the downright sexy girl stumbling into her untied saddle shoes across from me thanks for giving me truly the best night of sleep, and then the best morning, I've ever had.  
   
Still, on the outside, I was still panicked and rushed as she finished dressing and I was trying to find which papers on the desk, which were thrown to the side when she pushed me towards it, I needed for school. Knowing me, she stayed out of my way while I checked the right hand corner to make sure the dates were in November and the notes were what I needed. I speed-read through everything, mumbling out the script quickly to a syllabus I was going over for my class after lunch, and then grabbing three sharpened Ticos and a blue gel pen from my cup, not trusting those in my bag to not have been unaffected under the cabin pressure on the jet.  
   
Soon, Rory was dressed as much as she could and I straightened myself out, tossing her my brush after I was done with it myself after a very quick brushing. "Just take it with you!" I commanded as I bent down to tie her shoes for her, not wanting to lose one more minute in the Manor when we could be out on the road. I felt so strange not being able to take my time, rushing through things.  
   
After I finished on the second shoe, I got up to face her questioning gaze. "Are we ready?" she asked.  
   
I nodded and smiled. "We don't have a minute to waste!" We put on our coats, both hanging on the door, and then headed down the hall towards the kitchen stairs. I got the fob for the Jag out, pushing the ignition button and unlocking the doors, and then the trunk to put our bags in. I was glad we could pretty much get in and drive without wasting any time. We both ran down the stairs, holding the railing tight for dear life in case we tripped. We had to focus on the hopefully only ten-minute commute to come...  
   
But as I hit the landing towards the kitchen, I spied that we were about to get the third degree.  
   
There was my mother, near the door, looking out the window, towards 'her' gardens, in a silk robe that rose above her knees and screamed that she was a rabid cougar. How I know that term, God help me!  
   
Would you want to guess what her choice of breakfast drink, in a glass in her hand, was? I'll tell you now it wasn't Carnation or orange juice.  
   
Rory panicked as she backed into me and looked at the woman she loathed with a deep passion. She couldn't communicate with me but she could only look at Sharon tensely as she turned around, the disgusting red tint of her Bloody Mary (which I'm sure had more Mary than Bloody in it) swilled around the glass.  
   
"Paris, good morning," she greeted in that syrupy voice that sends cold chills through my spine. "I wasn't expecting you to still be here so late in the morning. Don't you have school?"  
   
"Yes, Mother." I felt tense in her presence, hoping she didn't notice that my blouse was somewhat untucked. "I...well, the both of us, we overslept. We never got to the bed and ended up sleeping on the desk last night from studying and paper work."

She frowned, seeing Rory behind me. "I'm afraid I don't know this girl." She made a 'come here' motion with her finger towards Rory. "Would you please tell me your name?"  
   
If I expected her to weaken within my mother's clutches, she did not, firmly keeping her manners. "Rory Gilmore, ma'am." She smiled, with honey and cotton candy coating her voice. "You don't remember me? I talked to you on the phone before I came over last night."  
   
"I...I did?" _She is not playing the drunk card!_ I was shocked that she was using my mother's alcoholism to take herself out of a perilous position.  
   
"Of course. You don't remember?"  
   
"Well...um...I know I talked to someone." She went over last night in her mind, which more than likely consisted of a horrible phone call to Mohegan Man which I shall not soil your mind with, followed by reacquainting herself with J&B and Absolut until she eventually passed out, her bladder spurring her to wake up around 5am, along with possibly her gag reflex.  
   
"Yes, I told you I needed to go over things for the paper with your daughter, and that it would be an all-night thing." Her voice was so confident that if I hadn't spent the night with her, I would've thought she was actually telling the truth. "You really don't remember? You even offered me something to eat, but I had already, so I had to turn you down. Sorry about that, by the way." She smiled, as if she remembered everything about the 'conversation' from memory.  
   
"I apologize, I must have been really jet lagged." My mother put her hand to her temple and squinted, trying to clear her mind. "You must have called just after we got home and I forgot when I drifted off to sleep." Wow, we were actually going to get away with this! I would have never thought that of all the people to put one over on her, it would be Rory! "I don't usually allow Paris to have company, but...." Her thoughts were clouded and she quickly lost her point. "Did you two do everything you needed to?"  
   
"That, and more; we made surprising progress." Inside of my jacket, my fists were clenched nervously. "You have quite a fine daughter, Mrs. Gellar. I would have thought she would be tired going over what we needed after the flight, but she has a surprising zeal about things. She took action on something when I least expected it. Paris was certainly devoted to the project."

Great, not only did I have to deal with a girlfriend flirting with me right in front of my mother, but she'd veiled what we did in my bedroom in her words. I noticed her smirk, and was just enjoying how clueless my mother seemed to everything. I felt tense but the conversation between my mother and her seemed to be the exact reverse of what I expected.  
   
There was also stirring going on within me, noticing that her confidence around Sharon was giving me this odd vibe of want. I tried to push that away, focusing on trying to get out of the house.  
   
"She certainly enjoys devoting time to her causes, although I wish she would participate in organizations that would give her a leg up with admissions."  
   
"I think she has great causes right now," Rory commended. "I could probably count on her to add an addition to my house without a problem or train a pet dolphin." At least she was doing something for my pride while my mother seemed to be passive-aggressive. "Her work on the paper is exemplary and once she gets into debate season, she's a whole new animal."

 _Rory, if you do not stop right now, I swear to God I will become a whole new animal!_ She was staring at me in this way that twisted my stomach as my mother tried to keep herself on an even keel.  
   
"Indeed, she is. Now if she would just find a good boy to tame that animal--" All right, time to kill the conversation; time was ticking away! I cleared my throat, seeing that Rory directed a glare towards my mother for that.  
   
"Mother, if we don't leave now, we're going to be late!" I grabbed Rory at her arm and showed her towards the door. "I hate to cut this short, but we're late as it is."  
   
"Fine, Paris; go on to school," she responded, disaffected that I was going to be late. "It was nice to meet you, Rory."  
   
"Yeah, you too." I could sense high tension in Ror's voice, like she wasn't welcoming of the conversation at all. "I hope you have a nice day, Mrs. Gellar."  
   
"You two. Goodbye ladies!" Her cheerful voice was more false than a Madame Tussaud's wax figure. and the smile from her collagen-filled lips scared Rory so much she quickly turned around at her first opportunity. We ran out to the garage with speed, wanting to get on the road and push Sharon out of our minds as fast as we could. Of course, we waited until we were both in the car to say anything. We threw our bags in the trunk, closed it, and then climbed in the thankfully-warm car with all the speed we could muster.  
   
That's when Rory visually and audibly shuddered as she belted herself in, flattening out her skirt and then groaning at what she just had to do. I hadn't seen her body language take on that tight protective shell since we had it out in the conference room. Her eyebrows were scrunched together and her face was heated.  
   
She then slid her hand on top of mine, turned around, then...  
   
"I hope her day actually sucks." She turned her frown into a smile= and laughed as I rolled my eyes. "I'm shocked I got away with telling her I called her!"  
   
"Me too, I thought for sure you were doomed. You were certainly on your toes for that one."  
   
"Well, I had the same problem once when I went to Dean's and fell asleep on the floor. Mrs. Forrester was livid at me for not asking permission, never mind that I wasn't in a making out mood because of you-know-what and that Clara made me stay over to watch a stupid Barbie movie."  
   
I raised my eyebrows as I made the turn onto Mountain. "You didn't...you and Dean did not have a date during his sister's DVD time!" Laughing, I placed my hand at Rory's knee after making the turn. "What kind of guy is that?"  
   
"His parents never trusted us alone and Mrs. F always wanted a cheap babysitter." She sighed, recalling how horrible it went. "I finally got Clara to bed at 2am because Disney Channel just happened to have on a _Lizzie McGuire_ marathon on. When they came home, Mrs. Forrester yelled at me, never mind that when I tried to pull her away from the TV she freaked out and whined while Dean told me not to bother."  
   
"Oh dear. I think I met her during that story last year at the community center," I recalled. "When I introduced myself as your friend, she reeled back away from me and said 'you must be Rory's nutso classmate.' And when I asked her where she heard that..."  
   
"Dean," Rory finished. "I can understand your hostility towards him, seeing as he thought while Jess was flirting with me that I was using you as an excuse for actual study and paper sessions." Tucking back her hair, she told me how she felt about his opinion. "I always thought of you as focused, not crazy. I could never think that of you because of your drive. I think sometimes he did see you as a threat to him."

That was a shocking revelation; I couldn't see myself as any threat in the least.  
   
I asked Rory to explain further. "Put it this way: almost everyone in the Hollow would prefer I stayed with Dean. Two days after I don't know how many people came up to me and were sorry I couldn't work things out with him. Even Lane couldn't see that I was unhappy and frustrated being with him." I nodded as she went on. "If it would have been up to him, Washington never would have happened. I...I told him after the wedding, back at the house." For a beat she hesitated, unsure of how to go about telling me about what she wanted to. "It was just after I had no reaction to Jess's kiss, and your call that we won. I felt guilty about a kiss we didn't enjoy, and at the same time I was all 'I'm going to Washington, with Paris, whom I'd rather have more than Dean.'"  
   
"You...you were thinking that?" I was internally beaming. She nodded in affirmation. "So what did he say?"  
   
"Pretty much that he was angry with you for ruining his summer, that he had everything planned out." I felt my stomach twist as she summarized Dean's reaction to Washington. "He told me that he hoped I had a nice summer, and that..." A pause from her. "What he said next, I admit, I should've ended it after he said it, but he said later it was a spur of the moment reaction and I believed him." With a minute pause, she summoned up the words.  
   
"He said, 'I hope you and that stuck-up bull dyke have fun in DC. Tell her she ruined my summer and she's a'...oh God, I can't even say it." Oh dear.  
   
"What is it?" I asked, hoping it was a light insult.  
   
"Think about December 10th and what it is in relation to today," she suggested vaguely.  
   
"A Tuesday...next...oh." Rhyme said word with the last name of the host of _Candid Camera_ , and you've got what Dean called me.

I couldn't even react to the fact Dean could see right through me, that one of the reasons I had Rory as my VP was to deepen our friendship. It hurt me to know that he managed to keep her so much longer than he should have.  
   
"That's when he suddenly didn't mind going to Chicago with his parents. He apologized just before I left for Washington to keep us together, but it damaged me," she admitted. "When he called you that, it brought things to a head because after we made up after the debate, I wanted to build a bond that would last, that wouldn't tear us apart, and though I was scared to be your vice president, in reality I wanted that responsibility. But every school decision I've made, he questioned. From the sorority, to the _Franklin_ story, and especially that night you came over for study help. You've interrupted any opportunity he's had to get closer to me, and though I've been more than willing in the past to go further with him, he never seemed to be in the mood. I guess he could only get off sexually to me when he was competing with someone else for my attention."  
   
"Most awkward threesome ever," I commented with a smirk. "Who would've thought the idea of me in the same room gets him all hot?"  
   
"I don't think it was you, it's the whole defending the caveman thing with him. He needed me all to himself, and if anyone staked a claim, he was going to show them that I was off limits." I could never get enough of Rory's theories, constructed from a mix of her studies and pop culture, they always sound just perfect to me. Thinking of her next to me, a mile and a half still between us and Chilton, I was beginning to feel a bit empowered myself. If not for the election, things would be different. Rory would be the middle cog in a hellish love triangle, and who knows where I'd be? Dean certainly would have been happy.  
   
Well, not happy. Mildly pleased, probably. That guy wouldn't know how to be happy if a clown drive-pied him in the face, always so 'I want to work on my car,' and 'stay away from her, ruffian!' Madeline and I still laugh when we recall that moment he tried to fight Tristan and the best insult he could come up with was _Dristan_. Seriously, c'mon; if you're going to come to blows with an ex-crush of mine, it better not be with a name **I** came up with all the way back in 1987 to tease him with in preschool!  
   
Ex issues aside, another pressing matter was making itself known, and that was Rory having not yet had her caffeine fix. We had shoved it aside and I knew without one cup of coffee, Rory was apt to lose her wired focus. I was also hungry, since the activities of the evening past and the two hours before had exhausted me, and truthfully I was barely keeping my own eyes open. I needed a sugar fix and I was craving something to eat.  
   
Additionally to my surprise, I was also craving satisfying my girlfriend as we ended the whole Dean topic. The way she looked, her blouse on, but untucked, tie hanging lazily off to one side and her hair messy and not done up. We had stopped at three or four lights on the way down Mountain and each time I snuck looks at her, up and down.  
   
Most of them landed down as I noticed her pale legs in the corner of my eyes and how smooth they were as I kept my hand on her thigh. Unwittingly, I had moved it up while I tried to comfort her, and at that moment, the heel of my hand rested at the hem of her skirt. I scratched her thigh to keep her from going off and it seemed to have calmed her down from totally flaming Dean and back to normal.  
   
I was feeling so nervous, looking at the clock on the console, reading 7:57am. I found myself trying to keep my focus on the busy road in front of me, while at the same time trying to gauge whether I should do something before school. I tried to convince myself of the fact there were only eight minutes to go and that I shouldn't.  
   
Still, I was hungry though. I needed to stop for something to eat before school, anything. But, that would mean we'd be stopped for three minutes within a drive-thru waiting for our order, then making the transaction with the window cashier.  
   
That's when my inner vixen came into play. We were about 3/4 of the way to school when ahead was the familiar pastel logo of Dunkin Donuts on the road. Usually I would want to go further and head to Starbucks, but with it being the morning after Thanksgiving weekend, it was most likely crowded, and I was also hungry for something more than a bagel with cream cheese. I needed something to bite into, something sweet...

The same thought somehow leeched into my thoughts about pulling something with Rory. I had been going slow to take in everything she said, and to hear her say she dealt with the idiot farm boy five months further without wanting to throttle him, I was interested. The talk that he seemed to only want to get his freak on whenever Jess cock-blocked him, or that I took Rory away, I was picturing my girlfriend during one of those times with that guy getting his game on while she was trying to pack or calm him down so they could have a rational conversation.  
   
 _Hmm_. The gears were indeed spinning as I tried to decide what I wanted at the light from the doughnut shop, but also to give Gilmore a reason to think I wanted her, no matter what our moods were. She just happened to choose that moment to find her positioning uncomfortable and uncrossed her legs.  
   
I should have probably mentioned that in the rush to get in the car fast, she wasn't fully sitting on the back of her skirt so it was pushed up in the back, to the point where I saw hints of orange and polka dots when she uncrossed. Also, since she had her button-down sweater in the back, she only had on her blouse, not hiding skin behind her usual tank top, so I could look into a couple of gaps between buttons, and see bits of her bra.  
   
She was a bit distracted, but more from the rush to get to school than from my wandering hand, now just a bit inside of her skirt.

Uggh, I felt like a horny 13 year-old boy thinking of her like this when I should have been focused on AE coming up!  
   
But I couldn't help it: she just looked so sexy and here I was, still feeling a slickness between my legs because her actions of a half-hour before still hadn't left my mind. It was so wonderful and I felt like I wanted to return the favor, no matter that I had already gotten her unexpectedly in the shower.  
   
"Paris?" she asked as I flicked on the turn signal. "You really don't have to stop anywhere. We don't have time for anything--"  
   
"Actually," I interrupted, "we do." Making the turn into Dunkin Donuts, I squeezed my hand against her thigh. "I'm starving for something to keep me going until lunch, and that warm Diet Rite in my locker is not going to get me by. I need to eat something." Slowing down, I looked towards her, her stare frozen on me with my wandering hand. "I would, however, advise that you buy a coffee you can get down quickly..."  
   
 _OK, Par, here goes nothing._ I turned on the flirting as I let my foot off from the gas just as we passed a display board advertising the chain's new iced coffee drink. Pointing it out, I used it to my advantage. "Preferably, something cold." We came to a stop in the drive-thru lane behind an SUV and I looked at her again for the first time in two miles.  
   
My voice was deepened as I tried to explain my intentions. "We might as well face the music, Gilmore. There's no way we will make it to school on time. Thankfully we have enough goodwill built up that one tardy slip will not irreparably harm us." I smiled, watching Rory's eyes widen as I made another move up her thigh.  
   
"We can't be late though; we'll be in trouble."  
   
"From Mr. Silvestri? I doubt it." I moved higher again, the skirt dragging up her thigh as I pushed myself along. "It is the first day back from break and I'm sure we can find many excuses to tell him where we were that we came in late." Working so far, her breath is deepening and there seemed to be less resistance than I previously thought. "I especially have a great one, what with the jet lag I'm still suffering from."  
   
"But you didn't change time zones. He'll never believe that."  
   
"Understandable. Howevern I did change climes. Going from Florida sun to Connecticut chill, he will have some sympathy for me." I brought my eyes down further, seeing that I was halfway between the usual landing of her hem, and where the waistband was. Right in the middle was my goal.  
   
"Rory," I said, bringing the conversation back towards ordering off the menu. "You can have whatever you want." The last three words were said in a way that suggested more than a menu choice. Her eyes stayed on mine while her face flushed with each additional inch of travel from my hand.  
   
Diverting attention from herself, she tried to avert. "I'll just take a coffee. I'm good."  
   
"Just a coffee?" I whispered towards her. "So even if I offered you sweets without my usual lecture, you're not going to bite?"  
   
She rationalized her reason. "I won't have time to enjoy whatever I get."  
   
OK, she wasn't latching on to the open flirt, my offer, or my lack of caring about my class attendance for once. You'd think she would have enjoyed getting me to skip, but I guess not.  
   
There had to be another way to go about this. I knew she was craving me, but I had to find the right button. The last statement hung in my brain, that she wouldn't have time to enjoy her food.  
   
Little did I know that for once, traffic was going to cooperate with me.  
   
As I looked over the menu I found my ears attentive to a sudden breaking traffic story on a low volume on the radio.  
   
That number? 691. Also known as my usual alternate route should the Route 91 exits be overloaded.  
   
We were nowhere near the scene, but as it turned out, even if I had done the usual drive down and then back, we'd be in the same situation but in a different setting, as Trafficopter 1080 relayed the details...  
   
 _This is one of the worst accidents to ever affect a Hartford rush hour and traffic has not moved since 7am this morning on all three sides of the 91/691 interchange, backed up a mile each way. Nothing is moving, and the alternate routes are not looking any better. What a way to start the holidays back to work, folks!  
   
_ If Rory hadn't decided to make her trip up last night, we would have been in that junction, right in the thick of the jam. I turned up the radio as the reporter went on about how the inconvenient events of a state salt truck tipping over, a Wonder bread truck breaking the Jersey barrier, blocking seven lanes of traffic, and a high-speed police chase that ended with the chasee on his roof, came together to create a traffic mess that I was glad not to be a part of.  
   
At that moment I looked towards Rory with a mile-wide smile, my libido rising as I had found exactly the opening I was looking for...  
   
Not **that** opening, what are you thinking?! Let me build this up, please!  
   
"Paris?" Rory was questioning as she took in my suddenly relaxed demeanor when I sighed in relief that the pressure was off. "Um, I guess you're happy we're not in that mess, right?"  
   
I tossed my hair back and just smiled at her, staying silent as I used my arm to push up the armrest, which I would usually do to expose the cupholders and CD tray I never used due to my iPod-based music listening. However, it gave me more maneuvering room for what I was about to do. I rubbed her thigh in a circle and noticed that her breathing was deepening.  
   
"Paris?" She looked towards me, her voice shaking. "Is there anything wrong? Traffic jams are not a good thing, you know this. Right?" Moving it up even more...  
   
"They can be." I licked my tongue around my lips, feeling a new sense of confidence. I hadn't thought about doing this at all and I was going to enjoy another opportunity to be spontaneous. "I figure that if we hadn't have been at my home this morning, we might have been fogging up these windows near mile 72."  
   
Rory's eyes immediately widened as I took the opportunity to push her skirt up a little more. "Oh my God!" She blushed red and looked straight ahead at the SUV. "Paris, we can't do this. Not here! We don't have time!"  
   
My digits went in closer and closer. "I can make time," I responded slyly. "Tell me, are you wound up from being all fake and cheery with my mother?"  
   
She shook her head, yet I could tell she was lying through her teeth, affected by my touching. "We have to focus on first period."  
   
With that I got assertive, gritting my teeth and forcing out my next statement with all the firmness I was able to muster. "Screw first period." At that moment, my index finger arrived at the edge of her panties and she began to pant in anticipation. "We can skip it, can't we?"  
   
"No, we can't!" She opened her mouth, wide, yet didn't seem to find my advances unwelcome. "You're kidding, right? You, who attended an entire day of school with a 103° fever, in isolation in the health room, want to skip a class."  
   
Smirking, I nodded that indeed, I did. Then I pushed closer towards her in the seat, as far as the belt would allow me. "Gilmore..." I said softly, in a whisper. "What you did for me this weekend meant more to me than any class, any charity function could have. You let me be me, and by doing that, you worked me so damned perfectly." I nipped at her ear, then kissed the lobe as I made it clear I wasn't going back to class without having my way with her. "If we don't skip first hour, I swear to God I will take you out of second period under the guise of editorial work in the darkroom." My old personality was out to play and it was hungry for her. "So it's your choice: you fuck off a class you've pretty much aced right now, or you come to the office second period. Somehow, I know that you won't jeopardize AP Calculus for the sake of balming your itch."

I knew smugly that I was right about that. She will ditch any class she can, but as math isn't her strong suit, wanted to polish it off so the next semester she would finally be free of the stress of numbers. I played with her more as we moved forward in the drive-thru, almost to the menu board. "I know you want me, Ror. You've been itching for more touch since you got out of that shower. Tasting me on your tongue, you want more; it's like an intoxicant. We have the proper excuse, the proper needs..." I moved my hand out of her skirt, where I saw her become relieved for a moment.  
   
At least until I applied my fingers to the catch hook holding the blue kilt onto her. She sucked in her stomach and closed her eyes, her breathing becoming even more rushed.  
   
"We also have the proper place to do this." Staring at me, her face flared a deep red as she began to realize there was no kidding around. I slid my index pad in the space where the catch slid out. "I want you, Rory. If you don't want to, I'll be fine with that. But..." Turning around while undoing the snap keeping her in, I feigned interest in the menu board. "I'd rather that we do it now; you don't know how busy we'll get this week. Wednesday is going to be horrible, we have government on Tuesday, Thursday I come over for movie night and Friday, can't do it because of your grandparents." I was getting her there slowly and surely as we pulled to the board. "Meanwhile, you should order what you want. We wouldn't want you to wear out on an empty stomach, dear."  
   
I reached into the back for her sweater vest, putting it between the seats to shield my teasing. I kept my eyes on her, wanting to get her warmed up as much as I could in the next ten minutes. Looking down, she thought about my proposition, unsure for a few moments.

"Look, give it some thought while we order." I took my hand out from the skirt and moved it along her arm to calm her nerves, realizing that maybe I was pressing her a little hard. Going over my words, they were mostly encouraging, but I may have come on a bit strong. I wanted to turn her on, but I didn't want to do so because I was ordering her to--it needed to be natural. "If you want to, it's fine. But if you're not receptive, I will cope." I smiled at her as the order taker welcomed me and asked what I wanted.  
   
"I'm having a blueberry-filled jelly doughnut, and a hazelnut decaf, light sugar, soy milk." No need for the strong stuff this morning at all: I was wide awake. I asked him to read off my coffee order once again just to double-check for accuracy, though it was also to give Rory a few more seconds of thought. There was a palpable tension within the interior of the car as my rationality tried to turn things around, making me think I was in the wrong for being so overtly sexual.  
   
 _You can't do this. This is going to turn into something like you'd have with Tristan. You make out, you leave. There's no relationship there_. I was being dissuaded from my actual thoughts towards those I'd have if I was still not her girlfriend. _Do you really think you have a relationship with her, seriously? At best lately, it's been fun, but it's not a foundation_.

What was I thinking? Why, when I'm the happiest I've been in almost eight years, would I want to be self-destructive and question my heart, which was basically crying out that everything was fine? I was trying to get out of it, with every other thought in my head going towards the conclusion that this was my first step down the road of corruption and that I would never recover.

I get that thought from skipping one class!? I mean, God, Louise has spent as many as three periods in a supply closet with a guy and she seems fine. It wasn't as if I was going to knock off a gas station! I just wanted 45 more uninterrupted minutes with the girl I know more and more is my equal in everything. Did I have to doubt everything? My gaze directed towards the clock...8:01am. _You can still make it_.  
   
I was frustrated. One side of me was pulling towards the developing plan while the other was pulling me hard, back to Chilton. I didn't know where to turn and I was lost in my thoughts so much that I completely missed Rory's order, tuned out over my battling ids. Any more bickering between myself and I'd need a hand drill! I tried to relax with a focal point, but good luck when the only thing directly in front of you is the dumpster box emblazoned with the Waste Management logo.  
   
 _Just go to school. She's not in the mood, don't bother!_ I felt myself directing towards heading towards Chilton, no matter my hormones. _Eight in the morning is not the time to be thinking about her sexually, so just stop. Keep your eyes straight on the road, get to Chilton, and you won't be tempted by her until 4:30!  
_    
But could I live with that? I was so into the idea of giving her pleasure that I felt bottled up with wanting to do it. But was I pushing things too fast? What happened to my pledge to Ms. Gilmore of being Ice Age slow? Surely, Rory was feeling overwhelmed that I was showing such a sexual interest in her.  
   
It was then I found myself so buried in my thoughts that Rory was tapping me on the side, worried I was blanking out.  
   
"Hello? Paris?" That's when I came back to reality and found the four cars in back of me blaring on their horns and the cashier reminding me of the total and to pull up to the window.  
   
"Are you OK?" She asked with concern.

I shook myself, blinked a couple of times, and turned towards her. "I'm fine, Rory. Sorry about that, I guess I need that coffee soon." I put the car back into drive and began to pull up to the window.  
   
"We're both a little off this morning," she surmised, looking towards my still resting hand against her thigh. "Hopefully when we get to Chilton before second period, we'll be fine."  
   
"Yeah, it takes a little bit to work yourself back into habit after Thanksgiving break." I reached into my wallet to pull out a debit card to pay. "It's also good to change routine sometimes, but I'm just not used--"  
   
 _Wait, wait, backup the conversation there, Mabel._ I had to stop as I found myself again a victim of a delayed reaction. "Hold on, what were you saying?"  
   
"That we'll be relaxed once we get to school at 8:55."  
   
"Huh?" I was seriously confused. "What are you talking about?"  
   
"You honestly didn't hear me?" I shook my head. "That I'm welcome to participating in your bad girl fantasy?"

I quivered as she used the 'bad girl' term, for I certainly am not that, at least in the more common parlance. I stared at her and she put her hand on top of mine. "Seriously, you get yourself too wound up on the negative. I just needed some time to think, I got it, and I want to have some fun."  
   
I couldn't even react as, suddenly, Rory pushed my hand the remainder the way up her skirt and, hidden by the sweater, my fingers were against her sodden core. I gasped aloud as I realized just how much I was affecting her. Her eyes were hooded and she sucked in her stomach, reacting to my foreign touch. I remembered my surroundings just then however and that in a few feet, a window clerk was going to get a gander at me torturing my girl. I pulled back, despite Rory's protest.  
   
"Par..."  
   
I waved my finger at her in a scolding fashion. "We'll have plenty of time for that later. But I'm hungry and I'm sure you are too."  
   
"Oh, fine." She pouted in her seat as she pushed her skirt back down. "I swear that sometimes what you do to tease me violates the Geneva Convention."

I laughed aloud as we pulled up to the window, leaving her with something to take in mind. "Oh, what I'm doing now?" After handing the card off, I kissed her, then whispered into her ear.  
   
"Minor leagues. I'm just getting started with you, Gilmore." I pulled away, watching the brunette shudder at exactly what I have in mind for us in the future. She was probably coming to realize why I suggested the iced coffee at that point.  
   
 _This is going to be fun_ , I thought to myself, thinking about how far we had come since I placed that phone call Thursday evening. I wouldn't have fathomed how coming out to Lorelai would have speeded things out up or made us push things along. But there's no doubt about how much we like each other anymore: it's very apparent.  
   
I could only hope that I wouldn't regret this in the end.  


* * *

**_To be continued...  
   
_ Author's note: **I'm sure some of you are wondering about why I inserted a mention of Paris having an ankle tattoo in there. Well, Liza has one in real life, and if you go to either my ff.net profile or [here](http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/5798/hairmakeup18iz1.jpg), you'll see why I inserted it within the story (beyond my own want to have it in there and Danielle's own thing for Kat Von D of _LA Ink_ ). I just thought it as an appropriate bonding mechanism between the girls, and if I explained it the right way, it wouldn't be jarring to anyone.  
   



	17. Red-Hot Embraces, Ice-Cold Comfort, and a Good Kind of Different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pondside provides the perfect setting for Paris and Rory to eschew their usual academic mindsets and indulge in their own wants and desires.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Seventeen | Red-Hot Embraces, Ice-Cold Comfort, and a Good Kind of Different**  
 **Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Spoilers:** Once again, outside the events of the actual season three, after _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_ , at the very beginning of December 2002. No spoilers for the show beyond those already mentioned.  
 **Rating:** Hard R (sexual situations and profanity)  
 **Disclaimer:**   Show isn't mine. Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dorothy Parker Drank Here created it. Warner Bros. Television produces it and distributes it. The CW aired it but decided to end it because it had some boring family show which is pretty much " _Everwood_ goes to South Africa, except it's boring, the wife still lives, there's a local-born population of one and it sucks...look, a cute lion cub! Awwwwww!!" David Rosenthal screwed it up. All products mentioned within are the trademarks of their respective owners (though I somehow think Unilever will be somewhat chagrined by the Vaseline mention).  
Oh, and thanks to Wikipedia and Scarleteen for providing me insight into some sexual matters. I don't want this to end up a bodice-ripper with clichés ahoy, so some real-life insight was needed into several subjects within the narrative.  
 **Summary:** A pondside provides the perfect setting for Paris and Rory to eschew their usual academic mindsets and indulge in their own wants and desires.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** Sometimes it is a curse to write extremely long chapters, and this is one of those cases. I was ill-timed on my beta because my partner was just going back to school, and she has her own things to do in life, like write really hawt sex about the _Grey's_ and _Prada_ ladies...oh and that getting an education thing, I keep forgetting about those pesky learnings. Besides, I am hoping to have a new chapter out by the holidays, so enjoy this one for awhile :).  
   
As usual, Danielle, thank you for your tireless betaing, lesser beings would have crumpled months ago. The chapter title is an amalgam of things brought up throughout the chapter.  


* * *

 _You have arrived at your destination_. The voice of my GPS signified where we were, deep within a large forest preserve in New Britain next to a pond, in a place where I knew there was no chance a morning jogger would encounter us, which is what I was afraid of if I went to the park closest to Chilton. It also gave the both of us time to eat and recharge as I ate my jelly-filled doughnut without any of the usual Sharon-fed guilt about whether I'd have an acne breakout from eating one pastry. Thankfully it was a nice big doughnut and the coffee perked me up like I wanted. Surprisingly, Rory enjoyed her iced coffee, drinking down the cool beverage on the way to the preserve and enjoying how sweet it was, although she said it could've been better with fewer ice cubes diluting the drink. Considering how she usually described Luke's brew like she did an orgasm, I was happy that for once I got her to give a bit as to that opinion.  
   
Pulling into the gravel lot next to the pond, I was taken aback by the beauty of the setting. We were in a clearing canopied by trees with a quarter covering of leaves yet still to fall, while the water shimmered below the cool December sun shining down from below. I still felt tight from my suggestion, and in the back of my mind, I kept reminding myself that seven minutes before the tardy bell had rung to the east at Chilton. I was so paranoid about being discovered that I took a little-used route through a cemetery to get to the park. Rory kept my nerves quiet by touching my hand when we stopped at intersections, reminding me her academic career wasn't finished off by her trip to Brooklyn.  
   
"We're in your car," she reminded me, "not a closet at school. Sure, it's more confined, but it smells better than a mix of Windex and Pledge."

"Uh, yeah." I shook my head, trying to draw out the image of her against a tool cabinet. She was much sexier in a setting like this than she was stuck having to hope the janitor didn't walk in. The closer we neared to the park, the faster my heart beat. I tried to keep my speed in control, but once we were in the preserve proper where cops weren't monitoring, I had the speedometer up to 40 in a 10 mph zone. I wanted to do this and there was nothing to stop us.  
   
When I stopped I took a look at my girlfriend, her right hand tight against the armrest on the door as my fingers danced against the outside of her thigh. She brushed stray hair behind her ear, and as the finality of the fact we weren't going into school yet hit her, she had unbuttoned her blouse down a couple of places. The tall girl bit down on her lip and regarded me carefully, hoping not to be caught off-guard. From my read, I think she was expecting something sexual yet a bit tame from the lack of time that we had. Her breath was steady and I think she expected nothing more than me to scoot over and do what I needed to do within her seat.

I knew what I wanted needed all the room I could get. Turning off the engine, I kept the battery on and tuned the satellite radio into a classical station lacking vocals, turning the sound system low to be barely discernable, while keeping the heat on since the outdoor thermometer read 37°.  Then, I got comfortable, unlacing my shoes and sliding out of them. I directed a look towards Rory, my want for her magnifying as she took a look at the area in front of the pond outside of the car.

I asked her to remove her own shoes and she complied, quickly taking them out from the loose knots I had done in the rush from the Manor. Putting them off to the farthest part of her side of the car, she was in anticipation for what I would do to her. Most likely she was expecting a Dean-like makeout with me moving into her seat.  
   
Instead, I finally used the deep unused backseat of the Jag to my advantage for the first time since I got it. I decided to play sweet yet firm as I seduced her. She moved in for a kiss and a hug to bring me towards her...  
   
I didn't let her in though, pushing into her, forcing her into an Indian-style crossing of her legs on her seat as I moved over, taking care not to spill either of the coffee cups sitting in the cupholders. I moved my hand towards where the adjustment levers were and before she could realize it, she was finding her seat reclining back. I took her by the side, resting my hand against the side of her skirt as I waited for the seat to tip back, giving us a clearing into the backseat area.  
   
She made strangled noises, trying to say something but failing to as I pushed closer towards her. I found her beginning to react a little, wrapping around me, untucking the blouse, trying to work it out from the skirt. Her pupils retracted in as the seat reclined further and further, until it stopped against the edge of the back seat.  
   
"We're going in the back," I stated firmly, releasing the lever and rising up a little to give Rory a little wiggle room into the back. Her thoughts as she scooted her way up the front seat and into the back suggested that she was expecting for me to stay on top of her the whole way into the back seat.

I didn't want this to be easy for her. In the shower, I wanted speed to make her come. But here, I was willing to linger and make her work for it. She then lay down on the seat, expecting me to follow shortly.  
   
But I stayed still, waiting until she was lengthwise with the back with a bit of a curve to rest her feet against the back of the seat. As a former dancer I can be serpentine, bending myself where I needed to. Sure, I had forty more pounds on my frame since 'the change,' but I could still bend myself relatively well, which came to my advantage during the home projects in the tight areas of crawl spaces and attics.  
   
I moved to the farthest side of the car, keeping my eyes on Rory's. Her mouth was open and there was obvious questioning on her face as to what I would do. Determining where I wanted to start my minstrations I stripped myself of the sweater I had on rather quickly, tossing it onto the steering wheel, untucked what Ror hadn't of the blouse, and undid three buttons, enough to keep her attention from drifting. I wanted her to remember this morning; I know I wouldn't forget it rather easily for quite a time.  
   
I stared her down, solemn and rigid. Scanning down her body, her skirt wrinkled up her legs, pushed up to the top of her thighs in the front and completely hiked up in the back. She kept still and quiet, waiting for me.  
   
I pulled myself up on the seat on that far side, hoping it would support me enough from not being in the middle, which thankfully it did with a bit of a creaking sound.  
   
"Scoot up a bit," I asked, wanting to have room for what I would do for her. She did that and I pulled myself up further until I came to where I needed to be. I began to feel my fears melt away as I got deeper into the seduction, relieved that Ror wasn't leery of what I wanted. I was going to go at her speed and I expected that with her tongue work of earlier, I had a larger canvas to draw on than originally expected.  
   
I was where I needed to be, right at one of her feet. I actually was a bit disappointed earlier that she didn't do a kiss-up after she discovered my tattoo, for I would have welcomed that. I could do the next best thing though.  
   
I bared my teeth in a smile and then took each foot and stripped her of her socks, rolling them down her ankles and tossing them back onto the dashboard. She shuddered when I did it.  
   
"Oh, God!" I parted her legs a bit, although she tightened her thighs to prevent me from having an early peek. "What are...what--"  
   
I shushed her and proceeded to move up her body. If she thought I was relentless in the sex dreams she's told me about, she had no idea what the real woman could do to her.  
   
I began her wonderful torture with a light kiss to her largest toe. Each of her nails, unlike my unpolished ones painted in an autumnal color of a light maroon. I kissed the tip, taking in the salty taste, imaging myself applying the polish to them instead of herself or her mother. She reacted with a hiss, holding onto the opening of the pocket behind the driver's seat with her left hand. Obviously, she was still so very wound up despite appearances on the outside.  
   
The drive had done its job; I got her back into the mood. I moved up her foot, the beautiful arch of it always having drawn me in all summer, as she wore heeled sandals that bared it fully around Washington. I could see her eyes draw down as I reached the junction of her ankle, where I then went for a kissing line up the middle of her leg. I drew out sighs and moans, moving up slowly, an inch every ten seconds. She was so wound up that she braced her other foot against the door. I took in the lavender scent of her skin, mixed with talc...so simple, but still beguiling; it drew me in further. With each touch of my mouth to her skin she reacted a new way, her eyes tightening closed, nose flaring, a new sound arising from her throat. I couldn't help but lathe my tongue against her skin and I was so gone, tasting her, the definition of the bone so firm. Undoubtedly, she was bringing herself into this.  
   
My cascading hair tickled her, threatening to deter me off-track, but she stayed as still as she could. But I could sense there was another type of movement, one I didn't detect until I was past her knee, when I felt her thigh dart up and down slightly.

Kissing around the hollow and then up, I stopped when I felt the slight shift and darted myself up to stare down at her.  
   
I demanded that she had to let me do what I wanted. "Gilmore, break your other leg apart, _now_."

Caught, she tried to explain. "I...I wasn't doing anything. That was involuntary."

I shook my head. "Don't do it."  
   
"But--"  
   
I lowered my voice into a growl. "I said, keep them apart, or else." I was predatory, asserting the most control I could without scaring her. "If you don't, I'll make you work much harder for release." She could sense I was serious and quickly opened her legs apart. With that, she could no longer shield herself using the skirt, letting me look right up it. I had the sunroof open, but with a tree shadow casting against the glass, I didn't have a great view of her lower portion from where I was.  
   
I continued my trail, her womanhood so enticing. Her hand tightened against the pocket opening as I moved higher, her smell more apparent with each peg up. She continued to groan while I kissed up her smooth limb, her nerves tightening up as I pushed ever closer to her center. Slowly torturing her, drawing her out despite her pleading and begging for more contact with me, I kept my feet balanced against the seat so I could hover over her, hands to each side.

I watched her undo the cuffs on each side of her blouse to hasten the eventual undressing process. I kept my focus trained as I continued up, until eventually my fingers were again at the hook of her skirt, where one easily flick would work it open.  
   
"You want this, hon?" I asked, my voice a whisper.

"Oh, God." She was whimpering at my words, totally taken and far gone. "Please...undo it. Push up my skirt."  
   
I unhooked the article, loosening it across her stomach, and then let my head begin to dip beneath the fabric as I left a damp trail of my kisses all along the length of her legs. As I dipped in further, I couldn't only see the effects of my flirting and teasing on her, but I could smell it too. Her arousal had a deep, raw fragrance about it, mixed in with the scent of the new cotton which was residing against her sopping mound. I felt a bit of her fingers flailing across the back of my head, an encouragement to explore farther. My nose trailed the inner portions of each thigh, the high cut of the panty giving me plenty to probe until I met her junction. Her breath shortened with each small touch, her skin pricking up with goosebumps while she crossed her legs involuntarily, a feeling unfamiliar to her previously from someone foreign.  
   
I slid all the way off from the seat, and with my hands free from propping, began to slide the skirt up on each side from mid-thigh, pushing it out, while I peeked my tongue out to probe at the frills on each side of her underwear. I left small kisses on each side, moving closer to her covered slit with each peck, rolling up the skirt as I went along. She was distracted, wanting more and more. I could just imagine what was going through her mind, what she thought I was going to do, trying to predict my sexual pattern for this session.  
   
She lifted herself up to let the skirt pool up along her stomach. Rolling it up to the waistband, I tucked it into there. I moved my mouth towards her center, then laid kisses along her slit.  
   
I inhaled the scent...immediately I closed my eyes, taking in Rory's raw essence. In a word, she's very much indescribable. I brushed my nose across the mound, defined on each side by a trail of slick arousal. I feared touching her with my hand, afraid to get her off like a hair trigger. I didn't want this to end within a moment, sp I needed to elongate it as much as I could.  
   
I had to be evil...be bad to her. I wanted to be dominant and make it known to her that I wouldn't accept this basic make-out as utterly sexual. What was good enough for Tristan, or your average girly tease influenced by intoxicants, it was downright primary in my book, and I'm sure that Rory wanted something more than what we've done so far.  
   
Looking for an idea, I tried to come up with something, turning my head around towards the front seat to catch a breath.  
   
Suddenly, it was right in front of my face what would take this to the next level.  
   
In front of me behind the lowered headrest, sat the clear plastic cup which contained Ror's iced coffee, a treat for her, something she had never tried before and very much enjoyed.  
   
My mind immediately brought up an idea, which I felt myself immediately flush deep thinking about.  
   
 _Oh, you're not going to do that. You're insane, Paris; what are you thinking? Lose that idea right now!  
_    
If you thought that was my mind trying to stop me, I'm afraid you are be mistaken.  
   
Instead of encouraging me on, my inner vixen was trying to dissuade me from doing what I wanted.  
   
But you see, I'm the type who enjoys experimenting, at work, or at play. Whether it was a dance when I was younger or trying to find an answer that the teacher's edition didn't come up with, I didn't want to take the easy way to get what I wanted. I always went for the hardest, riskiest track towards what I wanted. I wanted to take the risks and be the trailblazer, tradition be damned.  
   
"Rory," I firmly warned. "Close your eyes, tight." I moved up to look at her. "Do it, now." Already feeling so turned on that she didn't want to disobey me, she shut them and lay back down quickly. There was no questioning or second guessing that I had free reign upon her from hereon out.  
   
Now if I could keep that control....

I lifted myself up and then unbuttoned my blouse down the rest of the way, followed by the cuffs, until finally throwing it towards the steering wheel when I stripped it off. I didn't need it in the way certainly, and I wanted my breasts on as much of a display for my girl as possible. I moved to straddle her just above her knees.  
   
I drew my attention to the coffee, debating internally if I wanted to do what I was thinking. I went back and forth, thinking in the terms of Rory's possible reaction. I knew I could try anything with her but I wasn't sure if this was too much.  
   
Truthfully though, I knew that I wanted to do it, judging from interesting dreams I've had in the past of her in similar situations, only with a different extreme.  
   
 _She's told you before if she doesn't like it, you can move on, no harm or foul_. I remembered back to Thursday when she let me know she'd try something if it worked for her at the end of my...phone job. I still don't know what to call that really. But it was sort of the carte blanche I needed, that I already had her permission to try what I wanted. If she didn't like it, fine, but if she did, it would pay dividends. It would show me that where we were heading sexually was the right road to go down.  
   
And on the surface, it was completely innocent. It was something good to explore, and at the same time, pretty educational too. Really, while kissing her up and doing what I wanted, I was doing an extra-curricular research project, trying to find out what got Rory hot.

 _Yeah._ Finally, my mind was getting behind it under the auspices of human sexual emotion, and my vixen was getting too overwhelmed not to experiment with her. Frankly, if I didn't then, it would have happened sooner or later. Might as well strike while the match is hot.  
   
I dipped my nose back within the invisible line while stretching out my right hand and grabbing the cup in a loose grip. I pushed up the cup to force the lid and straw off, and nudged with my wrist at the back seat cupholder to open it up so I could replace the cup inside of it. I put it in, distracting Rory with some outer thigh kissing which kept her as distracted as I could get her. Her gasps were impatient as she wondered what I had in my arsenal.  
   
Oh, did I have plenty to go around. Throwing the lid and straw into the front, the cool coffee was now open. I dipped a finger within the milky concoction, chilled ice cold. Suddenly feeling very seductive, I pinched my fingers around one of the many ice cubes floating on the surface of the drink. Taking it out, careful not to let it slip out of my grasp, I clenched it between my index and middle fingers, the far side jutting out from the underside of my finger.  
   
I gave an once-over of my girlfriend, making sure she hadn't peeked. My distractive kisses highlighted her beating heart much more in her ears than the rattling of the coffee and ice cubes.  
   
Very pleased with her shut eyes, I moved my hand down towards the top of her left knee as far as I could go, hovering the cube just a few millimeters above her skin. She didn't react at first, thinking my hands were already cold.  
   
"I dare you to move," I suggested in a husk, and then I set my hand down mid-point between her knee and apex.  
   
She took in a deep, sharp breath almost immediately. Her mouth opened wide, body jumping with the sudden change in temperature.  
   
"Yaahhhh!" She tried to keep still but found it hard. "WHAT THE--" I began to trail the hand up. "Paris!"  
   
"Eyes closed..." I reminded. "Mouth shut." I didn't stop my drift.  
   
"But--"  
   
"If I happen to recall, you seem to have heightened awareness when you're cold." I smirked down, circling the cube as I neared closer to her panties. "I'm just trying to test that. You get off on cold, so to speak. It helps you think better, keep your concentration." Oh, how I was going to tease her. "You always thought of me before as cold as ice, unbreakable; I hate yielding. You just think of me as probably boring, dull, not much for sexual experimentation--that's what you expected." Closer and closer, I bent over her, flitting more kisses around her delicate covered lower lips.  
   
"The moment you said I plan everything, I was pissed off, mad, angry that you would suggest I don't know how to be spontaneous. I didn't say so because it wasn't a big deal." The cube was moving closer to the leg opening..."But thinking about it, you were right. I plan. I overplan. I actually thought of us in calendar terms, that we wouldn't even get to feeling each other up until mid-December, and we wouldn't have ever had phone sex.  
   
"So you know what I did?" Oh, the ice was cold, goosebumps following down the trail of wetness as it drifted across Rory's pale skin. "I thought about what I wanted. Went over everything in my mind, my modus of organization, that yeah, I can fit a make-out in on the way home if traffic's good. Send that 'your eyes only' text at 10pm, when you're safe in your room. Our morning kiss happens at exactly ten after, and we'll be complacent in the speed of our relationship for the sake of our parents, appearances, and mores."  
   
She expected me to zig past her cleft most likely as whinnies of want pushed from her mouth. I started the direction that way, going right past the bottom of her mons and darting in along the far side, a 'safe' move. I had my full intensiveness on, my voice not drifting off at all but remaining at the same treble.  
   
I moved past her slit towards the waistband, knowing she was probably wanting to rub herself together. She wasn't going to know what hit her.  
   
"So if you don't mind," I said, faking as if I was about to pull away from her. Her body relaxed suddenly and I could tell from her body language that she was expecting me to do the right thing, to stop. "I am going to tell you..."  
   
She didn't notice that my free hand had slowly drifted up the top of the backseat along the speaker grille, my finger hooked in the child restraint anchor. I moved it down again, reaching it up as far up towards her blouse as I could, right at the middle of the shirt. I stared her down as her breaths drifted in and out, stomach rising and falling. I could tell she was thinking this would be the end, that yes, I was mad at her for thinking I couldn't be sexually spur of the moment. Anticipation built within her as she assumed that I was just teasing her.  
   
I pushed my hand into the space between the middle of her shirt, barely touching her skin. I lifted up the now-dripping ice cube so she could no longer feel it.  
   
The trap was set. I was ready to pounce.  
   
I quickly reached over to the cup to take an additional cube between my ring and pinky, moved the other cube to between my thumb and index and then moved it back in. I made sure my hand in her shirt was positioned just right.  
   
"I'm going to tell you that..." I dropped my hand abruptly upon the center of her mound. The top cube was at the edge of her opening while the bottom one was as low as I could go.  
   
Meanwhile, above, I began to unbutton her shirt as fast as I could. I positioned myself where I could be comfortable feeling her up and manually stimulating her and went in for the kill, baring my teeth out as I described how I wanted her.  
   
"We're no longer on a schedule." I pushed my fingers in, watching as she began to react to the coldness where she never expected it. "I'm done with just pushing things aside just because I have to study." One button on the blouse. "You will no longer think that I'm so green that I can't understand some concepts, because I want to learn; I **will** learn." I moved the cubes to line up between my index and middle, trailing down her hidden bud. "If its Friday night dinner and you're bored with Lorelai's newest argument with the grandparents, I want to be texted. I want to know what you're doing. I want to make you feel good." Two buttons down. "I will find a private place at whatever gathering Mother forces me into and I will call you to describe in detail what I wish I could be doing with you at that exact moment."  
   
Her throat tightened as I ran the cubes along the length of her slit, the cold water soaking through the material. "I'm done hiding, and I've held this want for you in for way too long." There go buttons three and four, leaving the topmost part of the blouse open. "When I was in the booth on Saturday, I did my back first and then the front. I kept thinking about you and how hungry I've been to have you. To feel you, want you...taste of you." I began to move my mouth closer to her mound, venturing the cubes higher towards her waistband to test the waters. "I fantasized about you in the booth, just taking my mind anywhere it wanted to go, my hands all over my body, just thinking of you, explicitly, full of desire. By the time the bell went off to tell me I was done, I felt not only perfectly dark, but..." The fifth button was undone. Her legs widened out as I let the ice drip onto the skin just above her waistband. I smiled. "I felt well-fucked."  
   
I was finding my groove (that's what it is, right? Is it notch? See, I'm bad with these slang terms sometimes...), getting her so wound up. I wasn't going to let her get off just yet though. She groaned as I described my tanning time, her own hands idly at her sides, brushing her outer thighs.

"Paris..." I don't think hearing my name as a breathy moan is something that will ever get old. "Oh dear, your hands...so soft."  
   
"Thank you," I whispered as I pushed in closer and closer towards her intimacy. "So I'm thinking about you on the flight home, wondering to myself, how can anything top having fun with myself while tanning? I mean, you're Rory Gilmore. You're the same girl who screamed out loud at some horny sophs when they commented on your ass, what, a year ago? With Tristan, you were clueless as to what 'studying' he actually wanted to do with you, and you never responded to his flirting. Somehow, as you became my lust object, I really felt guilty when I thought of you. I'd think of you as you were to start out, but by the end, you were aggressive, sexual, wanton." My lip quivered as I revealed my shame. "I...I tried to stop because that wasn't you. That wasn't the girl I knew; she would never do that. I stopped it when I touched myself, but when I dreamt of you, they wouldn't go away. I actually felt guilty reducing you down to the level of just a sexual outlet and nothing else. And then eventually, I brought you back into my sessions, but I remained guilty about it."  
   
I had undone the last blouse button and untucked it from the skirt on all sides, leaving her fully and completely open. There was no shielding on her part, nor were her hands stopping me. They stayed at her side. I let the ice go to rest near her navel, knowing exactly what I was doing.  
   
I pushed my hands down toward each side of her panties. I let my palms create a rolling motion as I changed the focus from the former fantasy to the current reality.  
   
I finished my ode before going further. "After last night, however, all that guilt is gone. Because my fantasies of you? They pale so much to having you in my arms, seducing me, getting me all hot, and then..." I took in her heady fragrance, the desire emanating from her so much. "Letting me do what I wanted to you, getting you off with only my words, the barest of touches. Then this morning, in the shower and on the desk, I know now that how we feel about each other shouldn't be something we stress or fret over."  
   
I worked the underwear in a fold-and-turn manner, working them from her hips in a tortuous manner. "Is there something that you want?" I asked her, letting my breath drift over her wet center. "I sense this is the wettest you've ever gotten when it comes to teasing. You go back, trying to think of when the other guy did this to you. But you can't; there's no comparison."

"I...I get deeply aroused," she explained. "I swear, it's only been with you though. When I had a damp dream of you and I this summer...I thought of the both of us in a side room off from Statuary Hall in the Capitol. I...I actually overslept on purpose the next morning so I could my sheets down to the laundry they were that ruined. I was so embarrassed that you might have thought I wet the bed."  
   
"And what were we doing in that room?" I asked, my lips pursing while I teased above, trailing my tongue down from her belly button.  
   
"Very naughty things," she hinted vaguely. As I rolled her panties down, I found the fringe of her hair. On a closer examination, it was even better to take in than just the feel up in the shower.  
   
"I fucked you, right?"  
   
"Oh, that you did...." she moaned deeply as she recalled. "You know those flags that stand to the side of podiums in live shots?" I mm-hmmed. "After we took off our clothes, you saw one off to the side, and suddenly, it was going from a quickie to...oh my God, I still get chills remembering it."  
   
"Tell me what happened, please." I was needy, desperate for this information that we used national symbols as sexual props. Usually, something to be discouraged, but in this case, to see the former Mary go into details about how she thought of me in bed, it made me want her even more.  
   
"You yanked an American flag off from its flagstaff, laid me down on it, and then," she lifted up her hips, anticipating my next move. "Well, I would suppose we'd be in big trouble with the Stars Hollow VFW for a crime against the Flag Code, but..." she trembled. "You told me there was nothing sexier to you than expressing your want for me on something you revered, proper decorum be damned."  
   
I shuddered internally, the idea that Rory would get off from me fucking her on the Stars and Stripes somewhat perverted (we had to see the Fort McHenry flag the day before at the Smithsonian; remind me not to visit the United Nations with her while she's in heat!). But in a fun way, it was kind of hot to think of her orgasming by my hand atop of Old Glory.  
   
It also drove me further. "You have some strange kinks there, Gilmore." I moved my nose closer, allowing her to open her eyes once again. "But then again, I shouldn't be surprised. You like to role-play...like that one time you faked being a Girl Scout?"  
   
"That was innocent!" she cried out. "I wasn't thinking dirty at all!"  
   
"Sure you weren't," I teased. "I kind of recall that the Juliet dress was so tight you had to forgo a bra."  
   
"So?"  
   
"You were hard. All those people watching you get a kiss from me?" Exposing the top of her lips, I dipped my nose within. "No wonder after Tristan left you began to get off to me. The immediate aftermath...'Oh God, I have to kiss Paris.' And as you take a look at the audience when you lay down on the table..." I breathed down her slit. "You suddenly found it might be fun. Interesting."  
   
I pulled her underwear down the rest of the way, exposing her to me once and for all. I took a look at the territory, like she had with me.  
   
She didn't seem off to me at all in any way. Her labia puffed out more than I expected but in a good way; that's probably what the girls teased her about. Her clit was fully aroused and the hair was perfectly slick with her cum, shining in the spare light. I felt so hot, glowing that I was the one to get her that way.  
   
"Admit it, Gilmore. If I would have kissed you, full on, with all of those people watching, including Dean and Lane...In that moment, I was the only one who could make out your nipples. I touched you and you gasped, surprised by the softness of my hand." Her panties were down to her knees now. "In that hall, you were highly aroused because of me. And if I would have kissed you..."  
   
Tentatively, I laid a soft peck on the center of her opening, letting a little tongue flitter go up her right lip as a sampler. Immediately, she reeled back.  
   
"I would have kissed you, just like that, Ror." My voice was firm and truthful. "If not for the fear the gossip mill would run rampant the next day, I would have given you a peck, just like I did now, and then collapsed, my hand somehow landing to cup your breast. In that moment, it came to me that I wanted you. That I wasn't sad for Tristan's departure. That from that point on, I had you all to myself."  
   
I applied my lips again, teasing at the space between her thighs. I was wanting to warm her up, letting the story wash over her before we went further.  
   
"I don't usually get sentimental like this, but with his departure, and with that almost kiss, I did die," I admitted, looking up at her, my hands soothingly rubbing her legs. "At least the old me did. The one who could bully you just for fun, order you around, didn't care how you felt about much--I just lived to torment you. But caught in the spotlight, thrust into it against my will..." I took in a breath and paused for a beat. "...And I finally faced up to facts. I pushed away from you because I wanted you."

"Don't...don't you mean...you want me?" she questioned, which had me caught.  
   
"I don't know." I firmed up, taking a few ice cubes into my hand. "The question is..." I brought it close to her, knowing that she was impatient for something. "Do you want me?"  
   
"Yeah, of course," she responded, rushing out the words. _Nope, not good enough for me_.  
   
Her shocked gaze took me in as I played with her once again. "Oh, I didn't mean like that. I know you enjoy kissing me, and more. The question is..." I palmed the cold ice chips, and ran it along her already reddened majora. "Do you **want** me? All of me? I enjoy all of you already, the way you caringly seduced me last night, and used the tattoo thing this morning to worm your way between my legs while I was completely cooperative." I slipped in one cube between her lips, letting it peek out halfway as I ran it lengthwise across the heated flesh. "Your body enjoys extremes, I know it. You flush red in the heat, shirk your layers, and you love being flirty in your cute little dresses, skirts and tops while you show off those legs." I watched her mouth widen as the cube ired her nerves. "But you enjoy cold much more. Your breasts are small, cute, quaint, but when it's cold, they tighten up and your nipples jut out, while you stretch a sweater over them. Your bottom half hardly goes unnoticed either; your ass looks so much better in a pencil skirt or jeans than it does in thin summer wear. You love to flatter it."  
   
"So the question is..." I asked again as she screamed out loud. "Do you want me? Can I have free reign? I want to get you off and I will make sure you remember this morning for years to come." Dipping the finger in slightly between her lips, I guided the cube along her opening...  
   
Then I let it push out at the engorged flesh of her erect clitoris.  
   
"FUCK!!!!!!!"  
   
Oh yeah, I had her. Her eyes shut, I took out the cube, widened out her lips, and then took her in fully into my mouth. "Paris...oh Christ. Oh God...yes!"  
   
"Yes what?" I mumbled.  
   
"Yes, take me. Have me. God, I'm so wet, so horny....you're driving me outta my mind here, evil woman!"

Oh, did I ever have to smile at that. "I'm evil, aren't I?" Immediately, I made a beeline for her clit, taking the nub into my mouth, suckling on it, taking her in and familiarizing myself with the new process previously known only through books and visual demonstrations.  
   
"Evil isn't enough, I should call you a dark mistress...ugggh..." I let my tongue do most of the work, using my mouth only for the teasing below. Her dampened mound was so slick, the scent coming off from her so enticing. It wasn't her usual neutral and innocent fragrance, mixed in with coffee. She pushed against me as I slid my tongue along the engorged flesh, taking it in a slow, exploring circle. I started at the top with the circle then moved down to the base, swirling the nub like an ice cream cone.  
   
Taking in her taste, I was unbelieving that this is where things had ended up. That a year-long crush could turn into something like this. When Mr. Silvestri should be saying 'Pencils down', Rory was in my backseat I was going down on her.  
   
I took in her gasps, rush and harried, judging if I was doing things right. I moved up and down along her lips for a bit, then back to her clit, looking up occasionally to see an image that I immediately knew would burn in my mind. Rory was looking down at me, pushing herself into a recline at her back in the seat against the locked door, her hair definitely turning from perfectly brushed to thoroughly ravished. Sliding my lower teeth along her button, she threw her head back, her shoulders hunched, pushed up against the faux-grain plastic of the back door.  
   
What really got to me, however, was how her breasts swelled against her bra. The swell of her bust was apparent through the dotted orange fabric. She threw her head back as she pushed both sides of the shirt from herself, the action forced the bra to slide up from her shoulders, to push up while she used her right hand to grip at the pull within the seat which opened it up into the trunk.

I shuddered, watching her moan my name as I took her in, my tongue trying to find a quick rhythm. I went with a counter motion, a left-to-right circling, then reversed it back into clockwise with each third revolution. I could feel her convulse against me, even more arousal slowly secrete out from her womanhood. I found my lips surrounded with her cum as she gasped my name, begging me to go further and further with her.  
   
"Baby...oh God, Par...Par...you're my Par-Bear...come on, lick me harder, eat me..." Pushing in against and then out from her, she found her own way to elongate. Never would I have expected to hear those last two words from her and the effect they had on me was amazing. I widened her out a little more, just enough to get her close to the edge. She took me between her legs, working off her underwear until they fell from a foot and onto the floor of the car.  
   
After a bit of time, I heard and felt her get to the wall, her breaths getting even more rushed as I sucked and licked faster and faster. She was getting there, almost...  
   
"Oh, fuck, Oh God! Come on, do it, I'm almost there..."  
   
But if she thought I was just going to reverse the roles and let her have an oral orgasm, she doesn't know that I intended to make her previous ideal of an orgasm seem so quaint and last century.  
   
Just as she was about to prepare herself to go over the hump, I retracted my tongue back and let my lips pull away from her slit. She was so wet, her mound on a full glisten as I began the second phase of the seduction. I breathed upon her pussy a couple more times and then moved up to drift my kisses upon the skin leading up the trail towards her navel, pinching in the wrapped skirt so I could lick and kiss as much skin as I possibly could.  
   
As I pulled away, the delayed reaction came to Rory as the heat between her legs began to dissipate. Taking a bit to realize it, she had to open her eyes to see that I was moving up her body. At first she panicked, trying to pull me back down, but she only ended up losing her balance from where she pulled and ended up not grabbing.  
   
"Paris, what the hell are you doing?!"  
   
I moved my gaze up to her and kept myself vague. "Not rushing things along; I want to linger." I slid the tip of my tongue within the enticing knot of her navel, which I found to be adorable. The scent of vanilla, lavender and talc remained within the crevasse, causing me to tingle. "You have to remember, I don't have a cock or a need to expel immediately. I'm experimental at heart, and that includes my exploring with you." I set my hands at her sides, taking in her hooded gaze as I continued. "I know I might seem like I'm inexperienced, but that's only because I'm not Louise, and I'm still learning, unfamiliar with things."  
   
"I know, but you can be fast and hard with me," she tried to explain.  
   
"I will, I promise." I caressed her slowly, kissing her belly button again. "Not now though. You deserve the best, Gilmore. Your life, be it the real version or your love life, has been tough, and for the last two years you had that aggressive nitwit telling you what you could or could not do. If we're going to work in the long term, we have to test, probe, feel, react." I began to shift my kissing towards her right side northbound, continuing to talk her up, pushing her shirt as far behind her back as it could go. "The skin here, along your ribs, for instance. No way Dean ever thought of it as an erogenous zone; it was just a chasm between the erotic triangle. But to me..." I moved my hand up to drift up the barely visible ladder shielding her lungs, thankfully hidden by a couple of layers of fat produced by Luke's grill. "I remember when I hugged you after that victory against the Oregon team in July, how when you relaxed in as I moved my hands up from your waist, my hand accidentally brushed up from your stomach. You reacted..." On cue, her face flushed red and she let out a calmed breath. "Exactly like that. But when I did that before, you pulled away, as if burned, scared that if you went full-on with your reaction, I might take it the wrong way." I circled the pads of my fingers on each side, lifting myself up to stop the kissing for a while. I dug my nails lightly into her skin, letting them climb each rib. "I retain all that I see, every touch, every taste...right now, it lingers within my mouth, and I can't help but think that what I'm doing is so erotic." My fingers danced around her as she watched each move in amazement, her face reddening while I went on, moving my hands towards her sides. I enjoyed the slow torture, keeping my hands purposefully away from the bottoms of her breasts.  
   
I did this as a distraction technique, readjusting my sitting position so I could sit above her with my legs folded to prop me up further. I tried to keep my skirt as free as possible to facilitate movement and let my bare thighs brush against her. My intentions would eventually be known to her later.  
   
"Do you like that, Ror? Do you enjoy it?" I calmed my voice as I watched her convulse, the orgasm she was to have bottled up and dissipating. I was slowing things down for her purposely, hoping to make it clear that those I learned about sex from did not influence my style of lovemaking. Sharon might go for whoever offered the top dollar, while Louise went for the two-minute orgasm.  
   
But I always saw sex as something of a journey that you should linger in taking as long as you can. Not tantric-long like Sting though; are you kidding me with holding in a cum for nine hours?! It needs to be shared, enjoyed, exploring, longing. I told Rory that as I continued, bringing the band of her skirt down a bit so I could let my fingers splay across her stomach.  
   
"With my crushes on Tristan and you," I explained, "I kept myself bottled in, afraid to express for the longest time. I was seriously fucked up when it came to masturbation, and didn't even really get into it as a stress reliever or way to relax until a year before you came to Chilton; before then it was either accidental or unfocused. I couldn't go to my father about it and Sharon made it clear that it was something to feel shame for. Eventually, however, I started exploring, feeling around, getting used to all my spots, trying to find out what made me tick. Just thinking about that other, touching me, feeling me..." I shut my eyes, feeling so strange to admit it. "When I'd do it too fast, just humping against a pillow or blanket, I felt the release, but not the satisfaction if I just went right to downtown." I began to trail my touch up, my speech sounding as if I was some kind of New Age counselor...almost Birmbaum-like. "Soon though, I'd use Fridays, Saturdays, as my time for release. Whatever came down through the six days before, I just let it all pool up; whatever looks, leers, lingers I did towards Tristan, or you, and them back, I let myself construct thoughts to guide me. Occasionally I'd sit at my desk while studying and touch, but just to calm myself. Once I got to Friday night though..." I smiled down at her, tossing my hair back. "That was me time, hidden behind the rush to get homework done. After eight, I'd strip down, let my hands wander where I wanted to, and closed the world off from me. Thinking of him...and then you. I touched myself everywhere I could, letting them all build up until eventually, in a rush of desire..." I hissed, recalling those pre-Rory orgasms. "It was perfect. Always."  
   
She asked a question, her voice deepened by the craving going through her. "When did you go to more frequent self-pleasure?"  
   
I nodded, understanding the question. "I'd say April; it was the median between the Hillside debate and the election. The feelings, I just couldn't control them any longer. I'd see you and that would make me go weak. I tried to stop myself at first, letting them bottle up like I usually did. But a mere thought, a reading of your handwriting, a voicemail left by you on the cell, I'd find my hand sliding up my blouse, or undoing my pants, listening to your voice in my head, constructed to make me hot. I tried to ignore them, I really did. But sometimes," I blushed, "it wasn't enough. Bringing my focus on-task was hard, and then I'd start rubbing my hand against my mound, or aroused a nipple. It would still be slow and yet, I had this insatiable wanting for you that I couldn't help. Calling out your name, thinking about you...pretty soon, I got used to the idea of locking the door to my room, keeping my pants unbuttoned, knowing at any moment I'd be reminded of you and then want release. Be it within my desk chair or on my bed, with my fingers...." Ruefully, I admitted my use of props. "Or else, the nearest pencil to me."  
   
Her mouth opened and she hyperventilated at the thought of my clit against a pencil eraser. "Oh my God...you..."  
   
"My **home** pencils," I corrected, rolling my eyes. "As much as I'd like to think about you biting down on one of my writing utensils not used for much writing, even I had to draw a line somewhere."

"Oh." Somehow, she felt sort of relieved, but with a sense of disappointment. She bit down on her lip, her lashes fluttering as I pushed my hands up her sides, getting just below the band of her bra. "Oh man, that feels good. Ohhh...ummmmmm..."  
   
"Let it stretch, hon. Make it a road race, not a dash." I pushed myself slowly closer to her, placing a leg between hers, making sure that my skirt stayed loose. I was in awe watching her, looking as if she was having a pleasurable dream, her eyes shut, body wiggling seductively.  
   
"I'm getting so hot...tight." She gasped, her cheeks flared red, skin heated, as my eyes scanned across her freckled skin. "Come on, finish me, please."  
   
"All in due time." I was willing to stretch this out for her as long as I could. "Relax for me." I slid my hands up towards her shoulders, bruises and bites from the night having not faded, making me shudder with delight. Dipping towards her back, I gave her a massage, making her shrug the uniform blouse from her shoulders. Looking at her fully, the contrast of the bra against her skin was more apparent to me up close. It really looked as if it was meant for her, picked out carefully both to support her and tease me. Not to give short shrift to her usual choices, but this new sexier, much sultrier Rory Gilmore, that I could only know, it gave me such a swell to know that she did this just for me.  
   
Pushing down the shirt so she could get it off, I slid a couple fingers beneath her underarms while pushing myself up to amplify where I knew her eyes were shamelessly looking. I wasn't embarrassed, enjoying the attention she was giving my breasts. I could feel them swell in the bra but I was barely concentrating on my own pleasure, instead circling my fingers within the thin, surprisingly smooth skin of her axillae.  
   
I worked the shirt off, pulling it down and down until she worked it the rest of the way off her to lay down on it beneath the small of her back. Getting an idea of my lover, beneath the light of the sunroof, Rory looked so sexual, wanton, beautiful.  
   
I couldn't get off her eyes though after I asked her to move up even more so that she was relaxed against the back of the door. They were so crystalline, a fiery, strong and deep blue that I had never seen them take before. It was an intense color for her, one that was even more magnified as they raked over my swelled chest.  
   
God, I wanted her so badly. I felt a burning all through me, radiating through my being. Not just in that one spot: it was all over. My body temperature felt like it was higher than normal, the thin layers I wore like molten wax, melting against me.

Looking down, her nipples were both hard, puckering within each cup of the bra, a strap sliding off from the right side. My mouth dried, examining them. Slowly, I ran my hands along the bottom of her bra, afraid to touch just yet.  
   
"Paris...Par..." Her throat was reduced to spare syllables, the usual guise of her as the future star of CNN replaced by that of a passionate young woman. "I'm so hot...God, you're getting me all wound up. You're...you're definitely a dark mistress."  
   
I formed a circle with the end fingers of each hand, running them along the bottom of each breast, rigid and swelling within the cups. My mons heated as I examined the topography and I had to close my leg tight around to stop the sexual rubbing I was feeling such a need to do within the tight confines of the boyshorts. Her breath quickened with each touch, moving higher and higher.  
   
Compared to my heat, she must have been spilling over, hairs on end on her bare arms. I rubbed them as I began to lick my lips together.  
   
I ran with her new title for me. "This dark mistress would like to nip at you." I said it firmly, without a hint of humor, hoping that it would send her into a tizzy.  
   
"Please." I dipped my head down, her words barely coming out. "I want you...taste me all over, my breasts have been swollen since last night. There's just something...something about..."  
   
The rest of her sentence was obliterated as I let my mouth fall against her tempting tit.  
   
So hungry for her, I teased one lightly with my tongue through the orange fabric, the nub so aroused that it had very little give to it. I licked around the nipple, circling it with my tongue through the fabric, listening for Rory's reactions. She had given up on control, letting herself ebb and flow with my sexual drive. I gave attention to her left side, cupping that breast within my hand, rubbing it and pinching the nipple between my ring and middle finger. Her body tightened as I played with her, suckling one nipple, playing with the other. I began to nip at it even more, letting my teeth drift against it. She bucked up against my skirted leg, trying to come in contact with my skin but unable to because I widened them out.  
   
I was so insatiable for her, disbelieving even my own passion, how much I wanted to taste and tease her. Soon, my vision was drifting off to the enticing front clasp between each breast, the last insulation to her modesty. My saliva soaked the bra cup, her gasps became more deep and lust-filled, and I began to think that I was drawing her out to the point where she was sore.  
   
"Oh God...oh my God, suck on it harder. I'm so...so...you do this so well, Par." I don't know what was triggering my want for her small breasts so much, but it had to be something latent, that I had always enjoyed them from afar. To tell the truth, it might even go back to Sharon refusing to breastfeed me and making me all-formula. Who knows, exactly? All I knew was that Rory Gilmore loved breast play  and she was pushing my head closer against her bosom.  
   
After another minute or two, I was desperate to taste her beneath and she had sensed that, guiding my free hand by the wrist towards her clip in a move of sore need. So used to almost any kind of bra undressing, I had it open within moments, pushing the fabric aside, needing her, taking in the deep pink coloring and freckled skin laying beneath, up close.  
   
The other one was so soaked, so erect, hard. I moved on to the other, hungry for her, while moving my free hand to her thigh, brushing her hand on the way down as she slid it across her slit.  
   
Our self-control was hanging on a thin thread; we both knew this. I moved it in closer towards her lips, rubbing it against the outside lining of her hair line, while her breasts were still hardened. She shoved off the bra, letting it fall below her, leaving her in nothing but a pushed up skirt.  
   
I knew we were getting close to a breaking point. She began to envelope me into her grasp as I was overloaded with the many things I had done for her in such a small space of time.  
   
By now, in AE, we were supposed to be handing in our papers.  
   
In the back of my Jag though, Rory was sliding her hand into my wrist, pulling me away from her breasts and making me look into her lust-filled eyes.  
   
"Paris...Par." A hot intensity between us, shared, together.

"Yeah?" I smiled down on her.  
   
"You are way better to me than any guy could be." She pushed herself up and brought me up with her with some gained sexual strength, her fingers raking across the small of my back. "I've always felt...not girl-like."  
   
"What do you mean?" I asked.  
   
"Dean called my breasts 'quaint' one time," she admitted. "I always felt like hiding them myself for being too small; when I went to Hollow High, I'd wear bulky sweaters because the girls had a cruel nickname for me."  
   
As I kissed up her sternum and towards her neck, I was saddened by this. How could anyone not regard Rory as a beauty? After all my compliments about her décolletage, she was coming back down to earth, realizing that I was the only one to really give attention to them.  
   
Firmly, I tried to make her see differently. "So? Do they really think their boobs are any better than yours? What ever gave them the right to mock your body? I happen to enjoy both your T and your A, along with your P." I smiled up towards her, pushing my lips towards her neck. "Whatever they called you, it's not true."  
   
"How about 'coke whore'?" she ruefully admitted. "I eat well enough and have a good metabolism, but just because of my thin frame and pale skin, they thought I was Kate Moss-like."  
   
My jaw clenched as I broke away from her for a moment, angered by a name so much worse than 'Mary.' Being virginal was nothing to be ashamed of, but to make fun of her body was beyond appalling. Although others thrive on that teasing, it's hands-off for me completely. That anyone would even contemplate her being that way, it made my blood boil.  
   
"Rory, look into my eyes." I was firm and kind with her as I had her look down towards me. Focusing in, I decided not to delay things any longer for her. She needed release, not only from me, but the doubts from the last millennium planted by those yokels in Stars Hollow and her ex that she couldn't be beautiful.  
   
Her gaze melted into mine so intensely. I felt my skin prick just from it. I felt the want and lust I've felt all morning, from the moment I awoke, rise up through me. Her hands were sliding beneath my cami-bra, along my bare back. She had also undone the catch on my skirt as it barely clung by a thread against my new underwear.  
   
My left hand slid towards her legs while my right moved to caress her jaw.  
   
I started with a compliment of her. "You are beautiful." A soft, quick kiss. "There is no one else I'd rather blow off school for." Another kiss, this one a bit deeper. "I am honored to share your bed, your friendship, your loyalty. And now..." My fingers scraped along her outer lips, weeping with want. "Your heat, desire, your lust." I went in for another kiss, this time drawing her tongue out. I pushed her so her head rested against the edge of the car door near the window, my hand running within her hair, along her smooth back. I teased her slowly, letting my fingers make a slow pump along her outer pussy. "You're so hot, Gilmore, so very wet." I tasted of her iced coffee within her mouth, so delicious.  My hand moved down to softly touch her breasts while she pushed me closer to her, pulling up the cami and letting her hands drift across my stomach.  
   
I fought with myself to keep reined in, the skirt slowly sinking down from my hips. I tried to go back to snap it up, but Rory closed her hand around mine and then shoved it down. I got the message that I probably shouldn't keep my modesty with her voice.  
   
"I want you so much." She rocked against my now bared thigh, having enough friction to get herself restarted. "Par, please, please." I complied with her begging, driving in the bared leg, lifting it up and down. I kept myself from trying to heighten the rubbing from the stretch fabric as each lip rubbed together on my person. "Come on, baby." We continued to kiss without cares, lips and tongues twining together in a slow dance. Her breathing, the only thing I heard, heightened awareness dampening background noise.  
   
I began a rhythm with her, letting her flare up once again, the feel of her bare sex against mine, hair scratching along my thigh, it was an intoxicating thing feeling the taller woman against myself. I kicked off the skirt the rest of the way, leaving me in underwear, her in very little. Wrapping around her to help out, I alternated kissing with necking, letting myself wander, explore. Her breathing was so soothing to me, the noises she made showing me that what I was doing was fine for her. I kissed her anywhere I could reach, the crook of her neck being the most sensitive spot, especially towards the back. Groaning her want of more, I really wished that I could suck a mark against the exposed skin, but held back since my other bruises all over her shoulders were enough for her body to heal through the next week.  
   
There was more play with the ice cubes within the iced coffee, with both my hands and my mouth. I slid them down her hot skin with my hands, and with one placed in my mouth, again played with each of her nipples.  
   
"Ooooh-uhhhh, ooooh-uhhh, ugggggh!" She was downright intense, as if my attention was all she wanted. The reserved girl I knew before was turning into an outgoing woman, right before my eyes. Her nails scraped up my back softly as she tried to keep me held within her arms. I slid my thigh in and out, deeper and deeper, keeping the pace she needed. "Paris...oh my God." The stumble of her nervous voice was gone, replaced by confidence that this was right, this was what we both wanted. She screamed as I let the ice melt across the warm flesh of her breast, trails of ice water slipping down.  
   
I continued to prepare her, listening to her gasps as I kept the grind going, my thigh coated with her slick arousal. Her eyes tightened as she felt herself convulse with each thrust, hair falling in front of her face. She hissed with each rub of the leg against the most sensitive part of her clit. I tried my best to stay in control, kissing her again along her jawline, giving her words of encouragement that the fog of making out seemed to make her even more irresistible, along with how much I wanted to return her favor from earlier.

We were soon reaching the point where she would inevitably come against me. I anticipated the moment, my skin pricking up, heightening the sensations that my girlfriend was most likely feeling from my flesh, pocked with goosebumps. I was ready to let her ride against me for the last few thrusts, the end sure to arrive soon as I called out her name, begging her to come...  
   
Then, she began to spread out her legs. At first, I didn't sense that she was until I found my grinding became a little less targeted, and her feet unhooking from my ankle for support.

 _What is she doing?_ If you're in my shoes at that moment, you're in a panic, thinking that she's having second thoughts about everything and finally grasping that you're in the car of a girl who used to hate you with a passion, skipping school, and being sexual with her. My breath caught, dread going through me. _No, no, no, no, no...  
_    
In the space of nanoseconds, my mind was thrown and I thought from the glassy look in her eyes that she was questioning everything about us. I prepared for the inevitable.  
   
Instead of a breaking up, however, she brought her arms up from the small of my back, her hands then drifting over my shirt. I rose up, trying to maneuver in the small space between her and the roof, preparing for her to end everything.  
   
She pulled me back down instead. Her fingers drifted across my back until they met at the top fringe of the top. Her stare on me turned focused, intense, unyielding. I became distracted by the gaze.  
   
"Ror, whatever I did, I'm sorry." I really thought I was doing something incorrect, making her feel uncomfortable.  
   
She just kept staring at me, her respiring still deep and wanting. My throat dried and the portion of my mind attuned to tricks was under the impression that she was trying to give me a mind-fuck to throw me off course.  
   
You could even say that there was a quick theory that she seduced me through the last evening and morning to throw off my grade curve in AE. Hey, I might be blinded by love, but I'm still paranoid about my GPA.  
   
Finally, she began to open her mouth to speak, the hammering of my heart buffeting my eardrums.

Her voice came out in a whisper, in a breathy tone foreign to myself. "Par, if you have to apologize for making me see I should stretch out our pleasure, you should know..." I felt in a zone with only her, nothing else going on. I hung on her words.  
   
"I'm not sorry one damned bit." She said the profanity in a snarl, as a command, not just a passive statement.  
   
To hammer it home, her fingers met at the hook holding me into the shelf of my bra and undid the catch. Immediately, the weight of my breasts dropped down against her, losing the perfect support, my line of cleavage expanding instantly and opening up the hidden view of my breasts to her.  
   
Before I could say anything to dissuade her from undressing me further, she grabbed at each of my straps, pushed them down, then quickly pushed the combination garment down my torso to expose me once again to her. What she did wasn't like I did, soft and slow.  
   
This was meant to fire me up. Blatantly eyeing up my goods, hardened from the friction and pushing against the fabric, Rory cooled herself down just enough to state she knew where my mind was at that exact moment.  
   
"Slow is hot, slow gets me wet." Moving her hands to my sides right at the side skin of my breasts. "But I know you, hon. You want all of me, don't you?"  
   
My breath caught once again. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
   
"The slow tease, the kiss up." She pulled me down closer to her, smoothing out the top so it met exactly with the waistband of the boyshorts. "Playing with ice all over my body, kissing my breasts. I know you think that you're playing it safe with friction with your thigh to get me off." I felt a chill, both literally from my exposed skin and from how she was reading the hidden depths of my mind. I had a high temptation to take things further than friction, wanting to do much more than I had up to that point.  
   
But she was Rory Gilmore. Mary. The one who I thought up until that dance marathon had no torch for me and would suffice Dean's sexual timeline. My dreams, I could do anything to her I wanted, without consequence. I actually thought of the relationship like a baseball glove. We had to break each other in and learn the feel of the leather before we plunged in deeper.  
   
I meant to be spontaneous and the first thought I had when I decided to skip class and do all of this was that I would go where I want to with her. But once reality kicked in, I was content to stay in line with her wishes.  
   
"I don't want safe," she intoned firmly, grasping me even tighter. "I want passion." Her eyes darkened, her body stiffening as her breasts jutted into my bare skin.  
   
I felt my left arm tingle, a shock sent through it. My brain, thoughts filtering through a mile a minute. She couldn't mean...did she?  
   
Still shocked, I tried to feel her out. "Hon, what are you saying?" This was all a dream, this wasn't happening. Rory Gilmore wasn't in my car suggesting...something I couldn't vocalize.  
   
"You said this wasn't a race, that I should enjoy this. And I do." She bent her leg so it braced against the back of the passenger seat. "I trust in you and I don't need flowers and chocolate to let me know that. It's only been 24 days, but in that time you've given me more than Dean ever could. I want you, however you want me."  
   
As she said this, she held back tears, her ducts clearly aroused. The passion in her voice, the want of her against me, I was overwhelmed by everything she wanted.  
   
That she wanted me however I wanted, that was the single most romantic thing she had ever said. Looking at her, there was no fear, just an overwhelming sense of respect and admiration for me.  
   
Also, love. I think we both know that we love each other; it just doesn't need to be confirmed. In that sense, I'll admit when she does. I won't lose her like Dean did; I refuse to.  
   
That what I had in my mind was previously portrayed within my dreams, happening at the Inn, a different romantic setting, on her or my bed, I felt numb. Also, conflicted.  
   
Did I really want to give her that moment, now? At 8:30 on a cold December morning, in the backseat that's hardly that of a sportscar, a model that screams boring, sophisticated, stuffy.  
   
A moment that in the usual organization of my day, should have not been happening at all, throwing my schedule into a chaos that would take me three days to dig out of, and had effectively put an end to my attempt to be the Ironwoman of Chilton.  
   
Our uniforms were in disarray, along with our thoughts. The fears of missing a test, gone.  
   
Instead, I was looking into the eyes of my girlfriend, at the most important crossroads of her life. One that a week ago, I had assured Lorelai was months away.  
   
But her other words of that night rang in my mind.  
   
 _I don't want you to make promises, just let me trust you.  
_    
Rory's words then followed.  
   
 _I trust in you.  
   
_I found solace in my thought after Lorelai's statement that I should be careful, but to not be afraid to go further, and she trusted me.  
   
I had trust. But in five days, we've gone from Ice Age slow to Grand Forks flooding fast.  
   
God help me, I was in this deep. That our passion was shared and constant--it was overwhelming me. I was scared to death, remembering the wives tales of Louise about how a first time went, that pain would be felt on her end.  
   
I would be hurting her. I couldn't do that. Science tried to assure me that the pain and blood was only used for dramatic effect, to make bodice rippers have literal ripping within them. That when I stretched out too much years ago, I didn't even know what I did for a week.  
   
I wanted to dip in, to breach, to make her feel good. No matter how much I knew myself, she was much different.  
   
She was warm against me, sweaty and ruined, with a cold seatbelt buckle rested against her right hip. Skirt pushed up, her legs widened, a sheen of dampness on her mound, her clit so stiff as to probably trigger her immediately if I dared touch.  
   
All of these thoughts within the space of a few spare seconds.  
   
 _I really do want this_ , I told myself. I was still scared that she might change her mind. I pushed my hand towards her, slowly.  
   
"Rory," I started to ask, every word seeming to linger on my tongue like honey. "Are you sure that you want this?" I trembled, overwhelmed by the fear I felt for her.  
   
In that moment she looked so innocent and pious, and I suddenly felt like I would be staining her by doing this. I would forever be known as that first one in her life. The silence from her was unbearable. I swore my face was paling, my lungs barely taking in any breath.  
   
Finally, she said something.  
   
"No, I'm not."  
   
 _Oh my God!_ I prepared to pull away from her, watching her blank look towards me, and knowing by asking I had ruined everything. It was over; I had gone too far. I gave her an opening to leave and she was walking out the door--  
   
So why was my hand being pulled back towards her? Why was she settling herself deeper into the seat?  
   
Finally, why was she putting on her game face, the one we share backstage before heading out to stage for our debates? She licked around her lips, straightened her posture and as I prepared to apologize to her.  
   
"I'm not sure," she repeated. This time, however, she said the words in a determined voice, lowering it down.  
   
In the matter of a second, I went from fearful I had crossed the line...  
   
Her last two words brought everything to a head and took what we had from just experimental fun, to serious lovers.  
   
"I'm certain." Rory's hand guided my wrist towards her core and then let it fall against the damp flesh.  
   
My eyes widened as I saw a new side of Rory, one not even seen in her actions from last night. This wasn't just her, looking for a validation or praise.  
   
She was raw, sexual, wanting.  
   
"You want me," she noted again, "you want all of me. And you have me. I'm not going to pull away from you." Her intense stare got to me, making me pause a beat. Her lip slid out, her soft breath assuring.  
   
In her eyes, I saw she wasn't scared. The barriers she put up, in front of Dean and Tristan, and to a smaller extent, Jess, had disappeared with me. She was not afraid to express what she wanted, needed, desired. She knew if she laid it out, I wouldn't be like Deano and object because of some bullshit about sex fed via the grapevine, parents, or some overzealous educator. He treated her like fragile glass, something to only caress occasionally, to not treasure and enjoy all you could.  
   
I am not that way; I want my fingerprints, my hallmarks, all over her. I want this girl's memories filled with the caring things I did for, and with her. I needed her, I wanted her.  
   
I **had her**.  
   
We pushed together to share the kiss of finality, the long journey down from her body coming to an end. It was something to savor, the saltiness of her flesh, giving way to the sweet taste of her mouth, chocolate and vanilla mixing within my palate. She moaned within my mouth, her hands on each of my sides at my abdomen, rocking back and forth against me. I could sense the anticipation she felt for having me in her.  Laid out upon the seat, her legs were spread open as I pushed my fingers tentatively along her lips.  
   
She wasn't just wet for me, but dripping. I dipped them  tentatively along the outline of her slit. The dampness contained along it was definitely arousing her further, coating her mound in a sheen, anticipating what I wanted to do. I dipped in along each lip, pushing in a bit deep, meeting at her clit. She hissed with each brush with each finger. She pushed against me, scooting up to give us both as comfortable a laying position as we could get within our confined space.  
   
"Need you," she murmured softly. "Need you so bad...inside."

I pulled away from her. "Soon, I promise." Then I moved my free hand to cup at her breast as I straddled above her, letting my breasts dip down in front of her. She reflected what was going through her at that moment, so trying to debate with herself whether this was right. I teased her some more, letting my middle dip in between her opening. I made a stroking motion, immersing them in short strokes to being with, trying to familiarize her with my idea of a backseat seduction. No heavy petting or poodle skirts here, folks. I gauged her voice and facial expression, letting my hand wander her breast around and under, towards the nipple. Her hands grasped my arms, looking for leverage, her vision alternating between my breasts and face.  
   
"Oh my...more, more, please." She was needy for more, so a couple more millimeters within her core. I changed to my index finger, closing my others into a fist, letting her decide how many she wanted within her. I hooked the finger, letting it cover more space than just straight. I felt her lubricate with each pull in, little resistance stopping me. "Par...oh Par, hon...mmmmm."

I at first tried to hold off on taking dirty, feeling it a bit inappropriate for the situation. I deepened my strokes to below the first knuckle, surveying her to see what I had to do to bring her to her knees. At first she wasn't reacting, but when I slid the pad over a thin spot within, she definitely reacted. Her eyes snapped shut and she gripped tightly on my arm.  
   
"GODDDD!! OH, GOD!! MORE!"  
   
A little further in and she had an equal reaction when I touched her in the same spot on the other side. It wasn't a G-spot, but they still were sensitive points. I let myself push in just a bit deeper, kissing her to keep her shouting down, wrapping a leg against hers to keep her stiff.

I kept stroking her lightly, letting my finger push in and slide out, stroking her tenderly. Each new stroke, pushing closer and closer in. Her nose wrinkled up as she tried to gain more oxygen into her lungs than usual, with her eyes closed, tightening on each stroke. This is how I warmed her up for the first few moments, feeling her up and at the same time watching her reactions to each touch. It was getting to the point, however, that I could touch her finger and get an orgasmic yelp.

I saw her eyes tightened, overwhelmed by the new touch of my fingers against her. I pushed a bit closer, sliding the finger in along her clit. Her muscles clenched around me.  
   
"You're so tight," I complimented, "I feel how tight you are, oh my God." I watched her pant and moan as she pushed her legs back together a bit, just enough to close my finger in against more flesh. "You're a thing of beauty, Ror."  
   
"Oooohhh...ohhhh...ohhhh yes!" I watched her face tighten up while her breasts slightly bounced as I went in and out while she met each of my strokes. "Oh God...Oh God. You make me feel so sexy."  
   
I commented on that. "You don't need me to confirm that; you are sexy already." I smiled down, letting her grasp me even tighter. I wiped her arousal across her stomach, trying to keep the friction going, pushing her as far as she could get within the car. Then I went back in for more, alternating between kissing and teasing at her pussy, her face reddening as time went by.  
   
Eventually, I found myself meeting the breach and her words were even more frenzied as we went on. She begged for much more but I held back to continue the tease until I had her right where I wanted her. Giving me a look, her eyes glazed, hair in disarray, her body so sore from the compressed space this was happening in.

"Paris, PLEASE!" she screamed in desperation, her voice hoarse. "I wanna cum so bad, I want this. Ohhh...ohhhh...aaaaahhhhh..." She threw back her hair, sweat dappling her forehead. "Give it to me, please."

I smirked, looking her over, becoming aggravated she wasn't getting to peak yet. "Remember, it's not a road race."  
   
"I know...I know..." Her right hand moved from my back and towards her core. "But it's just that I'm so horny."  
   
"How hot are you?" I inquired, thinking about exactly the track we were going on. "I've never heard you say that...word." My free hand slid across her stomach, slowly. "Come on, Lorelai, let me know what I can do for you. I'm all yours."  
   
"I want to get off," she gritted out. "I'm tired of teasing, I just...I've never felt so hot before."  
   
"How do you want to get off?"

A dirty look directed my way. "How do you think?" She bared her teeth towards me.  
   
"I mean, how filled do you want to be?" I brought her attention down towards her mound, sliding in that solitary finger. "Do you usually suffice with just a single finger, like this?" I pushed it in, up to near the thin membrane, teasing her all the way. She gasped against me, breathing deeply. "Or, do you want more?"  
   
"More?" Her eyes rolled back.  
   
"As in," I smirked, "more fingers. For now, nothing more than two...like this." I eased it into her, then began a slow stroke just near her inner opening, letting only the tips of my nails breach past the small circle. "How do you like that? The way you feel right now, you're so tight against my fingers." I deepened my voice, her reaction going from shock to awe. "Sometimes, when I think about you, I picture myself within your body, stroking yourself, running my hands all over, until I begin to stroke myself, overwhelmed. I think of your small breasts as mine, your thin frame, your small feet, shapely legs, your freckles. I think of how it feels to be you, and I picture myself as you, so turned on." My other hand ran through her hair, as I laid soft kisses along her neck. "So many times, thinking of you like this, vulnerable, in my arms, yet complacent in how much we feel for each other."  
   
"Ahhh...that feels so good, you're right." She hissed, settling herself more into her lay. "I want more, please." I pushed in a bit deeper, the strokes moving to just a bit into the fingertips. "Paris...oh my."  
   
"How do they feel?" I felt nervous that the texture of my fingers had a bit of scratchiness to them.  
   
"Perfect," she murmured, like she was enjoying ice cream. "Mmm-yeah." She repositioned her hands to thumb across my breasts in her grasp, each opposing thumb across a nipple. "I want to feel you in my hands."

"What do you want to do?"  
   
"Play with them." Her fingernails scrubbed around each nipple. "I didn't get enough time to lavish them last night or this morning." I shivered while her pads triggered the erect tissue, stiffening them. "Pushing them in and out...suckling each of them...enjoying the soft feel of each of them." I kept the stroking up, while her voice varied tone. "I can't get my mind off them...sometimes I feel so perverted."  
   
"Why's that?"  
   
"Because I'm not supposed to have these kinds of thoughts about you." She blew a frustrated breath out. "I watch you in the _Franklin_ office, and before I admitted, there were those mistakes in proofing I made occasionally." She felt guilty admitting it. "Sometimes I'd do it just so I could see you mad at me, and I know when you come to my station, you always come from the right."  
   
"And?" Oh, this was so good!  
   
"There were times you weren't fully tucked in, and when you'd bend down to tell me you I had a hanging participle, I would eye you up from the bottom. I could see into the space between your blouse, and when you were wearing the blazer open, I could see fully in." Her hands moved further in. "I would even err when you were having a bad day, because you'd be on a literal tear, all wound up." I was stuck, watching her wander deeper and deeper within this trigger. I was also feeling my anger rise up, but for a completely different reason.  
   
"You took advantage of my anger?" I gritted out. She nodded and then circled each finger around the stiff, hard flesh.  
   
"When you're all wound up, it's so fucking sexy. I would sit there, taking in your lecture about how my writing sucks, looking unnoticed into your blazer, your shirt, unnoticed. I would bait you, hon, get you all riled up. I didn't capitalize a river name for instance," She softly slid a second nail at the same time across my ducts. "I would fight with you about it, in circles, even get to the point where I insulted you for editing my work. You'd bark at me that I was such a Pollyanna and too optimistic, and all the while, I'm playing a twisted game with you. Getting you all hot for my own depravement. Because when you get angry..." she pushed in against me. "You get horny." I felt my fingers shift deeper, and she shrieked loudly at the feeling.  
   
"You get horny, you get wound up..." That's when I found my breasts being pinched, softly, by her. "And with that, I get to see you without getting one article of clothing off. Stiff within that uniform, you snarl something about me being a lost cause, you stomp off to your desk, and as I shout towards you that if you were a better delegator I wouldn't make so many errors, I get to watch that walk of yours; the classy stomp." I moved closer to her, trying to hold myself within my own walls. "Your shoes make that sound, that harsh slam against the hardwood, and your stride is as fluid as a runway model's."

"Rory, I'm serious. I'm warning you!" I tried to dissuade her from stopping, only to have her close her legs together.  
   
"Your skirt, caught in a wind, giving me just that much of a glance at your tight ass." I felt my control quickly slipping, her voice taking on a mixture of arousal and bitterness. "I'd get the full picture, the backs of your legs, and then the careful plunge of it back onto your chair. I'd watch all the way." She laid a kiss on the side of my neck, moving up as I willed myself to stop. "You always spin the chair counter-clockwise once before you sit back down towards the front of the room so you can get a survey before you sit down." The muscles in my hands tightened a bit more. "It always goes the same way, and you always cross your right leg over your left leg, every time, an ingrained habit."  
   
"I swear to God--" My face was overheating as she felt me up, being so naughty. Her eyes were intense as she obliterated any chance of me taking her slow and tenderly.  
   
"I always looked," she admitted, stone cold. "You kick up that leg and it made the skirt rise. I had only a bit under a half a second glance at you, but I see clearly. And every time, no matter how buried in a task I was." My fingers straightened out, steadying. "I always looked. I retained. I got you mad, used that for myself, and then when I got a look at what's beneath your skirt..." It was at that moment she took her hands from my breasts, and down towards my lower back, her fingers hooking into the waistband of my boyshorts. "I would wish that I was the one to loosen you up, in every way I possibly could."

Her eyes were fiery and I could read her mind at that exact moment. No way was she thinking innocently, or cuddled up in her comfy Stars Hollow safety blanket. No matter how much she denies it, she is just like her mother in many more ways, beyond the mother/daughter relationship and coffee addiction. On the outside, she might be naive and mousy.  
   
Inside, her chromosomes have that rebellious nature passed down by every female Gilmore, that one inherited line of genetic code that made Lorelai follow her impulses instead of what society accepted as proper. The one that guided her towards Christopher, and in turn, gave me my girlfriend. I still remember way back, when I wasn't close to knowing Rory, hearing the tales of scandal at the society parties Mother threw at the Manor, watching Emily and Richard react violently to any mention of their daughter in proper circles and her life as it was. I was just an observer, a stupid kid in a pretty pink dress, supposed to be more concerned with a My Little Pony collection than the adults.  
   
As I looked at her, I could swear that I could feel what Christopher Hayden did the moment he realized he wanted Lorelai, wherever they did it (trust me, I'm not gonna ask), and when she also realized those sparks were shared. The pure lust and want within the both of us, what they had in '83. That Rory could be just as devious as her mother was to get what she wanted. The very nature of a Gilmore, be they in insurance, inn management, or the twelfth grade.  
   
I couldn't deny myself anymore. I wanted to make her come by my hand, and it would be imprinted on her mind, forever.

My eyes were intense, burning a stare into her as I scanned her tall frame. To get me all riled up like I was, she had serious ovaries to do so.  
   
I trusted that she knew what she was doing though and she had no fear apparent.  
   
"I want you, now." I said firmly to her, the anticipation within her nigh. My fingers deep within her quim, I watched her face as I pulled them out for the drive to push all the way through.

Her eyes were on me as she gave me the last word.  
   
"Please!" Her legs opened up, she relaxed her body, and with that, we were both gone. Hoping I wouldn't hurt her, I turned off my mind and let it take leave temporarily so I could enjoy this.

I laid against her lengthwise, moving my free hand down to the small of her back to support her. My fingers were straight as I forced them in with a swift movement, watching for her reaction to know if I did something wrong. But there was no reaction to start out with, Rory closing her eyes beforehand as if she thought there was pain to overcome.  
   
There was none, however; she easily accommodated me, and beyond a bit of a pulling apart of the membrane against my force, she didn't feel anything but pleasure.  
   
"Ooohhhh...." She pushed against the door, the feeling going through her as I pulled in and out, trying to get her used to it. "Yess..."  
   
"How deep have you gone before?" I asked inquisitively.  
   
"Not quite...that deep." I pushed in a bit more. "Aaaahhhh. Oh my!"  
   
I speeded my strokes even more after that, trying to force the fingers in enough. She accommodated me, letting me rub her clit with my thumb as I attempted to double the pleasure. She tried to force her eyes open to watch me, but it was hard as she took in the feelings overwhelming her so much. Winding her up through a whole morning, she wasn't going to stretch it out any longer than she had to. The slickness of her arousal coated my hand, dripping a bit down towards my wrist. I pushed against her, focusing on just her, until eventually her legs had wrapped around me and she had me ensconced in her grasp. Eventually she began to tighten around my hand, opening herself more to me as I slid in and out.  
   
My hair splayed out against her bust as we developed a sort of rocking up-and-down fast rhythm, with occasional stops to settle herself down and reposition herself because of the sticky leather beneath her. I encouraged her to scream and yell however she wanted, but she kept herself relatively calm. I kissed her in those settling times to assure that she was doing fine.  
   
"You're OK, just keep it going, come on, you'll get there. God, Gilmore, you're so tight." My voice bounced as I tried to keep my own self in control. The problem with the cramped quarters of the car was that I was right against her thigh, and well, guess where it rubbed? I had to keep myself above a few inches to keep my focus on her.  
   
"Paris...Paris..." She was looking so ruined, the skirt sitting on her waist wrinkled beyond belief, hair sticking along her shoulder. I kept my thumb against her clit, making small circles in both clockwise and counterclockwise, hoping to make her feel something so hard she saw stars.  I kept pushing in and out, a constant rhythm only interrupted when I wiped my fingers along her thigh when I didn't seem to have any friction, but right back again.  
   
Trying to stay out of her way, I tried to keep myself as high as I could intimately so I wasn't rubbing against her. I didn't want her moment to be ruined by me so distracted. For some reason I still felt some guilt for coming during the phone call with her. I wanted it to be her moment.  
   
"Baby, push against me," she begged, but I shook my head in denial. "You can...multi-task."  
   
"I said no," I growled. "Your first time is yours, not mine." I pushed in a bit more, intending it as a distracting move. She gutturally screamed my name, in combination with the f-word. Throwing her head back, she bumped it against the sill of the car door, but still she went on, asking me to speed up even more for her.  
   
"Please...please, I wanna cum for you." Her voice was veiled by heaving breathing. She pushed herself up a bit more to meet my pussy, but I pushed her down again to the seat. "Come on, Par, please?"  
   
I kissed her along her jaw, trying to reassure her that I wasn't looking for reciprocation. "No, Gilmore."  
   
"But I--"  
   
"NO!" I pushed in for a large, deep stroke, hoping to distract her. She cringed in her position, and eventually she let the matter lie so I could continue to spoil her.  
   
Truly, the feel of her was like silk as I thrust in and out with her, continuing to push her ever closer. I could feel her pressed breasts bounce up and down against me and the waves began to be more together with each new thrust. I spread her out more, letting my fingers tease her on the inside, both sides. I enjoyed the power I held over her to make her this way, to turn her into nothing more than a melting puddle.  
   
She rode me hard, her teeth biting into my shoulder as I found myself as deep as possible, hitting a sensitive spot. She whined to get off, begging me for release, my thumb massaging her clit, my free hand cupping her ass. She blew my hair from her mouth as it fell from my shoulders, overheated and a deep shade of red. Calling my name, asking for more.

This is what made this morning all worth it, really. To see Rory Gilmore in that state, on the cusp of her first release with my help. I want to keep that image in my mind forever.  
   
"Oooohh...oooohhh...ohhhh yes..."  
   
She was almost getting there, I could feel her clenching against my hand, tightening against it in a vise grip. Hard panting, breasts springing against mine, her skin so hot. I deepened and speeded my thrusts, trying to get her off in a frenzied rush. I had teased her way too long and I wanted to see her ruined from what we did.  
   
"Rory, you're almost there, come on, come on, dear." My voice was panicked and in the back of my mind I was hoping I was doing this right. I was thankful that she hadn't bled, but I knew there was a chance she might not come the first time.  
   
That thought would end up very wrong, and oh so shattered within a space of seconds.  
   
Within another few moments, she had pushed me down against her so her right thigh was flush with my crotch, and hooking her fingers into the waistband of my boyshorts, she began to drive into me, despite my pleas not to. I tried to push away, but to no avail.

"Rory, this really is not about me," I gritted out. "You don't have to do this f--ooooooohhhrrrr me!!"" I closed my eyes as the jarring electricity of my own want went through me. She kept me pushed down, putting finality to the finishing position with her words.  
   
"You're right, I don't have to do this." She grinded against me again, the stretch material of the cotton digging right into my clit. "But I **want** to." The authority in her voice made me quiver and from there, we were both gone from that point forward. Pushing against me while I drove into her, I was overheating, unknowing previously of how wound up I was in the sex play. I kept pushing in and out, not letting my feelings overwhelm me.  
   
The two of us in that car, I couldn't believe it myself. Panting against her, gritting out her name, I encouraged Rory along, widening my legs out. "Fuck...oh my God...Ror..." I kept stroking her, faster and faster; she was dripping with arousal and her gasps were closer and closer together, eyes even more tightly shut. Still she didn't let that distract from her own goal for me, and after a few strokes out of rhythm, I met her thigh at the seam, while my strokes were getting closer and closer together. We kissed each other passionately, letting our long-hidden sexuality come out of hiding. I just wanted to see that deep glow of hers for myself  
   
"Par, oh baby, come on...bring me home, make me come..."  
   
"Rory...please..."  
   
"You're pounding against me...I'm so fucking wet...ohhh...ohhh..."  
   
"Push it in further...I want to feel the fabric deep...Rory...Rory..."  
   
"Paris, fuck me...oh Christ, I'm almost there..."  
   
Our eyes were both shut tight; we couldn't see each other, but there was still an overload of senses. I could smell her, so raw, her scent mixed with mine. It hung in the air of the luxury car. She nipped at my lip, I bit at hers, tasting the mix of my breakfast pastry with her coffee. I kept my thumb circling her clit, the fingers slipping in and out with  ease and our words hung in the air, the connection we were making now forever solidified in our histories. I moved my hand down towards her stomach, sucked in as she anticipated her release. Meanwhile, she kept pushing her leg against me, the crotch of the article dampening with my building cum. I didn't intend to ruin them so fast, but I wasn't going to stop her and tempt fate. The underwear felt so good against me, and I dug in lower against her leg as I felt her convulse. I began to push against her harder, hoping to meet her evenly.  
   
"Is this what you've thought...of?" I spit out. "Making me this way...making you come with me?"  
   
"Yes...oh yes..." She drove her hips against me, trying to push me as deep as I could go. "Fuck...oh God, almost there!"  
   
"I am too," I screamed. "Gilmore, ohh...ohhh...ahhhh..." My hand was clenched hard within her, her walls squeezing tight. She pumped herself against me in short bursts while increasing her friction.  
   
I began to feel disorientated, dizzy, yet I still kept my awareness. She yelped, her face a shade of deep blood red as she began to hit her peak.  
   
That was the last thing I'd see for the next few minutes. Rory drove herself deep against me and it was a rough stroke, driving right against my hard clit. I pulled her against me hard, while I drove my hand in for the final strokes.  
   
We went by touch and scent as we finished off, and to describe what we both went through in simple words, I really can't do it beyond, uhh, wow. I heard her screams as she closed in around me, and as I felt the tingles go all through my body. Both of us taut and straight, we rode out the last waves, together, in each other's arms, kissing wildly, both of us ruined and far gone. I felt her heart pound hard against my chest while her hands grasped at me for dear life; my own grip was so tightened on her I felt like I'd crush her thin body with one hand.  
   
"Yessss!" I rose up, rubbing against her, rubbing her bare leg as my hand slid in and out through her come. My fingers were sore, soaked, slippery as she spilled over. "Gilmore...Gilmore..." I felt all sticky and damp down there, and so hot and warm, sweat dripping from my brow. I listened more to her though, wanting to keep this more her moment than mine. I slowed my stroking down, making ever slower circles with my thumb.  
   
We began to wind down slowly, letting ourselves calm as we came down from our crashing climaxes. My body felt so heavy, suddenly overwhelming against Rory, and I tried to distract myself from thinking I was crushing her. I began to slowly pull out of her, while letting my other free hand rest against her abdomen, her diaphragm tightening and releasing slowly in a slow manner.  
   
I wanted to just touch her, to feel her...have that safety cushion of warmth. It was a reassuring thing for me to know that she was going to be there for me after this morning, that the moment was special to the both of us. Going back in time, I knew that if this moment was shared with Tristan, it would be different, and cold, and that instead of driving him up a wall, he would have forced the moment from me, and it would have ended within seconds, probably with him wanting to go back to Duncan and Bowman.  
   
I shuddered thinking about that and went back to the moment I was sharing with Ror. Finally opening my eyes, I was witness to a beautiful sight, watching her relax, softly gasping as she settled herself back down. The skirt, truly wrinkled around her, her bra in a heap next to her side. Hair wild, face deeply flushed, her body fully exposed, I brought my focus down as I pulled my hand out the rest of the way. She was dripping wet, the small triangle of hair between her sex pocked with a sheen of wetness.  
   
Truly, she was beautiful. But I knew still, it was her first time, and she'd probably be a tinge sore from letting herself go. Immediately after I pulled out, she closed her legs together, cringing.  
   
"Oww..." I felt concern for her, frowning at what she was feeling.  
   
"I...I didn't hurt you, I hope." Immediately, she shook her head that I didn't.  
   
"I'm alright, really." She tried to push herself up as I sidled against her. "Just recovering from it. All just a repetitive motion, up and down, something expected." Hair in front of her face, she brushed it out of the way with her fingertips. "The only thing I feel down there is an odd pang, probably just from stretching, nothing that I'm cringing about." Crossing her legs together, she hissed a bit.  
   
"Are you sure?"  
   
"Paris, thanks for your concern." She smiled. "But really, it's no worse than the first few times after...well, the thing that reared its head during the President's Physical Fitness Test for me and forced me to use that certain item." Rolling her eyes up, she looked towards me. "Another sign that Mother Nature intends for me to hate playing sports forever."  
   
"Please tell me you at least had a dime on you." I flopped down against her, wryly laughing.  
   
"I will owe Andrea Sherman one Tampax to my grave, I'm afraid. Thank God I was wearing dark clothes that day."  
   
"What a story I can tell about the first time we were physical," I off-handed. "You really are just like your mother."  
   
"I resent that! I am not like her!" She looked like she was shocked at first but began to laugh.  
   
"Really, Gilmore, you are. Seriously, talking about your period after you came." I pulled her close, sliding my hands up her sides. "Gilmores are known for trying to misdirect their afterglows."  
   
"Alright, so I'm a bit overwhelmed after...that," she admitted. "I...I just, um...well, you know." Her gaze towards me, she struggled to find the SAT analogy to describe our activity. "Well, I...oh man, come on!"  
   
"What's wrong, Ror?" I questioned, a bit cavalier. "Did I render you speechless?" I slid the damp left hand up towards her face, not willing to wipe it off yet.  
   
"Of course not," she denied, while trying to find words. "I'm good. Happy. You know me, all good and glowy, filled and that kind of thing."  
   
"Those are just 'me statements' of feelings, not a competent view of how you're dealing with my ravishing." I ran my fingers through her hair. "I know you can form complete sentences to describe your feelings."  
   
"Not right now," she admitted. "How am I supposed to put all of this into a sentence? I can't, because this is something I've been thinking about for months, getting so close and intimate with you. Four weeks ago I'm all 'Dean can't get it over the plate,' and now here I am, with you, in the back of your car, and I...I..." She looked up towards the sunroof, feeling pensive and trying to collect her thoughts. "Why is it so different with you?" Her face straightened as everything began to hit her.  
   
"Different?" I tried to dig deeper into the word clue.  
   
"Ever since I met Dean, I had all these chaste thoughts, and we connected through cornstarch, soda and other grocery items. I was getting content with being a regular woman, indebted to her future husband the hockey star while she cooked and cleaned and gave up her dreams. By the time he built the car for me, I felt hopeless and lost that he'd ever see things my way."  
   
I watched her find her words but also an emotional trigger as she began to tear up, realizing exactly what was happening. "I mean he never listened to me, he didn't care. I'd ask him to get hot, he wouldn't. He'd touch me at the wrong time, or in the wrong place. I felt so uncomfortable with him, but yet, I stayed, wanting to be loyal, not wanting to break his heart, to cause pain to anyone." To listen to her describe her desolation about being with a boy she fell out of love with, it saddened me deeply to hear her like this. "I mean when I threw myself at him, basically screamed that I wanted him, he turned me down, coldly, as if I wasn't one to decide when I was ready to lose it. That I had no stake in my sexuality, and I would forever be defined as being born five months before my mother turned seventeen. I can't be this way, I can't be passionate, and that I have to hold in. If I have passion, it has to come out during quiz bowl or in a project of some kind." I pulled myself closer to her, letting myself feel her warmth, and wiped the tears from her eyes. Her cheeks heated; I was enamored with her anger and pain towards her past.  
   
She brought her voice to a whisper as she brought the discussion full circle back towards me. "But with you, it is different. A good kind of different." I stroked her cheek as she went on. "You don't bullshit, you lay everything out on the table, and if I hold back on a topic because I might not want to bring it up, you're on me anyways until I give up, and I can open up to you without anything getting back beyond Miss Patty. I just...there was no second-guessing, and you read me like an open book." Her lip quivered as she slid her left hand into my right. "Honestly? I didn't go into this last night thinking that this was going to be 'the moment,' or anything beyond what went on this morning. I thought it was just going to be fun, another bend in the road. But as it went on, I don't know."  
   
Shaking her head, Rory unexpectedly gave me a window into what went through her head. "When I was in the closet while we both changed, I had a moment to myself, to reflect and think about where I should go next. Coming out of a shower with you and after sharing all that stuff last night, I didn't expect you to open up, to relish your role as my girl. I thought you'd be back in _Le Pitbull_ mode and serious."  
   
She breathed in deeply and pulled me close against her. "I thought so many times this morning I was pushing you too far, giving you the gifts and having you try them on, along with my...enthusiasm to go down on you. I thought you'd want me to stop and focus on school."

Both of us were looking at each other, thinking we would second-guess the morning, that on further reflection, we had lost the spark. Once again, the 'china doll' analogy was in effect, the one she used to describe Dean's regarding her.  
   
But I can't do that with Rory. She's not off-limits; she's a real woman with real needs. Judging from her orgasm, she really needed them filled! I didn't want her to think that way about herself, that she was off-limits and closed off.  
   
"I don't want to," I said, stroking her hair. "I don't want safe, Rory." I slid my left hand across her cheek, until the fingertips I used came to rest against her lips. "I'm not regretting what we did this morning at all. Yes, I'm scared, and I'm definitely still learning how to control my urges and balance them with our friendship. The last few hours definitely built on missing each other, wanting each other, desiring, needing. But in the long run, I know that if we talk every day, no matter how mundane we are, we'll both have pretty clean bedposts to hang our bras off from." I bent down, kissing her cheek as she suckled lightly at my fingertips. "I admit, what you said about me being dull and conservative, it did piss me off. It got me mad. But that's it, because the way I have been, it's true. I held back because I never had an outlet before you, and I fear you might run away from me." She licked the glistening liquid from the tips, tasting herself, mixed with my salty flesh. It was wonderful to behold, that she was coming down with her own scent upon my fingers. "You know how happy I felt when you told me we could skip school?" She nodded. "I enjoyed the rush, loved to see you indulge me in my naughtiness."  
   
"Par," she purred, "you definitely do naughty the best." I settled down against her, finally feeling my body settle down, and moved my hands back down towards her sides. "I would have never expected this to happen this morning, but..." A small, deep kiss. "When I look back on this morning years and years from now, I can say that my first time certainly wasn't boring."  
   
"Was it bad?" I asked honestly. "Lay it on me, I can take it."  
   
"Oh, no, of course not! Did you really think that?"  
   
"I just wanted to make sure," I cleared up.  
   
"Let me put it this way for you in simple terms." She then wrapped her arms around my neck and brought me very close. "Before last night, I may have wanted to have sex with a guy one day. But what you did?" She stopped for a dramatic pause. "You made me yours. I can't imagine anyone else with me. I mean, I'll be honest, I had fears of the first time, of being broken. I'd dream about Dean and wake up in a frozen sweat and go back to bed with a pillow between my legs. I had bad advice, Lane telling me I shouldn't do anything, and Lorelai? Forget it!" There she was, crying once again, as she let me rest in the crook of her shoulder. "You took me here to this beautiful pond. Then let me go at my own pace, and eased into me slowly. You encouraged me, was playful when I wanted you to be, indulged me, and you even gave into my want that you should share my moment with me, it was just..just..."  
   
She struggled to put our time into words, crying against my bare shoulder, speechless as to how her first time had turned out. She wrapped against me and all I could do was hug her back, soothe her further. Let her know that she was right to feel the way she did.  
   
"It's OK, dear, let it out. It's OK, thank you, Rory." I straightened her hair with my fingers, then let them play down her back, along her spine, just letting her go on and on. She was beautiful against me, her heartbeat in time with my own, her warm body heat against me. I just stayed that way, assuring her that we both did things right, that there was no rhyme or reason, no plan to how we ended up together. Sex would change things between us, to be sure, but our friendship was building up within the relationship to insulate any fears that it could tear us apart. We needed each other, two halves to a whole. Soft whispers, inside references, hushed words of want towards each other.  
   
I could just imagine what were to happen if the roles we took this morning were to be switched. God, to have her against the sink in her kitchen, or in her room. I felt prickles across my body just thinking about that!  
   
Soon though, I realized that time was probably flying by. Looking towards the console in the front as the both of us got up, stiff and worn out, I expected that not much time had passed.  
   
Well, it was, to use one word, late. Late as in, twenty minutes had already passed in second period, and time flew by longer than expected for the both of us.

"Wow, we just matched Louise's stamina," I joked. "Usually she's all about the ten and out, but damn."

Rory rolled her eyes at me and shook her head. "Hey, that was all your doing!"  
   
"All my doing, _Rory Cum-more_?" Oh, had I finally found a nickname for her. She looked at me, shocked. "What, it's true! You're like a regular sexual Old Faithful!"  
   
"I do not!"  
   
"Face it, dear, you are blessed with the slickest vagina in all of Chilton and you've just given it all to me!" I squealed as she pelted me with her bra before she put it back on. "OK, so you don't like that first name, how about... _Jelly Belly_?"  
   
"Oh, my God!" She shook her head. "No, uh-uh, not going to happen, Par-Bear."  
   
"What, you have no need for the KY at all, it's all you!"  
   
"I am not listening to this." She covered her ears and slid on her bra. "Great, I lubricate like I have a Vaseline pump up my hoo-hah."  
   
Great, now I was the one crying...from laughter! The way she throws those lines at me, she makes even the most dull one-liner seem like it came from Ruth Buzzi. "You can throw it on your resume...Hello, I'm Rory Gilmore, and I bring excellent writing skills to your paper, along with a pussy rated at 10W30!" I felt myself convulse from laughter as I looked at her, giving me 'the look.' Blowing up in her hair, she then turned on her smile and put me in the corner.  
   
"Miss Gellar, may I point out that where you grinded against me, there is a 5x2" patch of dark plum wetness?" She brought her eyes down towards my crotch, unnoticed until that moment by me because I was more concerned with her than myself.  
   
Uhh, yeah, look who's talking now. I was embarrassed by my own appraisal of her arousal when I wasn't exactly a dry tap myself. I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth and shook my head.  
   
"Fine, we're both bad," I admitted. "But I still stand by my assertion that you get wetter than I do."  
   
"Another item in the blackmail grab bag, I guess. You have the tattoo, I get really damp." Both of us were flustered and happy as I grabbed towards my blouse on the steering wheel and put my camisole back on, and we tried to talk through how we were going to come up with the perfect excuse as to why we missed a 1/4 day of class. We started with oversleeping (ruled out because of our well-known punctuality), turned towards a sudden detour (works maybe in October, but not after construction season's end), and of course, the old 'we didn't know Monday wasn't an off day' chestnut (yeah, sure, we know it's been a day back in every Connecticut school for fourteen years).  
   
"You had to change a tire," Rory finally came up with as she wrapped her blouse around her, buttoning it in the middle. "Um, you do, right?"  
   
"Why wait for AAA when the tools are at your disposal? I helped my Daddy out with one on a trip up to Halifax once, and it came naturally." I added on further to the excuse. "Only, let's not say the tire was slashed. My on-screen navigation does have a air pressure monitor on it, so, we go over a small stone, one I didn't notice Tuesday afternoon. Once we got out into the traffic jam of doom, we sat and sat, the tire let out just enough air to alert us to a problem, and I pulled off at Cromwell to add tire inflator gel to seal it up until I can get to the mechanic."

"It's great, very good idea," she agreed, smiling brightly, but shaking her head. "We are very, very smart, the both of us."  
   
"We are." We were both sitting in the backseat at that point, hand in hand. "Almost."  
   
"Why do you say that?"  
   
"Next time we skip school to neck, I'm bringing Saran Wrap and a change of underwear for you." Laughing, I was suddenly enveloped by an ired girl.  
   
"Paris?" She looked at me firmly.  
   
"Mm-hmm."  
   
"If this gets back to Lorelai, I'm asking Fran for baby pictures. Embarrassing pictures. Of you naked in the bath playing with a rubber duckie and bubbles, or pretending you're Rainbow Brite with a Sprite doll. We will mock you, and mock you often."  
   
"Great, the 80's are coming back to haunt me!" I slapped my head and rolled my eyes at her, but still smiled. "Have I told you how much I hate Louise for telling you what I watched when I was younger?"  
   
"Better Rainbow Brite than Barbie dolls, at least she had the whole proto-feminism thing going for her."  
   
"She's like the Joan of Arc of 80's cartoons, though without being burned at the stake." The both of us just went on talking after that, in the backseat of the Jag as we dressed, and as we enjoyed the afterglow of the morning, I definitely knew that I had no regrets about where everything led up to since last night around 7:30.  


* * *

I'm thinking about everything that's ensued within the last few hours, next to Rory, as we pull into my parking space, the clock reading 9:49am. Our clothes are straight, uniforms fully on, and hair brushed as well as we could with the one we had to share together. Both of us are visibly nervous, and as I turn off the engine, the adrenaline rush I had from skipping the first two classes has worn off.  
   
I'm screwed. My average is going to dip below 97.5, and oh dear God, I've skipped a class. No, plural that; class **es**! Somehow an image in my mind is building of Charleston hauling us both by the ear into his office and giving us the fourth degree. Yeah, I said fourth, the kind that burns bones. Oh God, oh God, oh God...  
   
"Par?" I'm imagining the guy in my face telling me I've just gone Slutty Sandy on him and I'll be lucky to get into the Fox Institute of Business to pursue a major in massage therapy...

"Uh, hon? I didn't know that shade of white was ever possible." I'm stunned in place with Rory's hand on top of mine. "I promise you, being late isn't the end of the world."  
   
"But...but, what if he's mean?" Yeah, good job there, Gellar, sound weak. "It was all worth it, but they hate tardiness."  
   
"We came in though, that's all that should matter." She held my shaky hand tightly. "Look, we're going to be fine. They'll probably make a quick joke about us finally being late and sending us on the way down to the gymnasium, where we can shower and smell all non-sexy again."

"But it might get around that I'm late. I'm the iron woman of the school, I have never missed a class, ever!"  
   
"Sheila Drake has missed three classes though, so you're still on top of her." She then reminds me that I shouldn't doubt what I did.  "Let's repeat it again, this morning was worth it. We both enjoyed it. I'm going to walk around all funny all day because of you and the pleasant hum between my legs, and you're going to get heartened every time you see me today."  
   
"I know," I said, beginning to calm down and open the door. "But...will you still touch me in RN? You may have already gotten your fill of me this morning."

Suddenly, she pulls at my arm and brings me back into the car. "Baby..." she lowers her voice and slides her fingers up my wrist. "I can never get enough of you, there's no doubt about that. I will touch and massage you like I usually do. Though I might do something different at lunch, I have to study. I might just do a granola bar in the library while I look over my materials for international journalism."  
   
"Oh, well I understand," I say, a bit disappointed.  "I can't have you all the time."  
   
"Actually," she purrs, "I might need a little help..." Uh, her hand is sliding up my thigh again. "I'll need the privacy of a quiet study room, with the shade drawn to block out distractions. Since you know much more about international affairs in Dubai and media policies in the Emirates, seeing as you've been there, I could use your...expertise." Oh my, I'm losing my breath and I'm really beginning to hate this damned tie around my neck. Brain, help me out here, please? I'm begging you!  
   
"I'll help you, but we can't, do stuff, you know?" OK, there, she'll settle down now, really, honest.  
   
"Paris, we agreed not to **kiss** in Chilton, which is all we did. I remember what you said exactly, nothing blown, nothing implied, just no kissing." Stop, oh God, why does her voice have to be so fucking hot and wanting when she's flirting with me heavily? "I never heard anything from either of us that we couldn't tease and touch, or slip out of our shoes, stroke each of our ankles with our toes, or slide a hand, or a foot, up our skirts." She pouted her lips out towards me. "We should have thought this through more long term, probably."  
   
"Can I add it now?" I whined.  
   
"Unfortunately, you're currently blinded by the thought of me all soapy and wet in the shower, so we'll have to wait until _Franklin_ time to rehash details." My face warmed as I tried to stop her.  
   
"Please stop flaunting that you topped me in that contract law unit last semester, Gilmore!" I pull her hand away, but as I exit the car, she one-ups me one last time.  
   
"Let me cite the ruling of _Turnabout v. Fair Play_ then; I must return the favor to you, Par. So, you're pretty much doomed." Stepping out of the car, she has a smirk all the way towards me, and then I follow her, lovesick as she walks into Ambrose while my shaky legs follow her forward.  
   
"Who's the Dark Mistress now?" I mumble under my breath, trying to calm my heartbeat. She turns back around towards me.  
   
"What did you say?"  
   
"Oh, nothing." I play off as innocent, trying to get back on focus. We take the hall towards the office, and as we look up at the door tag, I feel so strange being at the attendance office without a doctor's appointment taking me away. We both walk in together, trying to look as nonchalant as possible as we watch Ms. James feeding attendance Scantron sheets into a scanner.  
   
I wonder if it'll break when it sees _Gellar, Paris_ with the "M" circle filled in next to it to indicate my absence. Thinking about that, I walk in, trying to make sure that my messenger bag was secure. Rory and I exchanged looks, and tried to get our story straight.  
   
"Hello, can I help you, ladies?" Ms. James greets, taking her reading glasses off from her nose and letting them hang from their leash around her neck.  
   
I cleared my throat, hoping that the words I said next didn't burn my tongue. "We're both, um, late." I laugh nervously. "It was the traffic and a--"  
   
She lifted a clipboard from the shelf below the counter and slid it towards us. "Sign here, then, no need for a reason. We've kept an ear to the news this morning and the Headmaster understands."  
   
"But we--" Rory tried to further our excuse, but I think Miss James had critical envelope moistening ahead of her.  
   
"Ladies, you were late, it happens. You came in and that's all that's important, now sign the sheet."  
   
Hey, if we didn't have to state an excuse, I wasn't going to argue with anyone about it. I scribbled my signature down quickly, then passed the clipboard on to Rory for her own hallmark. Within moments, the sign-in sheet was back in Ms. James's custody, and she was writing up yellow passes for us.  
   
"Next class?"  
   
"Gym, for both of us," Rory says. The older woman quickly wrote down the needed information, and handed the slips to both of us. "I'll let Mrs. Ryerson know you came in a bit early then if that's OK."  
   
"That's fine." I smiled as the uneasiness disappeared and Rory felt her own worry disappear. "Thank you." We move towards the other side of the room after Ms. James acknowledged our thanks, as I prepared for a locker stop and quick run-by of Mr. Silvestri so I could get the homework. Rory stopped me before I left, sliding her hand softly into mine.  
   
"I'll see you in class; thanks for getting the work for me." She smiles towards me one last time and runs her hand through her hair.  
   
"No problem. Thanks Rory." I say the last portion of the sentence a little bit dreamily, which is only noticed by her as she opens the door and books it towards the athletic wing, the other way completely from me. I watch her depart from the office, already feeling over the moon about everything that's happened between us, the closeness we share. How we're both so kindred that missing her hurts me in so many ways.  
   
I hesitate to think that this was the perfect moment for us, with little interference from anyone beyond my mother for a minute. We were both just ourselves, and as we open up more, we become inseparable. I can't picture meeting her at the Formal Saturday night at the Armory and ignoring her or just being friendly, and I just want to come out and scream that we're a couple.  
   
But we're not ready yet; we still have so much to build on. Before we can go public, we have to make sure we can get along in private. I don't want conflict between us, and I'm willing to work with her to be less intense, more open for her. I hold so much in, I know this, and even now, she's only drawn out a few things from me that I'm shy about sharing. Doubts are part of my mindset and I think they always will be. No matter what she tells me, I always think I'm not beautiful enough, or able to meet her head-on. And there's always the fear I'll drive her away with a sudden tantrum. I may work with so many issues with Birnbaum, but I'm flawed, and I'm sure she is too. You don't get off scot-free just having your mother full-time in your life, depending on a diner owner more as a father figure than your own washout dad, or living eleven years in odd housing.  
   
She's turned out more complex than I ever thought she was. From the problems at Stars Hollow schools, to her fractured relationships with relatives, and her own doubts as to how attractive she was to someone else, I need to be there for Rory. After next year, Lorelai isn't going to be there as much for her, and like my friendship with Louise, I can see her drifting from Lane more. I can be her lover, but I also need to make her feel as if she has a right to confide in me, to know that I keep everything she tells me confidential. I hope to be that to her, but first, we need to solidify things further than we did this weekend. Though it was very sexual and fulfilling, I know a relationship based on only sex is bound to fail. But I know we can do it.  
   
 _This has been the perfect morning_ , I thought to myself. _I didn't mess anything up, at all!_ Smiling, I lifted up my bag to head for the girls' locker room...  
   
"Ahem."  
   
Why is Ms. James clearing her throat? That's weird. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I turn around to face her.  
   
"Look, really, we got into the--" I felt as if she was about to question my reason for tardiness.  
   
"Miss Gellar, although I'm sure you're proud of your violet-pantied bum, the instructors and other students might not be."  
   
"I'm wearing the skirt," I argue, "How did you know the color of--"  
   
I slide my hand along the back of my skirt to be met with stretch cotton instead of the rough skirt fabric. On the left side, the hem of the back my skirt is tucked into the waistband of the boyshorts. Cue nervous laughter and utter mortification, along with another of my many 'moments.'  
   
"Oh, sorry." I yank out the skirt and straighten it along my ass, hopeful that Ms. James thought it was induced from a three-hour sit in the car, not sexual. But her face is neutral, and she just stares at me blankly as I began to gather myself back together and get to gym class. I open the door and begin to walk towards the athletic wing, with my modesty thankfully intact.  
   
So it wasn't all perfect this morning. It doesn't take away from anything we did, and thankfully no one saw me with a tucked-in skirt.  
   
Then again, Rory did help me slide back into the skirt while we dressed in the backseat.

Wow, I just got gamed by Rory Gilmore. Never thought I'd see the day she'd get me. No wonder she booked it to the gym with all due speed!  
   
Looks like I have to find a way to get in a little clothes-tampering of my own the next few days. Or this afternoon before we come out of the library. Do I want to show off her cute orange polka-dotted ass?  
   
Maybe, or I could always 'accidentally' yank a button down the middle of her blouse, leaving me open to blatant eyeing her up in life sciences. Oh, I think I can get her in gym class too, since I hold Madeline's combo for safekeeping. Wonder how she'd like trying to get into gym shorts two sizes smaller than usual?  
   
As I walk down the hall on my first ever late start, my mind's gears are back to whirring. Once again, I'll be the Dark Mistress, and it won't even hit her...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	18. The Heart is the Guide, The Heart Knows What it Wants, The Heart is True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What begins as a night for Paris and Rory to secretly celebrate their growing relationship runs into a few kinks as Mrs. Gellar brings in someone unexpected to throw a wrench unknowingly into their young romance, and Rory isn't pleased. Will true love win in the end or will our girls end up fracturing their relationship beyond all repair? Not if Madeline has anything to do with it.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Eighteen | The Heart is the Guide, The Heart Knows What it Wants, The Heart is True  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, alternating POVs between the girls, along with Madeline and Lorelai. Also adding in some Madeline/Brad into this chapter.  
 **Spoilers:** Into the dead of December after _A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving_ , where absolutely nothing happened on the show. At least I think so. I'll never understand why after S2 The WB couldn't spare us one December-set episode. Also note the dramatic license taken with a scene from _Rory's Dance_ and smaller scenes from seasons one and twoin recall form.  
 **Rating:** R (sexual situations, profanity, arguing, self-pleasuring, possible breaking and entering and yes, a smidge of our favorite ditz and scared boy getting together in the biblical sense (but not in detail))  
 **Disclaimer:** The show's been off for a year, but the it's still not mine. Amy-Sherman Palladino's still holding on tight to it (after _Jezebel James_ flopped I think she has second thoughts about letting go), Hofflund-Polone is still there somewhere, and Warner Bros. Television still holds out that slight hope they might come back someday for a reunion movie. However, David Rosenthal may have run the show, but no one cares about him anymore, except the pale M&L clones that played Olivia and Lucy.

President's Choice is the generic brand for A&P, with _Punk'd_ a trademark of MTV Productions and Ashton Kutcher. Rentschler Field at the time was really being constructed across the river from Hartford, and is the home of the University of Connecticut's football team. Poland Spring is a trademark of Nestle's bottled water division, the Magic Bullet is owned by Homeland Housewares, and Fox Sports World (currently Fox Soccer Channel) is a News Corporation/Liberty Media network. Don Music is a character on Sesame Street, a product of Sesame Workshop. All other trademarks and services within the story are the property of their owners.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** What begins as a night for Paris and Rory to secretly celebrate their growing relationship runs into a few kinks as Mrs. Gellar brings in someone unexpected to throw a wrench unknowingly into their young romance, and Rory isn't pleased. Will true love win in the end or will our girls end up fracturing their relationship beyond all repair? Not if Madeline has anything to do with it.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** This chapter has been a long time coming, I know. Trust me, I **really** know (the monthly emails about updates have reminded me of that). I thank you all for your patience as I write this, along with dealing withmy continued fretting about whether I got the tone during a scene right or wrote too little or too much. I have a bunch of 19 and 20 written already and I hope to rev up on those.  
   
I had to self-beta this chapter of the story because my beta Danielle had to finish wrapping up (and I know she hates me for saying this and would rather want me to say 'her freshman year'...or kindergarten (cue Toys "R" Us theme)) college altogether. She is a graduate of Albion College with honors, and I am so glad to know her. Without her, this story is half of what it could be, and I think I would have long moved on to something else. I'm so proud of her, and although she may not have had the time to beta this, know that some of the ideas in this story came from her.  
   
I'd also like to thank The Raven for all of her input through various email threads with me and conversations in general, along with saving me the embarrassment of reminding me that Paris is a neat freak and would probably feel uncomfortable in a situation that would happen later in this chapter. Thank goodness those I have look over my stories remind me that cleanliness is a good thing. And thank you for RavenDark and Didi for coming back into my lives, even if you aren't currently betaing or in a position to do much more than read. I'd rather have you in any form that I can than not at all.  
   
I have been really getting into Callie/Erica on _Grey's Anatomy_ lately. The fandom for them is in its infancy, but the LiveJournal group erica_callie has some pretty great stuff. Of course, you should also read fanfiction involving Miranda/Andy from _The Devil Wears Prada_ if you haven't already; it's been one of the more surprising fandoms I've seen develop in such a short time and the quality level is inspiring.  
   
Also, don't forget that July 17th is the [International Day of Femslash](http://www.femslashday.com/). I encourage everyone out there who wants to write a Paris/Rory to get one out there and represent our couple. I have something in mind that I want to write for IDF, so please, get it out, read it or write it, do what you must to prove how much of an artform and style of writing that femslash has developed into.  
   
I think you ff.net'ers know by now that if you don't like same sex love, you shouldn't be here. Send me criticism and let me know what I can improved and what you loved as always, and please, I beg of you, more than what Jeremy Shane calls 'feedback'.  


* * *

** Rory's POV, 8:00-8:10pm **

****So, I have to admit, I feel so strange at the end of this week. Not from it first week of December, the limbo between the holidays where Mom and I have taken advantage of a couple of sales to check off our Christmas lists more. Nor is it from the fact that I'm feeling lethargic with each new thing to learn in each new class. So much for the senior slump, because Chilton isn't making it easy for me to forget one thing. A couple of students have gotten a new wind behind Paris and I and are beginning to fight us to get to the top, so I have to keep myself focused, at least in that department.  
   
I guess this week was, odd. Not in the weird kind of way, just in the sense that I expected more to happen on the relationship front with Paris.

Now I'm not talking about what you think, that we've hit a sexual slump. Truth be told, after the rush of emotions and urges we had at the Manor and near that pond, I expected that I wouldn't feel anymore the rest of the week, getting everything out that I wanted to against Paris's hand.  
   
Oh, God, her hands...her fingers...mmm...oh, if I could feel them caressing me right now...  
   
Whoa, whoa! Sorry about that. Seriously, I know how to keep things like that under control, usually. OK, concentrate, focus, tell. I can do this without interference from thinking about her. I know I can.  
   
Good, I'm settled again. Anyways, this week. Yeah. You'd think after a first time you're currently keeping your mouth shut about like it's a state secret I'd feel my inner vixen shy off for a few days, letting me relax and go back into my usual studious guise, and the same with Par. We are normal, studious and sane teenagers. Sex doesn't define us in any way, shape or form.  
   
It doesn't, right?  
   
Then why can't I get my mind off her? Is there something wrong with me that I can't stand that she's a half-hour away from me? When she arrives at Luke's each morning, my eyes immediately wander from my eggs towards her, standing there in her Chilton trenchcoat with her good morning smile and a greeting directed towards Miss Patty's way which is veiled with thanks for her support of us. She sits down elegantly on the stool next to me as she orders her tea and a English muffin with grape jelly. I'm shocked that Lorelai is none the wiser as her right shin brushes against my left leg, her way of starting the morning off with a secret and intimate moment.  
   
Then her looks at me in class, out in the halls, or in the gym playing lacrosse, they've been so intense to me so lately. Those warm brown eyes, staring at me from across a room, the neutral look on her face definitely hidden behind a lustful façade.  
   
I haven't even mentioned her during biology class, what with her right hand 'leaning' against my stool on the side. She's grown to enjoy wandering her fingers along the bottom of my skirt, taking advantage of her non-writing hand to keep perfect notes, yet drive me crazy in nothing more than a three-inch space that has not been noticed by Dr. Eure as she paces the aisles of the classroom. She gives me an occasional glance, just to let me know she's thinking about me, and goes back to regarding her notes as I do mine.  
   
But what really gets me in a twist is her leg-crossing. Where she used to maybe do it perhaps twice in an hour (don't ask how I know this), now it's about eight or nine times where she switches one leg to be on top of another. Paris lifts her leg up a couple more inches more than she had in the past, then settles it down against the other knee. As I stare her down, I can see her skirt sliding up her leg, baring each one of those lovely thighs. And if she does it just right, well...you can just say that my legs get shaky, and I feel myself wanting to do that thing I occasionally do to release stress.  
   
I'm kind of regretting telling her what I did under her influence; it's in her arsenal of teasing material lately.  
   
Beyond that though, there has been an obvious change with how she comes off to Madeline and Louise, where she's less abrasive or ready to jump on them for a mistake of theirs in the newsroom. Really, she's nicer to Mads though, who we both are beginning to sense isn't happy with her friendship with Louise.  
   
Lately, she's not coming in with her into school, and when Paris asked for what happened when we skipped first period on Monday in a text, she didn't dawdle with it, sending an answer back as soon as she could (and also relief to the both of us; it had just been reading, so we didn't miss a pop quiz, which he even joked about with the class after the bell rung about expecting). Around Louise, she's becoming less enthused with jumping into conversations, not into the gossip or the appraisal of the guys. She's actually concerned with us, but more importantly, she's been concerned with her grades. That became clear in a dining hall conversation we had Thursday at lunch. Louise wasn't in school, having an appointment with her dermatologist about lasering off moles, so Madeline was there alone with us, and allowed herself to open up about things.  
   
As we kept ourselves well-behaved beneath the table, she filled the expected silence with a question about where she should go for college. Paris, expecting her to prefer anything on the 'party schools' list, asked where she was specifically looking.  
   
"Preferably in the Seattle area," she responded.  
   
"Seattle?" Needless to say, a specific place where Madeline wanted to attend school was a shock to my girl. "What about fashion design in San Francisco; you were considering Mills across the Bay."  
   
"I was, but I changed my mind." She then explained things. "I could do something easy that could get me a reality show on a Viacom network and fifteen minutes of fame, sure. But you keep telling me, the both of you, I'm in this school, I get good grades, I have all this potential. Why should I let this education go to waste, when I can make a difference to someone beyond telling them pink isn't their color?"  
   
"What are you thinking then?" I question. "Not to be mean, Madeline, but you seem to slide by."  
   
She shrugged, swirling the water around in her bottle. "It isn't mean, really. But do I want to look back and think I didn't do enough? Should I only be known as the 'girl most likely to marry young and rich' and that's it?" She shyly smiles. "I guess that's why I'm thinking that some kind of science is in my future."  
   
I could tell from that exact moment that Paris was knocked over with a feather, and her voice showed it. "Science?" She was so surprised, thinking that she was in a reverse world. "You might get bored with it though. You're flighty, what If you decide it's not the right career track?"  
   
"Paris," Madeline shared candidly, "I'm not just saying this as a probable maybe, that I might lose interest in it. But let's face it; I enjoy the subjects and the sense of discovery, and science is cool! I'm not like an Einstein, but to be able to do something that I naturally enjoy and want to do, I can't let that go. The field is wide open and I can find something I'm sure to love."  
   
"I guess I can understand." Paris looked over her friend carefully, hopeful she was making the decision with her heart, rather because of a phase she might be in. "I've been set on a medical track my whole life, but I'm really enjoying journalism more than I ever expected to. In the medical classes I've taken I just keep thinking that maybe I'm not right to be a doctor. It's expected, part of my bloodline, but I just can't seem to think of myself next to someone, informing them that they're leaving the mortal coil in a few months."  
   
Everything began to come full circle within the conversation, as I was surprised to hear her think she might not pursue being a cancer researcher. I always thought it was her dream, but maybe it was just expected of her. Madeline and her talked a little longer, and I watched as I finally realized why these two girls had been friends for nine years. When I first met them both, I surmised that they were only together through an odd bond and the connections between their mothers. That thought stayed with me for a long time, especially as Madeline dawdled around during community service, Paris keeping her in line.  
   
They couldn't be more apart, but I saw that Paris, no matter the annoyance she might carry for the girl, does treasure her friendship, and has said as such to me. I remember her telling me exactly that once. "She might be a follower now, but I know her, Gilmore: people will see her lead, one day. It's a gut feeling that she's waiting in the wings for her moment to shine, without Louise." At the time, I thought Paris was crazy.  
   
But as she asked for a recommendation of whether to put in an app with Washington or another university in the area, I couldn't help but wonder if the black-haired girl across from us was still that absent-minded girl with three forms of 'Lynn' in her name (yes, her middle name is Linda. Blame her mother's _Dynasty_ addiction of the time for that).  
   
I'm surprised to say that she is changing for the better, however. I don't know exactly what it is yet, but as she described how she might want to get into botany, or otherwise some kind of worthwhile science where she could make a difference, I have to say that Paris's aptness to be short with her may end up paying off. And I have to admit, no matter how 'ditzy' she might come off usually, Madeline is in the top 60 of our class, but she doesn't feel a need to crow about it. She pursues her happiness, and thankfully her father lets her do so. That lunch went so well, and the three of us came out of the conversation feeling much more in tune about each other than before, although we had to hold back the obvious secret we were keeping.  
   
And what a secret it is! Thinking about this week, how much we've flirted in the halls and within the newspaper, to an outside observer they can't see that anything is amiss. Paris has been so secretive about when she wants to touch, and she brings it out at just the right time, when no one notices. For instance, while I was going through pictures on my monitor to crop and put in the paper, she came up behind me, and I didn't even notice until she was right near my ear, lightly flittering her fingertips along my back while she went on with business as usual.  
   
"I would check the next roll," she hinted. "These kind of look like they were taken in a bad light."  
   
I stumbled over my response. "But cross-country isn't known for good lighting, they were taken in the woods."  
   
"Then find one with the runner coming out of the clearing," she suggested, her cheek brushing mine. "You know my policy is that Photoshop is an emergency tool, not a crutch; take a good picture the first time, or trash it."  
   
"Why am I doing this in the first place?" I questioned. "I'm more into writing than photo layout."  
   
"Because Melanie DeVos is more experienced during crunch times with ad layouts and we have the social season coming up, which packs in the paper with ads. I'm actually doing you a favor here, Gilmore."  
   
"Oh, you are." I smiled, coding the flirt carefully within my words. "Didn't you already do so this week?"  
   
Oh, that got her flustered, and she pushed herself closer. "You're just lucky you're so good at what you do, Gilmore."  
   
"Well I am the best at doing it in a parking lot." Now note that six other people surrounded us on each side, and to everyone else is thinking this conversation is so mundane. Except for one thing; newspaper talks don't usually consist of your editor-in-chief sniffing your hair, or making a massage look asexual. "I proved myself, didn't I?"  
   
A wall of hidden sarcasm was put up. "Oh, beyond my wildest dreams." She looked over towards the screen again, looking at my browsing of the files. "Now if you can find the perfect picture for this story, you deserve much more than a gold star." I scrolled through the file menu, looking at the small thumbnails included in the photo files until I found a perfect one with the runner coming up from a small valley.  
   
"How about this one?" I pointed it out and double-clicked it into the photo window. "I may have to do some adjustments, but just to brighten and sharpen." Poking her tongue in her mouth, she looked it over, trying to judge it in her mental layout.  
   
"Um, I'd crop out some of the side stuff, crop to up to the numbers, and just a bit of color adjustment, her shirt seems a bit more dark blue than Chilton blue." She grabbed my mousing hand, guiding the device within, and used the cursor to point out where I should crop. "I think I'd probably just have this inset within the story, rather than below the headline, it works better that way."  
   
 _Oh, her hand, it's so soft_. I couldn't take it, she felt so wonderful behind me. You could say I was enjoying this hands-on editing style very much, the torture...  
   
But if I thought she wasn't the type to invoke sexual thoughts in public under everyone's nose, I was sorely mistaken moments later as she continued to talk while I manipulated the picture.  
   
"I wanted to let you know that I met your new friend at Westfarms last night." Talking as if it was mundane, I felt my throat catch as I reminded myself of how I ended up at her door Sunday evening.  
   
I decided to play dumb, hopeful she'd cool down if I feigned that I didn't know what she was talking about. "I don't know anyone from Farmington."  
   
"Of course not, because she's from Granby; I checked." _OK, let it go, let it go, this is so not appropriate paper conversation_. "When I went in, she was very friendly, knowledgeable, not like the women in Wallingford.  I mentioned you by description, and she had the other clerks take care of everyone else while she helped me with my problems."

I bit down on my lip, trying to hold back the images of Friday morning when the clerk measured things out and got an idea of what would go with my body type and my personal style. "Truthfully, I never really considered more than their basics and skimmed the catalog, but as she described everything, I was intrigued, and she gave me an idea that I didn't have to think the way I usually do about myself, and that with the right stuff, I could stand out."  
   
Great, just what I needed, to think about her like that! I tried to push the chair back, but she kept her shoes firmly grounded into the floor, disallowing movement. "You helped me out, gave me a basic idea of where to go, and I really appreciate you doing that for me. You'll be glad to know that your friend has a nice holiday bonus check to be drafted to her under my father's secret account in the next week, because when you spend $579, you should really give thanks to whoever helped you out."  
   
She slid her hand across my bra strap beneath my blouse and rose up, leaving me stunned silent. Never had she hurled around those big money numbers, since she always thought as wealth as something to be careful with. But when she threw that figure towards me, I knew then that there wasn't going back anymore. Paris was flirting with me, at the newspaper, and with not even mentioning one word, drove me crazy, and all up the wall.  
   
"Damn you," I whispered under my breath, which she caught. She quirked her eyebrow, and looked me over dead-on.  
   
"Not until Saturday night," she hinted, and she turned and walked away, leaving me to think about her sans the skirt, even more so than I had since the start of the weekend and her first call.  
   
I was left stunned, speechless. I went back to work, the taste of her along my tongue as I thought about her in that shop with my new 'friend', trying on things for three hours straight and giving her that bonus. I know I couldn't do that, but between the both of us, that woman must think we're crazy to ask her advice on what to wear beneath our clothes. Thank God she gets paid to deal with my girlfriend fretting over something that doesn't give her enough cleavage.  
   
I know she was probably thinking about that as she got ready tonight for the Winter Formal. We both didn't want to go and would have preferred to go out on a date someplace special, remembering the embarrassment of the last Formal we attended, when I found out about her 'close date', and of course, Dean and Tristan's cock-measuring contest. We both skipped last year because of calculus exam study. This year we can't get out of it though, since it's organized by student government and we lead it. Both of us had to be in attendance, even if we just sat at the punch table doling out drinks and watched for someone sneaking in to spike the punch.  
   
Thankfully, Paris saw that I wouldn't be happy about that assignment, and when she doled out responsibilities, I had something pretty simple to do, and that was to coordinate the music with the hired DJ so that NWA and Snoop Dogg didn't sneak into the playlist. We all wanted the dance to be a nice calm event, and I also didn't want the DJ to be playing music last loved in 1994. Pretty much all I had to do was check his discs, make sure nothing offensive or lame was in there, and the rest of the night, I can catch up on my reading in the corner. Meanwhile, Par would be at the door, greeting others and welcoming them on behalf of student gov, and then moving on to the mic to announce basic things like Oxfam and United Way donation pleas, along with 'your lights are on' queries. Pretty simple gig, and Paris agreed with me Thursday night, glad to at least have some time with me tonight.  
   
Still, no matter how much I wanted to just come in a t-shirt and jeans, we were required to dress fancy, no matter our duties. I put a bit of effort into it, having Mom alter an off-the-shelf grey dress a bit, add a bit of a slit, adjust the bodice, things I knew would tease Paris, but at the same time show that I didn't want to put much effort into attending the Winter Formal. I looked pretty enough, and as we got within a half-mile of the Armory, Mom gave me some ground rules to follow.  
   
"You'll call me if there's any problem or you have to stay out later than expected. I don't want to have you freezing your ass outside for an hour because you forgot to call."  
   
"Don't worry, I won't." I rolled my eyes up. "Trust me, I'm planning on going with Par's plan to be out by ten, we just need to be there two hours."

"They'll drag you into more, trust me," Mom warned, remembering back to her younger days. "I know you don't think you're dancing, but I know you will."  
   
"I won't," I insisted. "I brought a good book, I'll be buried in it!"  
   
Mom shook her head, denying my theory. "Trust me, kiddo, bribe the DJ into keeping you in the seats. He's going to beg you to dance at least once."  
   
"With who?"  
   
"Oh, I don't know," she teased, then teased my call before Friday night dinner. "Paris kind of wanted you to dance Thursday night when I turned on the music."  
   
"She was not! She was telling you to turn it down."  
   
"What, she doesn't like AC/DC?" Lorelai pouted as she made the last turn towards the venue. "Tough breaks! She knew what the deal was for Thursdays, I can do and play whatever I want when she's there."  
   
"Mom, next time she's over, do not taunt her by putting in the _Wizard of Oz_ disguised as _Troop Beverly Hills!_ " I was annoyed as I went on. "She has nightmares about flying monkeys. Monkeys with wings!"  
   
"But it's the best movie ever!"  
   
"No!" I stuck my finger out. "Never, ever again! You will lose your movie choice if you mock her like you do."  
   
"Your girlfriend is no fun," she whined. "Dean mocked with me."  
   
"Dean would mock _Saving Private Ryan_." Yes, I totally said that. "Seriously, she's much better than Dean; she even bought the food for us. You loved that, right?"  
   
"Well...yeah."  
   
"And she was on her best behavior," I noted.  
   
"Sure she was," Mom said wryly. "I know you two were having fun before I came home from work, so she got her energy out before then."

I tried to deny her allegation, but well...it didn't work. "Yeah, having fun studying." I said that with a dreamy look on my face.  
   
"Studying the fly on your jeans?" _Oh, crap!_ "Trust me, kiddo, I know all the tricks, you and her were doing things I need not know about that I did with your father once."

"We were not!" I continued to argue for my non-existent innocence. "Maybe we made out a little, but the door was open! We weren't going to do anything too wild, and we followed the rules, Mom."  
   
"Honey, calm down. I'm just teasing you, and whatever you're doing with her, as long as it's not interfering with your education or dangerous, it's fine." Stopping at the last light before the Formal venue, she turned around and attempted to quell my panicking. "It's going to take me awhile to get used to this, but she's a good girl. She knows what she's doing, and with this, she's becoming less intense. Frankly, I'm glad you hooked up, since it gets her off our backs during PTO meetings!"

"Mom!" I was smiling again.  
   
"She was going to make some big presentation about a front lawn LCD sign Tuesday night, but she never appeared. I think Ava and Aubrey drank to that after the meeting and actually had a party!" Oh, if I could tell her what she was presenting that night in reality, which involved the two of us in iChat, misusing the technology of instant messaging after ending discussion on an essay topic...

Finally, we arrived at the front entrance, and I felt so strange not having a date on such a date night. But as long as she was there, I could handle the problems and pressures of having to attend the Formal as a single girl, rather as a newly devirginized lesbian with my lover at the door.  
   
"So, this is it. Your final Formal." Mom smiled at me. "I can tell you right now, Paris is going to have a dry mouth."  
   
"She doesn't drool." I blushed, wondering if I was showing off too much cleavage. "She'll look, shrug, and say I look nice."  
   
"She has blood, right?" Far be it for me to deny that Mom and I share an odd kinship. "Paris will drool."  
   
"I guess." I still doubted myself about my looks as I got out of the car and said goodbye to her, climbing out of the Jeep as gracefully as I could. Gathering my purse and making sure that my book and wallet were secure, I felt around until I found my staff ticket to get in. Looking up at the big doors of the neo-Gothic building, I felt a shudder at going into the huge hall, alone.  
   
Thank God Paris would greet me at the inside door as I went into the hall. Opening the outside door, the decorations were spare, fitting a Chilton-sponsored dance within the corridor. A crowd of other students was in the hall as I went through, trying to find which door Paris was guarding. I prepared myself for the visceral reaction of how she looked. Instead of the green dress of last time though, I pictured her more in the sweater dress she wore to my 16th birthday party at Grandma's, not going for looks, just for comfort.  
   
I wanted her to look conservative, boring, dull, so I could see the way she usually presented herself. I felt so odd, wanting her to dress down, just so that no other person in that hall could eye her up. I was the one making her hot, but I needed her to cool down in public, for my own sake.  
   
Looking towards the inner doors, paired in three sections, I couldn't find her though. _That's odd_ , I thought. Maybe she had changed assignments with someone else. I did see Chip from one of our projects last year at a door instead, along with a couple of other students I didn't know at the other two. Maybe Chip would know something, so I went towards that line to dig out information. I patiently waited in line for my place to give him the ticket, and after five minutes, I was at the head of the queue.  
   
Greeting him, I asked him if he knew where she was.  
   
"She should be in there, I'm not sure where though," he explained. "She called me just before she left home, said I had line duty."  
   
"Did she say why?"  
   
"No idea, I guess she didn't want to do it. But she was in a rush so I couldn't really question it. I think she just came in through the side door."  
   
"OK, thanks."  
   
"Enjoy the evening." He took the ticket, and I was puzzled by what he said. Was she even here? Why would she ditch the true opportunity to make sure everyone knew she was the queen of the school? I know how excited she was about it, texting me all day as I got ready about how she was glad to have line duty. Why would she change her mind so abruptly?  
   
I guess I feel so protective of her, that I'm scared when she goes off-plan, like she did Monday morning with us being late. I have to get used to that. Maybe once I consult with the DJ, things will be much calmer and I'll realize that she's probably at the food table--  
   
Uh, wait a second. Why is she mingling in the middle of the crowd? I see her over towards the middle, and I know she never mingles, ever. She is always on the side, no matter what.  
   
Besides that though, uhh, she certainly hasn't shrugged off dressing up for the dance at all. Her dress is a sort of a lighter green, and has a satiny look to it, it makes her look thinner than she seems. Um, and her breasts are coming out to play tonight, did our friend at the Secret sell her this dress? I mean, wow, she still looks like Paris, really.  
   
But she's standing there in that dress...uh, she has a slit up the right side of her dress. A nice, long, leg-bearing slit.  
   
Oh, damn. For someone who shops petite, she's making me seem so small all the sudden. My heart is palpitating, and I'm undressing her here, in the middle of this room, with my eyes. I want her so bad, and here I am, ready to just...  
   
Ready to just...  
   
Uhh, what in the hell is Jamie doing there, approaching her with some punch? I can recognize him any time, what with his dull Brock Squarejaw preppy look. My fists are clenching; there is no way in hell that Paris invited him here, did she? Or that she's pleased to see him at all...  
   
Oh, maybe she is, since she's smiling at him. Why is she smiling at him?  
   
What the fuck is going on here, is she going to call me out right here and now?

God, I hate Jamie. I hate him so much...damn it, they're getting into a dancing position! She hasn't even seen me yet and I am boiling mad. Why is she with Jamie, why, why, why?  
   
I'm just going to turn away and stew in a fucking corner, and I'm going to get Louise to do all that DJ crap. I can't believe her! After all that she's shared with me, and all that I've shared with her, she's dancing with Jamie Pratt! He came all the way up from Princeton, likely with flowers and candy, and got her to date him, and then fuck me over! Sorry for getting all salty with my language here, but I'm pissed off! Why didn't she tell me at all? What is wrong with me?  
   
She told me I wasn't a phase, that she wanted us to be as close to each other as possible. She promised me, and now...  
   
Paris is looking right towards me, smiling, saying hi, asking how I'm doing.  
   
I turn away from her, coldly. She will not see what she has done, that I'm on the verge of exploding in tears. I should have known I was just the filler before Jamie kissed up to her, and that's it, we're done. To everyone else, it's just another night, another stage in the combative story of the two of us, publicly.  
   
To me though, I feel my heart shattering. I don't need any kind of explanation at all, because no matter what she says, she's holding Jamie's hand. She's got a guy. She doesn't need me anymore.  
   
I feel empty inside, and suddenly, I know how she felt when Tristan told her they weren't right for each other. Dirty and wrong, wanting to lash out.  
   
Suddenly, I feel so used. A month, down the drain, because she's found someone appropriate for her to love. I know she may say she hates Jamie, but when you're surprised, you can't help but fall in love.  
   
If you'll excuse me, I kind of feel like Miss Haversham right now. I need to cope before I end up living the rest of my life in my bedroom wearing this same dress...  
   
 **Paris's POV, 8:25pm-8:35pm**

 ****I've been watching her all night, when I can. From a seat along the sides, she sits on a folding chair, near the corner, reading _Madam Bovary_. I can't help but notice how beautiful she looks, the way her hair is tied back, how the grey dress she wears accentuates the beautiful paleness of her skin, and falls just above her knee. Tonight, Rory Gilmore isn't a Disney princess at all; she's gone far and above those homely ladies and become a beauty of her own, in my eyes.  
   
But if you look under the façade, you see that her blue eyes, usually so full of life and bright, are instead darkened. Full of rage and betrayal. She's angry, bitter, hiding it all under her usual cherry disposition to anyone else.  
   
Except for me. And I must take full responsibility for ruining her night.  
   
Probably her life if I don't fix things very, very quickly. She hasn't even said a word to me, walking towards Louise to ask her to take DJ duty, then sitting down shortly after, and she hasn't moved from her chair since except for her 'clearing the air' before this moment.  
   
Obviously, I fucked up, horribly. This is all my fault. I had opportunities to make it clear to her that the situation I was in wasn't the culmination of some sick joke where I'd take her virginity and reveal her as a dyke at the end of the night. Mind you I'm saying that in the guise of a Chilton student with the humor of Jimmy Kimmel, And not myself.  
   
Maybe I should say your average member of a Princeton fraternity, also.  
   
I suppose I should tell you how I got hoodwinked into the situation in the first place. Trust me when I say, this night did not need to happen. It should have never happened.  
   
I should not be with Jamie Pratt, who I could barely tolerate when I went out with him in August. I should be joking about slutty girls with my girlfriend and giving her wide-eyed stares and inflaming her with a bit of leg in this hot little number.  
   
But then my mother found out that I had gone out with him, no matter how much I tried to hide it. For the last month, she's been conspiring with this yutz to give me a surprise for Winter Formal. Mind you, I've been telling her 'I am going alone' since the start of October, and any dates would be rejected.  
   
Next time this happens, I will just get ready at Maddy's.

If there is a next time, that is. For all I know, Rory is planning my demise while reading that book, and I'm living my last hours because she's going to stab me in my bed hours from now. Probably with knitting needles.  
   
Maybe a little macabre, but please, get the point. Rory hates me, and she has every reason to do so. But she doesn't know the facts.  
   
After I was finished getting ready, I decided to do my usual duck from my room and through the kitchen stairs, hoping that I could just shout to my mother I was going to leave and dodge out without exchanging more than four words. I thought I had a pretty good chance of it this time, seeing as she had her own night out with Mohegan Man. What they were going to do, I don't really know. All I knew is I didn't want to know, and to get out of there quickly was my main goal. I wouldn't let anything get in my way.  
   
"Mother, I'm leaving!" I shouted from the top of the landing.  
   
"All right!" OK, home free, nothing said, she couldn't stop me as I rushed down the stairs towards the kitchen...  
   
And ended up being met with someone at the bottom of the landing, blocking my way with a dozen blue roses and a gift.  
   
"Hello, Paris," the person said, and as I caught my breath from looking at my feet while I went down the stairs, I looked up towards the speaker.  
   
Who immediately brought me into a very unwanted hug on my end. "I've missed you, how have you been?"  
   
 _Oh God, oh God, oh God...no, this is **not** happening! _I remembered the voice from its boastful drone during the dinner in Washington as he talked about McCain being his idol and such, and immediately, I felt myself wanting to be sick.  
   
It was Jamie. The freshman from Princeton who was a good debate partner, but I couldn't muster a sexual thought about, which finally brought me out of my delusion that my feelings for Rory were from a lack of any boy I wanted. Mainly because beyond Tristan, I didn't want a guy.  
   
If this was Vance Beardsley, it would be so much easier. But this guy, he likes me. **Likes me!** He thinks my anger is a turn-on, so I couldn't threaten him and expect him to clear away.  
   
"Ahh, Paris." There was my mother, coming towards the two of us and probably already up to a .11. "I see you're very surprised."  
   
"Um, yes." No, I was shanghaied! Looking him over, nothing got me all hot. He looked just as non-threateningly cute as he did four months before, wearing a dull suit with a silver tie.  
   
I couldn't believe this. How the hell had Jamie got my number, and more importantly, on my mom's side? This was a nightmare. I knew exactly why he was there, so I tried to play dumb to misdirect.  
   
"I'm sorry, I have to go. I'm greeting people at the door of my school's Winter Formal--"  
   
"No you're not!" Sharon cut me off immediately. "Paris, enjoy a night out, I'm really impressed with this boy."  
   
"Mother, I'm the greeter! I'm not going to have time to dance!"  
   
"You will if you call someone to take over. What about that Chip boy, he seems to somewhat enjoy you in student government."  
   
"No, I'm not calling anyone." I brought my focus towards Jamie, hoping to dissuade him with a future pity date. "Look, Jamie, you can call me next week." I tried to walk off towards the garage.  
   
And then, he stopped me.  
   
"I came all this way to see you," he said, smiling. "I really do miss you."  
   
I tried letting him off easy again, doing all I could to get out of the house, but my path continued to be blocked. "Jamie, it was a nice date, but--"  
   
"Paris!!" Mother stomped her foot down on the ground. "Into the dining room, now!" She grabbed me by my arm forcefully, and yanked me towards the other room, definitely angry with me. Locking me in, she unfortunately used the soundproof sliding oak doors to my disadvantage.  
   
"Mother, I--"

Now let's examine why Sharon isn't Mother of the Year with this conversation, shall we? "Shut up, you will not embarrass yourself in front of one of the most eligible bachelors in all of Philadelphia!" She stomped around me, standing straight, her voice weakening my resolves. "Now why you are not going out with this boy, is beyond me. You never told me about him at all, and frankly, young lady, I'm very disappointed in you! How dare you not let anything develop with him, after one date!"  
   
"That's because it was a dull one," I said, meekly. "I didn't have fun."  
   
She sneered her mouth, growling at me, her flesh and blood, verbally abusing me. "Oh, fuck fun! For once in your life, think about more than fun. You're not allowed to have fun on a date, you learn about each other and go from there!" I felt myself wanting to cry, but knew if I did, she would slap me in the face. "I don't know what the hell you're thinking in that head of yours, but you are my daughter, and you will do what I say. And tonight, you will be on Jamie's arm and enjoy your night, dancing."

 _Rory, if you were here now..._ I felt scared, really, truly scared. I tried to raise my voice. "What if I don't? Let's say I walk out this door without him and go to the dance, what will you do?"  
   
My mother stood still, letting her words speak for any action she might take. "Then I guess I'll have to tell the Pratts that you refused to date him, and they can use their influence to shut down any Harvard contacts you might have, since one of their family members happens to work in the dean's office." My face was pale, and I felt sick as she attacked my future. As I began to look down, she threw more sickening attacks in my direction. "Look up here, you sniveling bitch!" She took her finger and propped up my chin up sharply, her nail digging into the soft skin and almost drawing blood. "Let's get things straight, Paris. I don't care about your future, as long as it's filled with grandchildren and you being a loyal wife to your husband. I'm tired of your idiotic attitude towards being independent, and you will get in line, or else I will ruin your life. I realized I was losing control of you when that bastard spawn of Lorelai Gilmore's visited here overnight last week."

My jaw clenched, and I tried to defend Rory. "Excuse me!" I felt so hostile towards her. "Rory is my best friend and does not deserve your hate! Don't you dare belittle her or Lorelai!"  
   
"I could give a shit about who you keep as a buddy; besides, she'll probably meet the same fate as her mother sooner or later and ruin her life." This was becoming the first time in my life I was willing to go to jail and punch Sharon out. Yet I held back, remembering how long until I no longer had to abide by the shitty ruling of Hartford County's divorce court. "Now you are not going to ruin this for me, or your father. You have a guy who likes you out there, and you will enjoy him, no matter what. I don't expect you home before one, and if I hear anything about you doing your stupid volunteer work, you're going to be sorry you disobeyed me. You understand?"  
   
I nodded silently, hoping the room's oxygen went away.  
   
"I said..." she repeated with a growl, "do you understand, Paris?"  
   
"Yes, Moth--"  
   
She grabbed my hand tightly, like she did when I was younger, in a way that hurt. "You show him a good time, or else!"  
   
"Yes, Mother." I was weak, and quiet as I shirked out of the room after Sharon's rant towards me, feeling like crying, angry at her, angry at Jamie, feeling so violated. I ran for a corner of the hall, away from Jamie, where I called Chip to let him know he had door duty. I knew if I kept my original plans I'd get a whiny Jamie, and Sharon doing much more than screaming at me. The call was quick and to the point, and with that, I moved on to informing Rory. I tried to call, but got her voice mail, so I left a quick message.  
   
"Rory, it's Par. I'm out with Jamie against my will, sorry."  
   
Then, thanks to Madeline's knowledge of speedy text messaging language, I made sure cover myself completely, although the vocabulary portion of my brain was screaming out corrections as I typed swift characters on the tiny cell phone keypad;  
   
 _R,  
   
911, Sharon forced me on Jamie 4 formal date! dont kill me, sorry :(. b thinking of u all nite.  
   
Par  
   
_I had a feeling she would get it, and I'd be well-covered enough. At least I hoped so. Shortly after, I departed with Jamie in the town car, and I could tell Henrico was not pleased at all to be called in by my mother on a day off he planned for months to launch his new indoor soccer league for kids down at the Y in his neighborhood. He actually used the term _concha putrefacta_ to describe her as I apologized to him in Spanish before departing. He wasn't mad at me, but made it clear he would be screening from now on, and that if I needed his services that I would have to call him on my cell personally.  
   
As much as I'd like to say that Jamie and I had a conversation on the ride over to the Armory, I'm not going to run it down for you, mainly because I didn't get to say all that much. Instead, I was able to recall why I never found him attractive beyond the surface, as he boasted about how much he was 'owning' debates (I thought they were owned by the schools, not him), and that he was the best pledge in his fraternity. He let me know how his boring family was, who made Dean and the Forresters seem like the fucking Osbournes in comparison. And then he went into detail about how much he missed me, including spending nights on the phone deciding whether to call me or not.  
   
Yes, I'm serious, he acted like he was in a bad 60's movie when it came to his feelings for me! God, I mean come on, either call me or give up, but don't wait until I've completely forgotten about you to make your move!

But things got worse, and soon it was clear that my absent-mindedness during that luncheon had come back to bite me, hard. He went on and on about how I was the best thing to happen to him that summer, and that he couldn't think about anything else when he was alone at night.  
   
"I even thought of coming up to your school and surprising you last month," he mentioned. "I called them to ask, but unfortunately your headmaster said I couldn't visit without your permission, something about security precautions."  
   
Remind me to send Hanlan and Bitty a card showing their appreciation for rejecting that visit. I couldn't have imagined what he'd do, get down on his knees? Ask for my hand? Who does he I think I am, god damned Scarlett O'Hara?  
   
No matter what, I would have been fucked one way or another, thanks to my mother's tenacity. When I asked him how he got my mother's number, he said that his grandmother was a member of the DCW, and since Sharon leads the Hartford branch, it didn't take long to get a hold of her.  
   
I felt a headache coming on as he prodded me for information for how I was doing within the fifteen minute drive to the Formal venue. I rattled off a basic review of the last three months, filtering out anything to have to do with Rory, and tried to sound just barely interested in recounting to this stranger in my eyes how my life was. Frankly, I was surprised that he wasn't mad at me for not mentioning that by the time I got back to Hartford, I had forgotten all about him.  
   
As much as I'd like to recount the full conversation with him, there was no ice broken between us, and I already knew that this would be our second and last date. He tried to inch closer, but I avoided it by claiming I needed to be next to the window because of being carsick.

And as much as I hate to say this, would it have killed him to offer dinner at the very least? Not that I was starving and would eat something at the hors d'oeuvres table, but it would have been much appreciated.  
   
I did know that I would have to play along all night, lest I look less than enthused to him. As much as I didn't think Jamie dateable, I wasn't going to be completely bitchy and tell him to go find someone else to have fun with. _Besides, what can go wrong_ , I asked myself. I thought I was pretty well-covered and Rory would understand.  
   
Oh, but she didn't. The moment she turned away from me after I greeted her, she didn't see the surprised shock on my face, the anguish. I felt my stomach drop at that exact moment, and I could tell that if not for Jamie, I would have probably turned her on quite a bit. I went on dancing with him, which was a mistake in hindsight. But I was listening to him, because I didn't want trouble with Sharon, and no matter how much I wanted to go talk to Rory, Jamie was stuck to my side, and when I said I wanted to talk to her, he tried to interfere.  
   
"Cool, I want to talk to her too," he said, eager to restore our Junior Leadership bonds. "I'm sure she's also missed me...though not as much as you did." He said the last part with a flirt, and brought himself closer, expecting a kiss.  
   
I pushed him away in a nice manner. "Actually...um, it can wait, honestly. It's something you wouldn't understand." I looked up at him, feeling so strange to be in the arms of a guy who shadowed over me by a foot, rather than the comfortable few inches of Rory. "Maybe later?"  
   
"Um, sure." We continued to dance, and I was thankful not to have anyone like Madeline or Louise come over to examine that I had a guy. Well, Madeline saw us, but didn't say anything, just waving, saying hi and eventually moving out of my line of sight.  
   
I had my fingers crossed that maybe I could try to figure out why Rory wasn't being social and bitter to me, and I kept a vigil towards her seat, hoping to catch her leaving for something like a restroom break. In the meantime, I had to duck Jamie's feet trying to stomp me several times, along with his musical commentary. Let's just say our views on Mariah Carey as the finest songstress of our time are very divergent.  
   
I knew Rory couldn't sit there and stew forever, and finally, forty minutes into the event, she got up from the chair. That was my signal to confront her.  
   
The plan was put into effect quickly. "Uh, Jamie, would you mind if I used the restroom? I drank a little too much water before the Formal." I faked a nervous laugh and looked up at him.  
   
"Sure, why not?" He nodded, letting me go. "I'm just going to wander the room."  
   
"Take your time." With that, I found myself broken off from him, and rushed quickly towards the hallway, hoping that I could catch Rory in time. I just felt this night falling apart with each step, and hoped if I explained it all to her, she would have to understand that I had no intention at all of hurting her.  
   
Did I mention that I cannot run in heels to save my life? I almost fell a couple of times and must have looked like _Square Pegs_ -era Sarah Jessica Parker running down that hall, even if I was in a _Sex in the City_ -era dress.  
   
"Rory!" I called out her name once I was out in the hall. "Hey, Rory!" I raised my hand up as she turned to look at me.

She was immediately bitter towards me, standing up straight and staring me down as if she forgot that I used to really intimidate her. Strutting towards the restroom, she had an acidic venom to her words as I caught up with her. I felt a chill as we entered the room, thankfully alone.  
   
"Rory," I started, "I wanted to explain--" I tried to talk as if nothing was amiss, but she stopped me by slamming the door shut, and turning the lock.  
   
"Wanted to explain what?" Oh, fuck, she was pissed off! "Wanted to explain what you're doing with that idiot?" I felt my heart beat picking up as she stomped her heel down, leaving me to gape at my beautiful girlfriend turning into a Medusa before my very eyes. "Why is he here?"  
   
"I don't know--"  
   
"Wanted to embarrass me later, push me out of the closet, deny we have anything and leave me to the vultures?" OK, this wasn't the Rory Gilmore I knew at all. "You had this planned, didn't you? Get me right to that point, all buttered up, romantic, unpopped, and then BAM! Your ultimate mindfuck where you get the V slot, just like Mom said you were going for. I trusted you, I thought you were true."  
   
 _I'm losing her_. I was in an extreme panic, trying to make a comeback. I could usually keep up with her, word for word, but at that moment, I was failing, looking down at the octagonal tiles below, ashamed. Admittedly to anyone else, I probably had the upper hand. But I just couldn't grasp on.  
   
"I am," I responded solemnly, hoping I could explain things, forgetting other details. "You really think I would be that low? That I'd date a guy who dropped off my radar the moment I came back to the dorm, then spend the last month of my life proving that I want you the way I do?" I wasn't going to be pushed into a fight with her, and if she wanted one, I'd take the punch.

She had spent the last forty-five minutes stewing, angry at me. I was powerless to stop her from using her words to cut me.  
   
"Yeah, like I believe that now. Friend of Louise, whose picture is right next to the definition of _one night stand_ , and daughter of a woman who gets wet from seeing others in pain." I felt her gaze burn into me, hateful and unyielding. "Seriously, you could've done a lot better than Jamie when it came to screwing with me; I know Vance would love to have you."  
   
"Ror, please stop--" I had never felt so defeated before, never so down and out. I was losing my will to fight the accusations as I tried to beg and plead for her to check her messages.  
   
"The name, is Rory. You just lost your right to shorten it." She backed me towards another part of the bathroom. "What you've done is low, you know that, right?"  
   
"I didn't do anything wrong!" I screamed in desperation. "Jamie--"  
   
"Look, just don't bother talking to me for now." She held up her hand. "You've done just about enough tonight, and I don't even want to look at you. I hope you have a nice, fun night out, Paris." I began to cry fully, knowing that my happiness was once again snatched just as I had a supposedly tight grasp on it.  
   
"You really don't understand, I didn't mean to go out with--" Rory quickly left the room before I got my confession out, and when the door shut, I was in tears, not giving a damn about my makeup or anything else. I once again felt all alone in the world as my best friend, the love of my life, left me, without letting me convey how much I hated the current situation.  
   
I eventually retreated into the stall I'm in, not giving a fuck about Jamie at all. I felt my stomach twist and turn, feeling so hurt and angry.  
   
Angry at myself.  
   
Angry, because I didn't push myself out of Jamie's way, make him tumble on his ass and tell Sharon if she liked Jamie so much, she could date him.  
   
Angry, because I can't stand to hurt my girlfriend, and I have. Maybe forever.  
   
Angry, because I did nothing to follow my heart, and complied the moment my mother called me a bitch.  
   
I wish I had just called in sick and didn't do the Formal now, because this would have all never happened. I could be at home working on a project, and Rory would be fine with me, not hating my guts because I happened to have an unwanted escort.  
   
As I sit in this stall, I wonder if things have changed between us. Or worse, she'll out me to everyone and tell them about Monday morning as if it was different, dark, and twisty.  
   
Fuck. Thank God Jamie didn't take me to dinner; I'm beginning to truly feel sick...  
   
 **Madeline's POV, 9:10pm-9:25pm  
**    
I'm trying to think about the exact point things changed for me, and why all the sudden I've gone from having such low expectations for myself, to thinking of myself as scientist material. Three months ago my only concern was about how hot Louise and I should look for Homecoming, and how many guys we should dance with, or in Louise's case, bed.  
   
Not me, it takes a while to get me to sleep with a guy. I may seem like I've slept with a lot of boys on outside appearances, but really, it's more like only three. Everyone else that appears to be a bedpost notch, they've only gotten a handjob. Frankly, it's cleaner and a lot less icky, especially when I could convince the lucky fella to wear a condom.

And yes, a few I've taken into the mouth, but it's **very** rare. I kiss my daddy with this mouth, and I don't want to share those gross germs with him!  
   
However, that was me three months ago. To tell you the truth, I was beyond bored with sex and relationships in general, sticking with them only after Lou begged me with peer pressure. After Rory and Paris left for the summer, I spent the summer trying to improve myself, spend more time at the country club playing sports, to tone myself up and look for someone interested in me beyond what magic my tongue could do. I managed to keep myself single all through the summer, usually avoiding any dating opportunity Louise presented me with by saying I wasn't all that interested in a hook-up. I felt myself unhappy and bored with going out, and frankly, Louise gravitating towards Duncan and Bowman's old clique was something I tried my best to discourage. Tristan was already stuck at military school, and Louise there? A sequel to _Private Benjamin_ waiting to happen, and not in a good way!  
   
Soon, I was getting really annoyed with Lou as she let her morals slip away. On the phone, she'd call me a 'tight-ass', going on about how I should enjoy my senior year, that I was guaranteed to graduate.  
   
Yeah, my brother Cecil thought the same thing four years ago over at Hillside. Now he's reduced to a pool boy because he didn't put any focus on his grades.  
   
Nothing is guaranteed. My mother was guaranteed four more years by her doctor after her ovarian cancer diagnosis, but February 7th next year, she's been gone for a full decade, only getting three months of that time. You have to do all you can in life, and she did so, even if my only memories of her are vague recollections, photographs, old home movies and memories of her. My goal is to be happy, but to also live life to the fullest. That's what my mom did, and though she was taken from me too soon, she died happy, ready to meet God, her last thoughts being her family above her, watching her close her eyes for the last time, especially the sad eyes of her only daughter.  
   
I wasn't looking for happiness that night at Homecoming, just for a good time. Still, I felt incredibly empty, turning down a middle linebacker's offer for a night of fun, content in my silence, despite Lou's pestering. I didn't even have Rory and Paris to talk to, since they were too busy building out the paper for the Homecoming review edition. So I just smiled, danced with whoever I could, had as much fun as I could without sex getting involved. I wasn't really in the mood to get into a relationship at all.  
   
At least, until I saw him.  
   
Trust me, I sometimes have to pinch myself to remind myself that I am doing what I'm doing. I feel so 'secret agent woman' about it, sneaky and sort of Sydney Bristow. Well, except with a lot less lycra and some more wool-silk blend or something like that...  
   
Wait, wait. Focus, Madeline, lay out the facts, don't get distracted. You're trying to recount something true, not go off on a tangent.  
   
Sorry about that. Anyways, well, let's just say it. Brad was there.  
   
Yes, Brad Langford, a boy on first glance I thought I knew wouldn't have a chance at me. Come on, his mom stuffs dead animals for a living, it was a match made in hell! I love animals, I'm a member of PeTA, I have three dogs, a couple of birds, and a ferret!

And of course the whole 'geek thing' wasn't something attractive to me at all. I had this entire image of him in a Dexter-like laboratory, crowing about his 'newest creation' with maniacal laughter and the like, and that his only brushes with the touch of a woman involve his aunt pinching his cheeks and telling him he looks so cute.  
   
Well, Brad had scored a date for Homecoming; color me surprised. Brenna Chaffee had asked him out, and he accepted the date, happy someone was taking notice in him.  
   
Unfortunately, it turned out too good to be true. The poor guy was immediately ditched when Brenna's friends found a better guy for her, and he spent most of the night in the corner, sad and dopey. My heart just hurt for him, and out of the reach of Louise teasing me about not opening my legs up, I found myself remembering back to the year before, during the projects we had. About how really was a bit interesting, even if Paris was heaping scorn at him for being timid and weak. I spent all of that time next to him on that bench trying to zone out from her yelling, and my mind wandered off to other worlds and tangents, including one involving him kissing me when his leg brushed accidentally against mine.  
   
At the time, that image freaked me the heck out. But still, Louise treated him like crap when he didn't deserve it, so I felt empathy for him all these months later.  
   
Soon, I found myself wanting to talk to him, and after awhile, brought him a cup of punch and sat down next to him, smiling and trying to be a friendly face.  
   
"Brad, I thought you might want something to drink." I showed my teeth, along with my grape sparkly lip gloss towards him. "How are you doing tonight?"  
   
"M-m-Madeline." He was blushing, taking the cup in his shaky hand. "What are you doing here? Don't you have a date?"  
   
"Nah," I responded, making a shoving motion with my hand. "Who needs a date?"  
   
"Well, uh, you." He was surprised. Like 'OMG a girl is talking to me, eep!' surprised. I looked at his tie, a striped red one going with his dark suit and blue shirt. "You like guys, right?"  
   
"Oh dear, Brad, you thinking about me with Louise?" I teased. That got him into a panic as he struggled to correct himself, stumbling over a few words until I could bring him back down to earth.  
   
"Geeze, I kid. Calm down!" I laughed, feeling good, trying to bring him out. "Really, I'm not here to find a date, I just want to have fun."  
   
"M-me too."  
   
I looked at him, sympathetic. "But you aren't, right?" He shook his head, mumbling out a quick no. "I'm sorry Brenna did that to you. She's such a bitch."

Brad attempted to make an excuse for her. "No she isn't. She just found someone better."  
   
"Brad." I tried to calm him. "My first rule of dating; no matter the choice cut in the butcher's case, you stick with what you have, period. Brenna should have stayed. The date may have failed, but if she had rode it out, she may have found a nice friend in you. But now she blew it and she's stuck with some guy with a two week shelf life." I smiled towards him, beginning to feel so much empathy for his situation.  
   
Of course, leave it for my mind to get ahead of me before I could stop it from wreaking havoc. "Look, we can ditch this dance after we finish our punch. How did you get here?"

"I, uh..." He was so embarrassed. "My mother drove me here."  
   
"Great, call her." I got up, giddy.  
   
"Call her?"  
   
I shook my head. "You know, get out your cell phone, dial the number, wait for it to ring, and the other person picks it up and talks to you?" Oh, how he's just so...kind of odd. "Tell her I'm taking you to the IHoP on Route 5, my treat. You can get pancakes with strawberry syrup, and bacon and eggs made into a happy face!"  
   
Looking at me for a moment, he must have thought I went bye-bye. He quirked up his eyebrow and sighed. "I don't know if I should. I...you've never talked to me before."  
   
"Brad, I don't ditch people who are unhappy. Unless they're scary types with icky tattoos and playing screaming metal; you're not gonna get through to them." I shuddered at that image and went on. "I just don't want you to go home remembering your last homecoming dance as crummy and sucky." Trying to hold back that something was building, I tried to keep things easy. "Really, I'd like to get to know you more. We never really got to talk with Lou around, and Paris is far, far away, not about to scare you."  
   
I put his hand in mine, and helped him up. "I promise you, I don't bite." He seemed to brighten up, losing his shaky nerves slowly as he realized I wasn't going to humiliate him.  
   
"Well, if you say so." He brought out a small smile.  
   
"I do." With that, we left the dance, and I didn't let Lou know where we were going. I figured she didn't care, and could get a ride from one of her beaus.

Who would have thought that simple dinner invitation would have turned into so much more? On the drive to the restaurant, Brad didn't say much, and I sense it was because he felt intimidated by my being friendly to him. He thought it was an act, and probably thought Ashton Kutcher was going to pop up from behind the bar and tell him he got punk'd.  
   
Once we got to IHoP though, I slowly made progress with him. At first we went towards the safe topics of school and the sports teams, then let the conversation drift slowly from there.  
   
Eventually, I learned so much about him, such as he's more into acting than science really. I mean really into it. You know that _Life With Mikey_ movie? Yeah, he was like one of those kids, and had been down in New York during his summers and winter breaks since he was six. I was in awe as he described the backstage scenes of a Broadway theater, about how he might be nervous in a regular school or social setting, but on stage, he's focused.

"I even was offered a role in a show this fall," he said, telling me about his possible role in a play called _Into the Woods_. "I had to turn it down though."  
   
"Why's that?" I wondered. "I would've loved to be in a Broadway cast."  
   
"I would've had to take the fall off from Chilton, and I didn't want to lose any progress. Plus, I hate tutoring, some of my friends down in New York left school to act year-round and regretted it later on."  
   
"That's understandable," I said, thinking about how much progress he might lose. "I admit, I'm not the biggest fan of school, but you should be happy in what you do."  
   
"I am...the teasing's a bit rough, but I'm fine." He smiled, laughing nervously towards me.  
   
After our food came, we learned much more about each other, and the ways we actually related outside of our peer circle began to build up. He told me how much he enjoyed some of my favorite bands, and that he wasn't a fan of _Star Trek_ like everyone thought he was ("I can't even stand science fiction!" he admitted). He said he enjoyed sports like tennis and soccer, and I was surprised, since those were my favorite sports too. We laughed at our similarities, which soon would become closer than I expected.  
   
By the end of the night, I learned that his father did not leave the Langford household as I thought before, but died before his prime, of prostate cancer when Brad was eleven, something he wasn't afraid to talk about with me, surprisingly open about all my questions and telling me how much his bond with his mother is close because of it, and instilled a sense of family for him. To hear him talk like this, and then being able to open up about my mother without feeling morbid for doing so, it was comforting, and talking about being in a home with a widower encouraged me to feel less alone about being with a widower, although his mother hasn't remarried and I have my stepmother.  
   
At the end of the night when I pulled up to his house, I was expecting things to go back to normal, and that I wouldn't think of him again after her got out of my SUV.  
   
But then, he did something, that looking back, changed me so much.  
   
He complimented me on my intelligence.  
   
At first, I thought he was joking with me, but he was truly serious. "I know you don't think you are, but it's the truth. You retain information about almost every student, your grades in science classes are wonderful without much effort, even if you just shrug them off. You also get along with almost everybody, no matter what. You really know how to listen to people, and you didn't have to do what we did tonight; you could have just brushed aside and let me go."  
   
Moving closer to me, I felt myself flush as he finished his compliment. "Madeline, I...I..." He was shaky as he tried to construct his words. "I know you usually speak your mind, even if your opinion may be brushed aside, and that you listen." He took in a breath, and I smiled, warm and anticipating.  
   
I saw the look in his eyes...the one I've seen before with Tristan when he was moony over Rory. I felt my usual self fighting with that one who was finding Brad so endearing and cute, and wonderful company. All the sudden, I just felt so enamored, and away from the girls, I felt my own heart taking over control, making me see Brad as more than a pesky nerd boy.  
   
He was a good guy, with a nice heart, and from what I could tell, was a boy who was a diamond in the rough. I was surprised that a guy like him hadn't found anyone to date in New York.  
   
Within moments, I found myself drawing towards him. "Brad..." I whispered softly. "No one has ever said that."

"I know." He touched my hand. "You're more than a pretty face to me."

 _Oh my God_. I was getting serious chills, knowing this was him speaking from his heart. "Brad...uh, what are you saying?" I could hear our breathing coming together, my throat drying in anticipation.  
   
"I...I like you." He said the confession in less than a whisper. "I have a crush, I think you're...you're beautiful." I felt his hand shaking in mine. "I know that probably, I'd be back of the line, or nowhere near. I'm just a guy with not much to offer, and before we went our separate ways in June, I wanted you to know that." He began to pull back. "Do with my crush what you want to do, but I had to say something. My therapist said I should be truthful, and I know we barely know each other, so--"

I suddenly squeezed his hand tightly, my blood rushing through my body, overwhelmed from his confession. My heart, unknowing of these feelings only moments before, was drawing me towards him, consequences and future popularity be damned. "Brad?" I smiled, and closed my eyes, his concentration on a sudden escape broken.  
   
"Um, yes?" He gulped.  
   
"Shut up." Before he could say another word, I brought him into a soft, caring kiss that showed that I was heartened by his words, and his feelings for me. The crush was very cute, but the way he spoke about my intelligence is what drew me in. Before I knew it or could stop the ball from rolling, I was falling for Brad, and hard. I tugged at his tie, and the both of us escalated the kiss, finding ourselves attached by an outside attraction. Suffice it to say, it was the best kiss I've ever had in my life until that point.  
   
I've had many more best kisses since then. Since around the beginning of October, we've been seeing each other on the sly, and the both of us have decided on a sane relationship pace, after an afternoon conversation while I gave him a ride home, where I admitted that I'd rather be wooed. He has gone with my wishes, and everything has been awesome, despite having to hide everything from everyone else beyond my father and stepmother, and his mother. Thankfully with my position within the gossip circle, if anyone finds out, I can misdirect.  
   
We have made out though, don't get me wrong. I find that he loves me running my fingers through his red hair, while his hands...oh my God. You know what they say about a guy with big hands! If I thought I needed implants, he has proven me wrong so much, since he enjoys touching and fondling my breasts, and after some sessions, he'll lay down on my chest as we just talk about little things.  
   
And well, I'll just say right now that he wears boxers. And he fills them out **very** well. I've stroked him through his shorts when we really get hot and heavy up in his bedroom, and feeling him against me as we grind with nothing but our underwear on? It's just so divine how wet he gets me. The best part of being with him is that he allows me to take my time, and I can talk dirty to him for as long as I want to.  
   
But really, there's much more to our relationship than sex. He's encouraged me to push myself, to look at my life outside of Louise. He analyzed what I was doing wrong as far as studying, helped me with the tough stuff, and told me that I should really apply to more schools than those close to home. Before, I felt so ashamed that I was planning to pursue fashion design for my first year, then 'lose interest' and spring my true calling on everyone else, because I feel myself better at something scientific than I ever will at floral prints. I found what I wanted, and I've decided to apply at some Western schools. I do admit that some of them are those Brad's trying to attend (basing his choice on the acting role availability in the Northwest and Vancouver, while some family for me is still out there), but trust me, I'm not planning a _Felicity_. He pursues his thing, I'm free to get my lab coat thing on, and truly, I'm happy with him.  
   
That, and I feel like that finally, I'm finding my voice, especially with Louise. Before this year, I was like a Buddy Bear from Garfield's cartoon show (I own all five seasons, awesome show! Definitely recommended. Damn, tangent again...), agreeing with Louise, no matter what. I can tell she's starting to take things personally, and with my more frequent absences from girls night outs and not having my cell on while I study, she's getting pissed.  
   
Frankly, I don't care. I'm having fun with Brad, and soon, I'll make that clear. I just want to see Louise try to argue against me in seeing him, because I feel ready to shoot down her problems with Brad. So he's not popular? That's not a problem! At least with him I won't have to see my gynecologist triennially for an STD test.  
   
Sorry, a little cold towards her?

Eh, frankly I like knowing that Brad is a fresh slate, and loves to explore with me.  
   
Alright, so, yeah, with Brad now, no one knows yet except for our parents.  
   
Well, Paris does now.  
   
And now I know something else involving her and Rory, which a year ago I would have spread through the school like wildfire.  
   
Instead, I feel sobered, and I just want to shake some freakin' sense into Ms. Stars Hollow Pie Queen, seriously!  
   
I hated having to not be able to dance with Brad tonight, but I still managed to have a little fun here at the Formal, occasionally sending him a naughty text or feeling him up slyly when I went past him. In the meantime I helped out with chairs and such, along with making sure the refreshments were refreshed. I was having a pretty calm and quiet night, just basking in the fact that Louise got saddled with DJ duty.  
   
Around nine though, I was tapped on the shoulder by some guy while I poured water into the hot chocolate maker. When I turned around, I was confronted with someone I had never seen in the school at all. A pretty dull guy, with a close-cut haircut and very unfamiliar to me.  
   
"Hey, do you know where Paris went off to?" he asked.  
   
"Um, no." I was friendly, despite his stranger status. "How do you know her?"  
   
"She's my date for tonight. I'm Jamie Pratt, from Princeton."  
   
"Ahh, I heard something about you, hello." I shook his hand, and recalled the first day of school when Paris told Louise and I at the dining hall table about her date with him, which was in a word, 'boring'.  
   
Looking at him, I could see why. You know those genero-hunks you see on Disney Channel shows? Well, this guy was President's Choice Creamed Spinach, which is usually put at the back of the shelf and never used except if a Category 6 hurricane hits the state (and yes, I realize there is no such thing as a Category 6 storm. See, I do have a brain!).  
   
"Can you find her? I'm sort of worried where she went."

 _Then why aren't you looking for her?_ Usually that would be the first thing I would do if on a date. There had to be some reason for her to not come back, and usually she was watching the room, ready to strike if someone got out mini-bottles of liquor to pour into the punch. I half-smiled, trying to think of where she was.  
   
"I'm not Kreskin," I said sarcastically, noting that he didn't even ask my name. "But I'll try."  
   
"Thanks a lot." He walked away from me, and I was left confused.  
   
"Um, alright." I headed out of the hall, grabbing my hot chocolate to let my cold hands warm up as I went down the hallway, deciding to check the coat room first.  
   
Peeking in, there was no sign of her, nor within the refreshments pantry. Since the National Guard kept most of the facility locked beyond the needed rooms, that left just one she could possibly in, and that was the small restroom near the front of the building, which wasn't used often because of the cramped quarters.  
   
Opening the door when I came in, I didn't see her on sight, and a check under the stalls for shoes didn't come up anyone.  
   
"I think I'll have to call her." I took out my phone and scrolled down to Par's cell entry, dialing out and thinking she was nowhere to be found.  
   
What an odd coincidence then that a ringtone sounded towards the east side of the room. Very, very weird timing. Surely it couldn't have been her.  
   
I stood still, letting the phone ring a second time. There was the same ring, again. But thrown in for good measure, some odd hesitation.  
   
I thought everything was just an abnormal coincidence until...  
   
"Madeline." The voice sighed, defeated and worn out. "What do you want?"  
   
Usually, I'd hear her voice muffled and scratchy because of the cell phone network, but this time I had an odd stereo echo effect going. I was sure she was in the room, but just to make sure...  
   
"Where are you? Your date is looking for you."  
   
Moments later, I could confirm that we were clearly wasting our phone minutes. "Why would he care?" I walked towards the far side of the room, towards the stall I thought she was in. "How does he even know you're my friend?"  
   
"Um, lucky guess?" I licked my lips. "Look, I know you're in that stall."  
   
"Madeline, don't worry about me, just tell him I'll be out...out eventually...(sniff)..."  
   
 _Was that a sob?_ What was going on? Paris was never this depressed, not even after her Nanna died and she had to mourn during school. Also, not to get into the area of TMI, but she never usually stays in a public restroom for more than five minutes; she does her business, washes her hands and leaves.  
   
I clasped my phone shut and pocketed it, and got in front of the stall, knocking on the door, getting a bit worried.

"Par, what's going on?"  
   
"Nothing," she said, trying to avoid me. "Look, I'm--I'm fine."  
   
"Something's going on; if this was a debate, that stumble would've been followed by a curse word." I didn't know exactly what I was getting into, but I was her friend, and I had to know. "Look, I'm not going to leave."  
   
"Mind your own business!" She kicked at the side partition. "I will be out shortly."  
   
"Hon, I know he's a bad date, but certainly he's not **that** bad." Usually an opinionated statement by me would get a rise from her. "Paris, come on."

"No." She sounded even more defeated than before, and her voice, usually so even, was wavering and cracking. "You would never understand what's happening."  
   
"Actually, I do." I made a guess based on her reaction. "You have absolutely no interest in him."  
   
Her temper was short as she finally got up from the toilet, and I could see her feet. "Gee, what gave you that clue, Einstein?"  
   
Usually, I don't get mad at Paris, because I get scared when she's angry. This time though, her quip got me riled up, and I moved closer to the door as I got out a coin from a side pocket in my dress. "That's it, I'm coming in!"  
   
"The door is locked!" She reminded me, but having to get Louise out of stupid jams quite often, I knew the trick to getting many doors opened, including the 'coin in the stall slider' one. I put the dime in, turned it counter-clockwise, and in moments, I pushed the door open.  
   
"Not anymore--" My anger at her immediately subsided when I was face to face to her. "Holy crap, Par."  
   
The strong girl I knew since she protected me from little Summer Sheffield trying to shake the lunch money from me the day I arrived at Country Day from Brighton in Seattle was gone. In her place, a devastated young woman. The spare application of mascara I saw when she came in was streaked down her face, she held herself in a protective hold across her chest, and her eyes, usually an authoritative and fierce brown, were dark and lost. Her hands shook as if a disease took her over, and she somehow seemed smaller than five feet.

I knew something was very amiss when I tried to bring her into a hug, and instead of her usual stubborn resolve not to give appreciative affection, she immediately let me bring her into it. Never had I known her to be touchy-feely.  
   
There was something very wrong with her. I sighed as she mumbled against my shoulder, buffeted with only a thick satin blue strap, as she cried again. My heart broke for her, so much, whatever it was. Her voice became unintelligible, and I could only theorize what happened to her.  
   
"Did--did Jamie try something with you?" I didn't say 'the word', scared to say it myself. "And you said no?"

"Uh-uh," she mumbled. "I can't tell you."  
   
"Paris, I'm here, tell me." I rocked her back and forth, trying to settle her down. "Nothing you say leaves this room."  
   
"It can't leave my lips," she said hastily. "Please, just know whatever it is, I have to deal with it on my own."  
   
"You're hurt," I said. "I don't like enjoy seeing you like this."

A minute of silence passed as she attempted to calm down and settle her frazzled nerves. She just looked very devastated and hurt, and if this was Jamie's fault, there would be no limit to the hurt I could cause him. It took a few minutes, along with a lock of the door to assure her that what happened in the bathroom stayed there, before she was relatively composed again. She didn't say anything, just apologizing for my walking into her being like that. I, of course, wasn't going to accept her apology; a breakdown was needed now and then.  
   
Soon, I had her out of the cramped stall, sitting on the window sill as I leaned against the wall, and she kept her face down, staring at the floor tiles, while her right hand was occupied with the marble finish of the sill, scraping her nails against it. I bit down on my lip, absolutely feeling my heart break for her.  
   
"Paris," I pleaded, "please talk to me." She stayed silent, and I had to keep prodding her to confess. "It won't get out."  
   
"What if it does?" Paris asked, panicked. "What if I tell you what happened, and you think I'm incredibly stupid?"  
   
"For what?" I shook my head. "Stupid?"  
   
"Yes, I'm stupid," she spat out. "Everyone else, I'm either just a bit needy for attention or just a pain in the ass. But when it comes to falling in love..." She stopped, nervously twisting her hair around her finger. "Look, it's over, whatever it was. I can't go on thinking that what I did was right."  
   
"With Jamie?" I was a bit confused, since I just met the guy and figured they didn't have much going on. "I mean, yeah, he's nice, but I wouldn't date him."  
   
"I didn't want to. My mom..." Another pause, and time for me to think about the words unsaid, which from my past experience with Sharon Gellar, were pretty easy to figure out.  
   
"She called him, didn't she?" Paris nodded her head, sighing.  
   
"I tried to stop her, but she wouldn't let me say no."  
   
"Oh, Par." I offered her my hand to take. "You really do have to stop listening to her."  
   
"I can't though, she's my mother."  
   
Forget mincing words or giving her some benefit of the doubt, because I was very angry at Sharon. "I can't stand what she did to you, springing some date you don't want. At least Jacob was tolerable, even if he was related to you. This guy is dead weight, and you shouldn't have to date him."  
   
"That's why I'm hiding, I can't stand him," she admitted. "He's a horrible dancer, and the date in Washington, he made me feel inferior to him." I rubbed the inside of her palm to keep her on an even keel. "But there's another reason I absolutely cannot be dating anyone right now."

"I know; Harvard, right?" I smiled, thinking that she was fully focused on her 'prize', no matter what.  
   
"It's more complicated than that, something I can't tell you, especially now that it's over." Sulking in her seat, she looked so lost and out of it.  
   
"What's over?" I had no clues to go on, and couldn't understand what she was talking about. "Hon, are you..." I felt my mind coming to life with a realization. "Jamie didn't do this at all, did he?"  
   
"He sort of did."  
   
That's when it came to me; I remembered talking to Rory about ten minutes before, sulking in the corner with her book, there just because of the VP requirement of attending the Formal.

"Hey, um...did you...did you have another fight with Rory?" I knew the circle of tension they were in, but they had been very, very calm as of late, and I hadn't seen them fighting all that much the last few weeks.  
   
She sheepishly nodded her head. "I think it's really over this time, our friendship." Lowering her hands down to her lap, Paris seemed so defeated, and down.  
   
"Your friendship? Wait, does she like Jamie too?" I was confused as to why anyone would like such a dull guy and they would form a love triangle revolving around him.  
   
"No, she doesn't." She spoke slowly, trying to build herself up. "Look, I can't say why she hates me, but what I did, maybe it's better this way. Just to get some space and, I really can't do it. I went too far."  
   
"Rory doesn't hate you," I assured. "She'll get over it, because she doesn't hold grudges."  
   
"Madeline, she hates me." She spelled it out slowly. "We're over, capital 'O'. I'm not going to bother, since it's me, and really, who would want to be my girlfriend?"

I was about to say that I still thought Rory was a good friend, when I processed what she just happened to spill. I went over the sentence in her voice twice more in a think-process-focus manner, breaking it apart.  
   
Then it came to me, the final word, and one she obviously didn't mean to say.  
   
Girlfriend...girlfriend.  
   
 _Oh my God_. I admit I call Lou that word, but just in the totally friendly sense. Again though, Par has never dropped the g-word in casual convos, not at all. We were her friends, period. No other synonyms, just the one word.  
   
Add one syllable though, and it all changes.  
   
She realized her error at just that moment, and from there, I knew exactly what happened without any kind of summary.

 _Girlfriend...  
_    
OK, let me just clear the air about something before I go on here. I have known Paris for nine years, and we're both completely different, in mannerisms and personalities. While she's more reserved and keeps everything close, I'm an open book. Seeing her mature firsthand after Sharon pulled her out of dance, I knew it changed her opinion on things, and slowly, she went from outgoing to holding everything in, afraid that domineering bitch would take any new thing she got interested in away from her.  
   
But I'll admit something I haven't told anyone before. When Tristan kissed her on that dare back in the junior high years, it wasn't just a simple peck or a three second thing. Tristan actually liked her then, and I saw the kiss. It was deep, a dream kiss that every girl imagines when they're young. To me, it looked like her knees should have given out and she should have lost her bearings fully, a life-changer that would have gotten her all aflutter and off-focused.  
   
However, when I asked her what it was like?  
   
"It was nice."  
   
That's it, nice. Not life-changing or amazing or anything like that. Just nice. Unknowingly that lukewarm reaction from her is what brought him into being the suave Don Juan he would be after that, because he figured her reaction would be a bit more animated. Most likely that's why the date Rory arranged never really got off the ground, because the kiss brought up that past baggage they never talked about from the dare.  
   
I had my suspicions in the past about how she wanted to be loved, and I thought it was odd for her not to be seeking out a new crush after Tristan got kicked out of Hartford by his father. I expected her to move on to someone else she liked, but she remained a blank slate, burying herself in her studies. So I dropped the topic and moved on internally.  
   
However, there were a couple of incidents last month that I recall with clarity. Something I'm sure she didn't know anything about at all, because I didn't say anything about them.  
   
But, now it was all coming together. The newly found harmony, the need to be close to each other, her strangely upbeat mood at lunch Monday afternoon, along with her asking for notes in Advanced Ec because she inexplicably never appeared. Nor did Rory.  
   
There was one more thing though...  
   
A blush streaked my cheeks as I felt myself onto Paris revealing something she meant to hold close.  
   
"So, I should probably assume that those brushes against my ankle at the lunch table were meant for Rory?"  
   
It was meant to get her attention, and it began to all come together as she was shocked.  
   
"What--what did I say?"  
   
I then saw another sign along the tip of her shoulder that there was much more she had to reveal. I tried to keep myself even, dealing with the sudden shock of what she was saying.  
   
"Par, that's not something you got bumping against a door, was it?" I brought my hand towards her shoulder, the familiarity of the bruise so familiar to me.  
   
"Madeline..." She lowered her voice, petrified that she just let it slip. "It's nothing, honest."  
   
"Hey, hey...come on, hey." I slid my hands down to her back, trying to reassure her. "Don't clench, come on, I'm not going to fight you."  
   
"But I'm...Rory's gone, she hates me, and now I don't know what to do. And you probably hate me for lying to you."

"Hon, I don't," I assured her. "Why would you ever think that?"  
   
"B-b-because you...you keep trying to set me up with guys, and I keep rejecting you."

Sighing, I made her see things my way. "Well, I know why now." I brought her out of the hug, and explained that even with the shock, we'd still be friends. "Look at me, Par." I handed her some TP from the roll in the stall she was in so she could dry her eyes. "If you're a lesbian, and Rory is too, and you like each other, I can't stop that. And I won't, because that's not how I was raised. I'm a tolerant person and you know me, I can't stand hate in the world."  
   
"I'm...I'm scared though." She bit her nails, freaking out since she was out to me now. "You have the item of the year though, what about--"  
   
Quickly I silenced her with a voice like a schoolmarm's. "I won't say a word." I admitted a secret I kept as the gossip girl of the school. "I actually know that there are 33 other guys and girls in Chilton who are gay or bi out of sight, either from rumors or confirmations. That's the kind of crap I refuse to say a word about, because who you love doesn't matter, as long as you're a good person. I refuse to be responsible for ruining someone's life by outing them, or to give fire to the haters who want me to do so. I actually got a stinger once because someone was pissed I wouldn't out their mortal enemy."  
   
"Well, it doesn't matter anymore," she said, looking downtrodden. "Rory and I are over, all because I'm stupid." I looked at her, and this wasn't the Paris I knew. She was weakened and willing to let her go, all because her mother fucked up everything.  
   
"Then tell me how you got to this point. Everything you can in five minutes." I reminded her of her long-repeated studying advice. "Think, process, and focus."  
   
"So, you don't hate me?" She batted some hair from her eyes, while moving towards the sink to wash her face. "I've...I've been lying to you about Rory, how I feel about her, what we've done, and I'm sorry."  
   
I held a finger to my lips. "Shush, you had a reason to do so, and I'd be the same way." I kept my hand on her shoulder as we moved to a sink. She splashed her face with the running water and wiped off the mascara, and I could tell that she was thankful for once to have me there with her, calming her down.  
   
From there, she told me about Rory's pursuit of her, and how she wanted Rory for at least months before the trip to Washington, along with their conflicts throughout, and the day after that dance marathon back in Stars Hollow when they realized they wanted to be together. I could tell she was holding back a few things, but those were mostly of the relationship details, of which I could fill in the blanks to quite easily. The way she talked about who she used to call 'Farm Girl' in our private conversations, there was definitely more than met the eye. And I saw it all in retrospect, describing to her my notices of them over the last two months, including snuck glances from her and Rory, the occasional hinting in the newsroom, along with the total disinterest in going to the Homecoming dance because they cared more for the paper than their popularity.  
   
Really though, I could see it farther back than when Rory came to Chilton. With Tristan, that she had a crush on him, but not a deep crush at all where she had his picture hidden in a locket. There were also cues from when she came over to my house for girls nights and such, where it was clear that she was a hopeless romantic, more into the heroines of a story than the hunk. She wouldn't read the profiles in my teen magazines, but was the type to actually think about the quizzes and other editorial content within them. There were even a few instances where she outright criticized _Cosmo_ for not accommodating those women who weren't all atwitter for abs and 'making him scream'.

And then came the clincher moment, when she told me she left a text and voicemail on Rory's cell to pre-warn her she had been hoodwinked into seeing Jamie. My face lit up immediately, knowing the situation from back in November.

"Brad and I had the same thing come up last month!"  
   
Uhh, yeah, I paused and watched Paris's eyes widen in shock as I had revealed to her who had been distracting me.  
   
"You and Brad?" Surprisingly, she wasn't angry with me. "Are you two...you two? Really? You're not punk-rocking me, right?"  
   
 _Oh, Par, you and your boycott of MTV. Sometimes I love you for that._ I laughed at her as she shook her head. "Yup, we've been going out for two months."  
   
"What about Louise?"  
   
I made my feelings immediately clear. "Who cares? She doesn't like him, but I do, he's funny and brilliant."

Wiping off her face, she smiled. "I knew there was a reason for your grades going up, but I thought it was just panic cramming."  
   
"I'm calm, honest. And happy, very happy." She threw out the towel, as I felt free enough to joke with her again. "Oh, and you can tell your rabbi he did a great job on Brad's circum--"  
   
"Madeline, no!" She closed her eyes. "I know your mind is filled with it, but I will not think about...that!"  
   
"Of course not, 'cause you're thinking about Rory and her magical vag--"  
   
"Madeline!" OK, pushed a biiit too far there, as she went back to her demanding growl. "Look, I don't know what to do to explain this. I mean I can try tonight, but Jamie's here, so it makes it hard."  
   
Little did she know, all through the convo, I had figured out a Plan B to get the lovebirds back together, and push Mr. Boring back to Jersey listening to angsty Bon Jovi songs.  
   
"You're not going to give up now," I stated firmly, stomping down my foot and getting her attention. Before she could say another word, I interrupted her. "Now yes, the Formal, it's fucked, it's doomed, blah-blah-blah, Jamie is the Beezlebub ruining your Lesbian Heaven. We're going to be stuck with him at least for the next half-hour." Oh, I felt so smart, watching the smart be guided by me, the usual ditz.  
   
Not anymore, baby. Madeline the Genius is coming out.  
   
"But the ride home, we can change that." I went into her purse and grabbed her cell. "So you and Lorelai, you get along, right?"  
   
"As well as a woman who caught me flashing her on top of her daughter can, yes." Thank God her sarcasm pulse was back.

"Then you take this, you call her, and tell her to check if Rory's phone is still in the house." I looked at her straight. "Remember, you have the most hated mom in Hartford society now. She has Emily Gilmore, the most hated mom in 1984. Which means you have her sympathy almost immediately." I then went on, describing that if she could convince Lorelai to have an emergency and not come to pick her up, she'd have Rory stuck in the car for a half-hour, at least. "So you give her a ride home...and by that, I mean dump Jamie back at his hotel, and then you...well you ride home--"  
   
She held up her hand, stopping my clumsy explanation towards the end. "Madeline, trust me, I get it." She paused for a bit. "Just one thing."  
   
"Your mother, right?" She nodded, telling me she had to be home by one. "Well, stay out with her until one and make up a story about the time you had to spend with Mr. Funsucker. Say the date was a dud, and you're home free."  
   
"She's going to ask though."  
   
"Paris, you've snuck a relationship under my attentive nose for a month or so. Trust me, you know how to do the perfect snowjob. Just say he tried getting fresh." I also made an observation based on his leering stare as he approached me. "Barring that, I know men like him. He's going to do something to screw things up, somehow. I say if he does, you magnify that problem, and there goes his thoughts of you as his future trophy wife."  
   
She pursed her lips together, her confidence starting to come back slowly. "So what you're suggesting I do with Rory is entrap her against her will, ending the date of doom with Jamie, and then?" She left the last statement open for my interpretation with a smirk.

 _Oh my God, that's how I smile just before I get frisky!_ Obviously, the Mouse (my nickname for her when she was younger) has learned how to game things in the bedroom in such a short time.  
   
"Paris, you horndog!" I shrieked. "Yeah, I would hope the night doesn't end on a boring note."  
   
"I can't help it, Mads," she shared, being honest with me. "She is really that good for me, and you're right. I'd hate to lose it over something as silly as her leaving her cell at home."  
   
"And I'd hate for her to be you." Shouldn't have said that, as she slugged me in the arm with her fist. "What? She's acting like you tonight when you get all mad."  
   
Paris saw things in another light. "No, she isn't." She looked down at herself, smoothing out her dress. "That's her bitterness from Dean coming out. I never did like him."  
   
"Louise still likes him," I shared. "Of course, she likes anything with a washboard set of abs and eight inches, but I digress." I shook my head. "Anyways, you need to call Lorelai and spring your trap. Somehow, I can see it work dividends for you already." I walked over to the bathroom door, and unlocked it.  
   
"Why's that?"  
   
I looked her up and down, and smiled. "Brad gets all nice and riled up when he rants about the wrestling team picking on him." With a wink, I swung open the door and left my dear friend to work out the rest of her night, hoping that Rory saw her through current anger and realized she screwed up, and badly. To see Paris the way I did, hopeless and sad that she may have lost her without listening to anything that she said, that hurts. It hurts me personally, and I only want what's best for the both of them.  
   
Now, let's just hope the next time I talk to Par, she's lost her breath because of something mind-blowing. Speaking of which, I want to give Brad some time on the dance floor. Maybe he'll let me dance **really** close tonight. After all, I think I look damned hot tonight, in my humble opinion...  
   
 **Lorelai's POV, 9:35pm**

 ****My daughter is becoming a woman.  
   
That's what I have to keep reminding myself every time I think about her and Paris together. That Rory is an eighteen year-old woman, and no longer can she run to me to fix things. She has to begin to deal with everything on her own, and I just have to hold back and hope for the best, and that she learns from the consequences.  
   
After Paris's phone call a few minutes ago, I just have to hope that some kind of lesson is learned tonight. One I really wish I had taught her before Dean came into the picture.  
   
I look at her cell phone, sitting on the front table just outside the foyer, and think if she hadn't rushed out the door and I caught my eye on it, she'd be having a good time with her girlfriend right about now.  
   
Whatever happens, I do know one thing: I'll be talking to her when she gets home about the importance of communication in a relationship. I just hope she hasn't truly blown it with Paris.  
   
I just have to admit, a month ago, if you told me my daughter would be batting for the Pink Ladies instead of for guys, I would've directed a look towards them, followed by a 'whatchu talkin' 'bout?' I never thought of Rory as gay, really, and there were no warning signs for it, beyond the loss of scorn for Paris and commands for me to be tolerable to her for now on and that she didn't deserve any of my mocking.  
   
Really, I should have seen it more. The not dating until sixteen part should have screamed obvious, along with her keeping occupied with books rather than the hunk of the month. She didn't care, and Dean has been her only male crush, beyond a silly 'I want to marry Luke' thing when she was ten.  
   
Oh, and a small, itty-bitty thing for Kirk ten years ago when he worked at the toy store. I kind of try to never mention that, since I could be sentenced to four days in the town square pillory by Rory for saying something about it. Damn it, I've said too much!  
   
In all honesty though, I have begun to warm up to Paris, despite my first thoughts of her being too cruel and unbalanced for her to be with Rory, along with a fear she was rushing into things. I don't want to see her unhappy, and Paris knows this all too well.  
   
I just didn't expect to see that the reverse had happened. Or that my daughter would ever act like my mother when another woman flirts with Dad. Seriously, she's scary when she gets even an inkling my dad may cheat! Who cares if it's a nun or someone with a chastity pledge, she doesn't discriminate about telling someone who would take her guy to back off!  
   
But to have Rory act that way, it was disconcerting. I certainly taught her to speak her mind, but before she did, hear the other person out. I think of what Paris said as she called me, the fear and uncertainty in her voice.  
   
"I wouldn't normally call you and ask you not to pick up Rory, but I need to convince her that I didn't mean this."

"Paris, I understand." I was surprised by her call, along with how she felt responsible for an error that wasn't made at all. "I'm sorry she didn't grab her cell, and that you had to go in there blind."  
   
"I just wish she would have heard me out. This was easily preventable, but now it's going to be hard to convince her."  
   
"I support you," I said, truthfully. "I have the phone in my hand, and I'm reading your panicked text message. You did not want this. Hell, I didn't want this. I haven't seen Jamie, but from the description of your date, it makes a Bigfoot/Truckasaurus twin bill look like so much more fun."  
   
"Add a root canal and you have the full effect." I heard her sigh into the microphone. "Are you sure you're fine with this, Ms. Gilmore? I know you're not exactly a cheerleader for us, but I don't want her to break up with me because my mother forced me into this."  
   
"You're fine, Paris," I said honestly, no longer giving any thought to her being dangerous for my daughter. "You behaved when you were over on Thursday, and I'm glad that you're seeing that you don't have to be so stuck in the rules. I am lenient with you, and I know you don't mean to hurt Rory anymore."

"I just hope she understands that."  
   
"She better," I warned. "I'd hate to see her end a great thing because of misplaced jealousy."  
   
"Me either." I could tell she was hoping for a good ending to the evening, eventually. We talked a little bit more, until she had to go, just about things like what we'd be doing on Thursday night as far as our movie night.  
   
As I sat back down on the couch to go over some supplier's contracts for the Inn, I hoped that my daughter would find enough sense to forgive Paris. I remember that I did the same thing once with Christopher when I heard a woman's voice in the background during a phone call, and hung up on him in anger.  
   
That woman turned out to be his aunt, who was just tipping a few too many back, and eventually, the two of us laughed about it.  
   
I really am growing to like Paris, especially as we chat more about the war stories of being an uninterested heiress in Hartford. What her mother did was very low, and even Emily would consider it bad form to foist a surprise date on someone the last minute. All my 'surprise dates' before sixteen were guys I had known before, or we had been supervised by each of our parents.  
   
That Sharon Gellar would trust a guy from Philadelphia around her daughter that she didn't know outside of the controlled situation of that conference, it was a bit disconcerting. I mean I'm sure he's nice and all, but what if he had a record she didn't know about? Or even worse, he was a mobster?  
   
A little hyperbolic? See, I watch too much _General Hospital_ ; damn you Sonny!  
   
But really, she felt no chemistry with Jamie, period. Sharon should have taken that into mind. And now because that woman can't get the point that over is over, Paris is stuck having to dig her way back into my daughter's heart when she did nothing wrong. I really want them to push and just be each other's Sonny and Cher...  
   
Captain and Tenille?  
   
Uh, Laurel and Hardy?  
   
Electra Woman and Dyna Girl? Damn, there aren't that many power girl/girl couples out there, that sucks! Oh wait, Xena and Gabrielle!! Yeah...  
   
Or no. Gah, now they have me onto this subject I must brush up on! Looks like I have a 'research problem' to Google, because I need a silly nickname to call them when they get home. Yes, that is my goal! Well, after I approve Local 192 for our electrical needs...  
   
 **Rory's POV, 10:00pm-10:30pm**

 ****Now I can understand how it must have felt for Tristan to have to watch me dance with my boyfriend. I can understand it very clearly, more than I ever expected to. See, when you're stuck in a seat for forty-five minutes having to watch the girl you love have fun with someone she barely knows, it makes your blood boil, and you just want to tear that person off from them, because they clearly don't deserve them. They've proved they've been awful in the past, and they aren't changing.  
   
Basically, I couldn't wait until ten, when I could get out of there with Mom and wallow in _Saved by the Bell_ reruns, convinced I would never get to touch Paris again in any kind of way. I stewed, angry with her more minute by minute. I felt myself seethe, and that I lost that special bond with her. There she was, dancing with him, occasionally giving me a look, as if she was sorry.  
   
 _Yeah right_ , I thought to myself, and lowered my eyes back down to the book, as if to say that she no longer existed in my world. Once Jamie had her, it was all over. I knew she'd be going to his hotel room somehow, and that I'd be left in the dark. The vicious circle would begin to spin again, and we'd back to being enemies.  
   
Of course, that's what I thought would happen as the long minutes ticked away, until the clock struck ten, and the announcement over the loudspeaker by Mrs. Hollinger that student staff could go home. I was glad, telling Mom hours earlier that she had to be there on the dot, not a minute more, not a minute less, something I was glad to do in hindsight. I was sick of looking at Paris and Jamie together, and the faster I could forget her, the better. I felt weighted down, annoyed that the night didn't go as planned in any way. I saw the two of them head out the door together, talking, and I just held back on purpose so I wouldn't have an awkward meeting with them, getting up a minute after they left the hall. I filed out, silent and cold, ready for the long death march of our relationship to come.  
   
The one thing I didn't expect, however, was for Madeline to stop me. She held up a hand like a stop sign, and for some reason she seemed a bit mad. I assumed it was from something else, and greeted her without any bitterness.  
   
But I was surprised when she didn't return my greeting in a friendly way.  
   
"You're so dense, Rory."  
   
Instead, her hazel eyes started me down, and she shook her head, turned away from me, and walked away.  
   
I didn't really know at all what that was about; had I done something to offend her? I thought for a moment, and thought that maybe she just had a bad night. Hoping it was just that, I took my coat from the check room, put it on, and prepared to meet Mom in the front.  
   
When I got out there though, there was a long line of cars, and the familiar tan Jeep didn't seem to be one of them. I looked back towards the road, and couldn't find any headed up from the north and into the front driveway. _She must be late_ , is what I thought, thinking she got a late jump on the evening.  
   
I waited a couple more minutes, the chill of the evening seeming to be in line with how my soul felt. The sky took on a pinkish glow, the pre-warning that it possibly might end up snowing soon enough. There hasn't been even a flurry so far, and I felt depressed, waiting out there, having lost Paris to that idiot who had no business coming back here.  
   
I reserved much of my anger with her, though, offended that she hadn't told me about going out with him at all. I didn't think she would be that cold or callous, to drop me like that. I could understand her breaking down in the bathroom, but my first thought as I told her what I thought was that she was being manipulative, and lying about having any interest in him.  
   
This, even as my conscience was telling me I was being cruel to her. It kept nagging me that I should listen to her and let her tell her side of the story.  
   
I had my pride though. I broke up with her, on my terms, and cleanly.  
   
At least that's what I thought. Having to look at her all night in that beautiful dress, her hair upswept and dancing gracefully with Jamie...OK, as graceful as she could be with a dumbass who danced like Frankenstein, it really did so much to me.  
   
I also noted her long absence after I left her in the bathroom. But I couldn't think that she would ever cry. _Why would she? She'll get over it.  
   
_I stood out there for three more minutes, wrapping my legs tightly around my dress, wondering where the heck my mom was. "What happened, geeze! It's freakin' cold!" I rubbed my hands together, the thin fabric of my dress drawing the cold air right where it decided to flirt with certain other parts that I didn't need.  
   
Eventually, a car pulled up in front of me as I looked down at the ground, burrowing my neck into my jacket. Assuming it was meant for someone else, I began to walk away so whoever was getting the ride could get in.  
   
As I turned away though, I heard the power window slide down. I continued to ignore it, until...  
   
"Rory."

 _No...uh-uh. Thank God I have an excuse._ I was ready to walk away from her again.  
   
"Don't worry about me," I said, not looking at Paris. "My mom is coming by."  
   
"She isn't," Paris responded, seeming to have gotten over her alleged sadness. "Come on, hop in."  
   
"No, I know she is."  
   
"Ror, she called me." _I thought I told her to use my full name._ "There was an emergency situation at the Inn, so she can't pick you up."  
   
"I didn't hear anything." We volleyed back and forth, and I noticed Jamie was in the car with her. "Look, if she's not coming, I'll just get a cab."  
   
"On this night?" She rolled her eyes. "You're going to end up stuck with some drunk tank regulars bar-hopping for an hour before the cab gets to the Hollow."  
   
"I'll take that chance."  
   
"So you want me to call her and tell her you're calling a cab?" Her voice took on a desperate tone.  
   
I reached into my bag to pull out my phone in order to make the call. "Look, I promise you, I'll make it home fine--"  
   
As I reached in though, I was surprised to find I didn't have my phone in the bag. _Huh?_ I reached deeper in the small bag, convinced I buried it within it.  
   
No dice. And no phone.  
   
And suddenly, I saw that Paris was...she was smiling at me? I had to take pause, as it was the same smug grin she directs towards a competitor as a 'take that' taunt whenever they were beat with a point.  
   
At first, I continued to dig in the bag, convinced that I would find it sooner or later.  
   
But then I learned that while I was able to get Paris down in that bathroom, eventually, she will bounce back, with a hidden vengeance that you don't even realize you've ired until it's too late.  
   
"I'm guessing you didn't get my text from earlier then."  
   
 _Text?_ What was she talking about? I didn't know about any message sent to me this evening at all. I looked at her, not only confused, but lost. Like the bracelet from Dean until we broke up, I needed my phone with me 24/7. It never left my side, ever, and...  
   
"What text? Um, I think I forgot my phone."  
   
If I was pissed off at her before, what she said next threw cold water on my 'hate her always' plan.  
   
"I also sent you a voicemail. You know, about unexpected extra work on the paper? I got an email from Ms. Walthorne, and it was a surprise. We're going to have to work tomorrow on it through IM."  
   
OK, now if you take that full sentence on its words, you're not going to see anything amiss at all. Reading that, you think we have extra _Franklin_ work, and that Ms. Walthorne assigned it.  
   
Except, this week, bored watching the weekly paper run on Wednesday afternoon, we both came up with a rebus-like code language that we could explain girlfriendy things in public to discuss our relationship without arousing attention.  
I was paling from more than the cold at that exact moment.  
   
 _Holy fuck._ The 'extra work' was 'some guy Sharon makes me go out with'. Ms. Walthorne, meanwhile, is the only teacher beyond Mr. Mercurio she's ever hated, as the matriarchal home ec teacher who gave her the only failing class she had, in the seventh grade for burning some food, while using her as the spokesgirl for 'don't let this happen to you future June Cleavers'.  
   
Pretty much, she was a humiliating bitch. Like Sharon.  
   
Then to end everything, the final code was the newspaper work for tomorrow, even through IM. A definite 'I still like you, and I'm sorry. Don't hate me, please!'  
   
I suddenly felt so embarrassed with my behavior. Not only had I ruined her night, but I almost ruined our entire relationship, just because I didn't pause for thirty seconds to hear her out. I didn't know what she really had to say in detail, but I knew for sure that she was 'enjoying' Jamie just as a façade, and behind it, she wanted me with her.  
   
She kept looking at me, unsure, even a bit scared that I was going to walk away from her. I would not have blamed her at all, because the way I behaved towards her made Dean seem like a cultured gentleman.  
   
 _What were you thinking?!_ My inner vixen screamed. _Instead of telling her how she looked in that dress, you demeaned her because of something her mother did to her. You should have thought more about how to confront her. Now you'll be lucky to get a ride from her in the future_.  
   
I was pretty much preparing myself for the break-up to be sealed, as she stared at me, in the car, starting to freeze a little.  
   
"We have to go," she said, and I couldn't really read her words as either biting or mothering.  
   
"I...I guess I don't really have a choice." Shrugging nervously, I opened the door, and was thankful that Jamie was on the left side of the car, with Paris in the middle, so I would get the seat on the right side. I felt my heart lurch as I sat down, sad that I may have just ruined the best thing in my life. I thought that for sure, some kind of argument between us was coming.  
   
I turned to look at Jamie, and he seemed sort of impatient, like my ride was cutting into his time up here. He was expecting to spend the whole night with Paris, and I was probably annoying him because of my need for a ride home. I slid the shoulder belt across my chest, and clicked the lap seatbelt into place, reclining against the door.  
   
"Did you have fun?" She asked me. Again, her tone was neutral. "I mean your book, I should borrow it one day."  
   
"It was good enough," I said, trying to create some semblance of a conversation. "I just didn't feel good tonight."  
   
"I could tell, your face is all red." Surprisingly, she brought the back of her fingers against my cheek, and brushed them across. "Is the flu going around early?"  
   
"I just--I didn't feel hungry tonight," I said. I shuddered, her touching such a calming sedative. "I didn't mean to push DJ monitor off to Louise."  
   
"Hey, gives her something to do." OK, this was good, no anger. She seemed not ready to kill me...yet. "I know how much you really didn't want to be here tonight."

Holding back that I knew she didn't want to be there herself, I went on with the conversation. "I get to dress up at least. I like that."  
   
"Me too." She did a scan of me, and both of us seemed to be putting Jamie into the background. "Your mother really knows how to hack a dress."  
   
"Hack?" I didn't even know what that means. "Isn't that bad?"  
   
"Oh, uh, no. Actually, it's a new term for 'mod' Madeline learned from her shows on that computer channel, actually. Mod, as in modification. Only they use it in the sense to change around a computer. She says that some of their hosts are women, and pretty inspiring." She laughed. "I guess the lady on HGTV wouldn't use it in her vernacular."  
   
"Probably not." OK, I was getting comfortable again, as we pulled onto the main road towards the expressway. "How is Madeline? When I saw her, she was a bit mad. I've never saw her like that."  
   
As Paris was about to answer though, Jamie interrupted her suddenly.  
   
"She seemed fine to me," he said, butting in where he didn't belong. "Maybe she's grumpy because of...that time of the month."  
   
Cue the both of us directing very annoyed stares towards his direction, along with him reeling back because he definitely said something stupid. What was he thinking, saying that?  
   
"No, she couldn't do something she really wanted to do," Paris answered, seething at his callousness. "One of her friends also didn't understand that she was mad at them for something they did this evening."

As she said that, I found her right hand cup my knee, and she jabbed a finger hard against my kneecap. Internally, I knew that was her way of telling me that she now knew about us.  
   
Yeah, you know that song in the _South Park_ movie where Cartman called Kyle's mom the b-word, but took it to outlandish extremes? That music was running through my head with my name replacing the song's subject, because it was definitely describing how I came off.  
   
I felt so horrible, and it was obvious that now, Madeline knew that we were together. Something I would have wanted to keep from her until I was ready, but frankly, I deserved it. I looked out the window, ashamed to look at Paris, scared that she was being friendly now, but on Monday morning I'd be a leper.  
   
We got on an expressway towards the downtown area, and that's when I felt myself in a panic. Instead of going home right away, Paris was going to have Henrico drive me home, alone.  
   
Then there was another thought that she was going back to his hotel. _Oh no, no!_ Great, now she was going to have to spend the night with him, and I would be powerless to stop it. I would get my ride home, but also a reminder that she was going to rub this in my face.  
   
I tightened my grip on the armrest, feeling incredibly depressed that I ruined anything we might do that night. _I blew it_ , I thought to myself. Getting ready for the long ride home, I took off my coat, lifting myself up to work it off, and preparing for the future nightmares of the both of us coming to blows at the Formal.  
   
I was about to knock on the partition so that Henrico could throw it on the front seat, when Paris grabbed at my hand. I was startled, and wondering why she did so. She turned to speak...  
   
"My legs are cold," she smiled. "Do you mind if I use it as a temporary blanket?"  
   
"Paris, I can rub them for you--"

"No thanks," she responded to Jamie's offer tersely. "I'll be fine."  
   
"I suppose," I said, feeling a bit shaky, especially since she had to remind me how much leg she was showing off in her Formal gown. Her right leg, bared next to mine in that close slit up to mid-thigh. She draped the jacket across her lap, and expressed immediate relief at warming up again, visibly relaxed. I was happy to see her calming down from the crap I put her through this evening, and hoped the last five minutes we spent in the car together would be drama-free. At that moment, all I could hope for was that we'd be OK, eventually, remembering she held in hate for me for five months after I 'took' Tristan.  
   
What happened after, however, showed she was much more than OK about me.  
   
Within moments of covering herself, I found her hand, which had stayed on my leg after her jab at her hidden words about Maddie, wandering up my thigh. At first, I thought it just a nervous tic, weirded out by Jamie. I thought nothing of it at first.  
   
At least, until I felt the lower material of my dress being slid up in a serpentine fashion behind my legs. _What is--what's she doing?_ I was trying to convince myself that she was angry at me, not wanting me anywhere near her.  
   
But if she was really pissed, she wouldn't be talking to me at all. And if she was really interested in Jamie, I'd be sitting in the front seat, a third wheel. Paris should have been closer to him, not only two inches away from sharing her skin against the material of my dress.  
   
I closed my eyes, trying to distract myself with the answers I needed for my paper in Life Sciences on Monday. Surely I was just feeling things, and the girl next to me hadn't forgiven me so quickly. My view out the window was of the towns on the east side of the Connecticut River, various Christmas lights twinkling in the distance on the bluff homes overlooking Hartford to the south of the city, and the construction site of Rentschler Field to the north, the lit-up cranes just visible enough. It was a beautiful sight, to be sure.  
   
But then, I kept feeling those fingers, sliding the back of my dress up, as the jacket fell down more across our legs. I felt the hem in the back rise up above my inner knees, and her hand tracing the curve of my left leg. I was trying to figure out what she was doing, and I couldn't understand her intentions at all. Was this the female equivalent of blue balls, her kind of revenge? What was it, exactly?  
   
As long as I was in that car though, I couldn't say a word. I was helpless to her, and she was taking advantage of it. Going on with Jamie about a debate topic she was feigning interest in, Paris's fingers dipped below the hem of my dress, and against my warming skin. I involuntarily tightened myself up, hoping that I could stop her from getting too high. Meanwhile, her foot touched against mine, her black pump heels kicked off, my ankle being rubbed against by her large toe. Which I may add, surprisingly was painted in an indigo blue, along with her nails. Again, hidden by the jacket, and only visible to me.  
   
I wanted to push her off and cool her down, but I couldn't. She wasn't even paying attention to me, listening to Jamie as she brought her hand higher within my dress...and closer to the inner portion of my anatomy than the outer.  
   
Now my eyes were shut not from trying to think of things other than her anger, but because of what she was doing. I could tell her to stop, but I wasn't going to reveal anything to anyone else. I refused to have Jamie be the third to know, ever. I didn't want him to know, period!  
   
I scooted up on the seat as far as I could, hopeful that gripping my thighs against the edge of the seat would discourage her from venturing any further up. I was getting so turned on, but I didn't want her to know that. I felt as if she was just teasing me until they were dropped off. I was thankful when she retracted her hand from me, and I thought she was done and calming herself down.  
   
A minute passed, and she was no longer teasing me further. I began to relax and was ready to push the back of my dress back down...  
   
Little did I know, she was planning another route of attack. As the 'Downtown 1 Mile' sign passed, Paris gauged that she had just enough room to squirm her hand between the back of my thigh, and the blue leather seat. She grabbed the hem, pushed it back just that much further, and slid her hand in.

I immediately widened my eyes as that tingly barbish feeling went through me, while her fingers danced across the rear of my inner thigh.  
   
 _No way...she is totally not doing this, with Jamie here!_ I was in such shock that she was getting this gutsy with me. She should be angry and ready to throw me out of the car, not getting me hot. I was getting all wound up and in a sexual panic. Just what on earth was she doing? What exactly was she thinking?  
   
Apparently, pushing her hand higher and higher. I wanted her to stop; did she not remember what I did to her backseat on Monday morning?! I twisted around, trying to convince her this wasn't the place, at least rationally. But otherwise, I was totally open to this. I relaxed against the seat, her finger making circles along the bottom of my thigh. I was beginning to think it was meant as sort of a calming move, her equivalent to my massages. I wanted to lift up, but I was watching Jamie out of the corner of my eye and didn't want him to see that there was anything amiss.  
   
The sign noting that the Trumball Street exit into downtown was 1/4 mile away passed over us, and I felt myself begin to prepare to say my goodbyes to Par for the night. I knew she was going to leave me hanging, so I wanted to get as much out of the time I had with her as possible. I scooted up, encouraging her on, as she kept talking...

Then I moved back, remembering there was something else besides my cell phone that was forgotten at home. _No, no, not the time!_ I decided to quickly pull back...  
   
But I was too late. I relaxed against the door, and opened myself to her, which I was quickly regretting. Her circles moved northward along my thigh, smaller and smaller, confined, but she knew the effect she was having on me. She began to look straight ahead as Henrico took the exit ramp around the north side of downtown, clearing her throat, getting so close. My breathing came out in soft gasps, my clit was pounding between my legs, and my feet felt like they never wanted to move again. I was paralyzed and locked in.  
   
 _She's not...come on. Let off!_ I hoped she would retract soon, but as the 'keep slow' sign passed, she was only getting closer and closer. I felt myself begin to slicken with anticipation. What I would have given to have this be a two-seater car, so she couldn't do this. Jamie went on and on with his conversation, but to my ears it came out in the hornspeak of the adults in Charlie Brown's world. I darted a hard state at Paris, which was quickly muted. I instead became intoxicated upon seeing her bare lip gloss shine from the yellow mercury street lights streaming from the sunroof, highlighting the perfect pink sheen of those kissable lips.  
   
Closer, closer with her hands... _Oh my God!_ Literally, she was only inches from my center, and I expected her to brush against my clit with her index finger. Getting so damned wet, and hot...  
   
Instead, she went south, barely brushing my lips, and I could sense a somewhat cocky smirk from her as she realized I was without underwear, like she had a feeling I was going to.  
   
I saw the stoplight in the near distance, and tried to push into her, feeling so needy, but she instead went towards the bottom of my weeping lips.  
   
And then lower than that.  
   
Finally, her hand arrived at its destination, and with a broad sweep of her index finger, hidden by only a jacket, I felt her do what I had never expected her to do. She made a slanted stroke of her finger on the right side towards my thigh, and then did the same to the left side. Finally, she made a side stroke with her finger, straight across the space between my opening, right in the middle.  
   
If I thought she was done...she was far from it. With one last movement, her index finger circled the heated flesh that was my clit in a broad stroke.  
   
Not just once, but twice. Clockwise, and counter-clockwise.

Before I could push against her, she yanked her hand away from me, and as my face was heated, left me so wanting of more, while reminding me that I wasn't dealing with a plain woman, but a force of nature.  
   
I was stunned in place as she wiped her hand against my thigh, and pulled completely back, and she reminded me that I could top her in bitchiness, but she was the Queen of bitches. She would not be outdone, and she used all twenty minutes to remind me that.  
   
To finish off this ride with what she did. To draw a landmark in her namesake city along my slit to show that she was not about to want to lose me...  
   
 _She just drew the Eiffel Tower between your legs!_ My inner vixen, putting everything in perspective. _Now do you really think she has **any** interest in Jamie?_ I was literally gasping for breath, so overwhelmed. The Tower is her shorthand signature, so familiar to me from her notes on the paper and proposals that didn't need her full hallmark. You would have never thought she'd have adopted it, as she was so serious about things, but it was a familiar sight to me during proofing sessions and reading over debate transcripts.  
   
But moments before we pulled into the garage of the hotel, she drew it across...across me. The tower in the middle, and the 'flag' as my clit.  
   
I was seriously ready to collapse, and even more, was angry at myself for not listening to her.  
   
She still wanted me. I blew into her, and still, she brushed it off. My heart swelled, and I felt so stupid for what I did.  
   
But she still liked me. The stroke of the symbol was clearly meant to tell me 'I still want you, Ror'. My heart hammered in my chest, and I think from now on, when I thought of her, slant-slant-line-plant will be my personal Pavlov reaction to the thought of her, even if she's anywhere close. I felt so overwhelmed, hot, beyond dazed. I didn't know what to do as we pulled up to the parking garage entrance.  
   
As a matter of fact, I was so out of it, that when my thoughts returned to present time, it wasn't with Paris crawling out of the car and saying goodbye.  
   
It was instead, my girlfriend reasserting control over her sexuality as Jamie tried to pull her into a kiss. I turned around, just in time to see her pull away.  
   
"No, Jamie." She pushed him back.  
   
"Paris, I like you. You had fun, right?" He tried to go back for another kiss, but was again denied as she turned her head away.  
   
"I think some signals were crossed," she began to explain. "I was not expecting to go out with you."  
   
"But your mother said you couldn't think about anyone except me."  
   
Uh, what? Obviously, Sharon must be talking about BizzaroParis, who talks in clichés, has the worst Chilton grades ever, and no morals to be found.  
   
"I know you missed me." Again he went back, and again, he was stopped.  
   
"I did not! Jamie, you were lied to. I enjoyed our date in Washington, but I have no interest in anything right now except my grades." She pushed herself closer to me, hopeful I'd jump in to defend.

As he tried to make hay of the situation, he felt himself struggling to figure out what was happening. "But, she really did say that, you were looking forward to tonight."  
   
"I was?" Paris was in shock. "I don't know what she told you, but I didn't even know you were my date until I met you downstairs. I had no dating plans, I was going stag." I was beginning to feel like I wasn't the only one being played with.  
   
He began to stumble over his words. "But what about your letters? You sent me one every three weeks, I...I have them back at the dorm. You said you missed me." Paris was shaking her head, completely confused and bewildered.  
   
"Letters?" Her eyebrows quirked up in surprise. "Were they...were they typed, or handwritten?"  
   
"Typed up." _Where was she going with this question?_ I wondered.  
   
"What font was used to write them?"

Jamie couldn't understand exactly why he was being asked, but answered to assuage her. "I think it was Times New Roman."  
   
"Are you kidding?" I should probably tell you that Paris is a font geek; she's so typeface-obsessed that she will click out of a webpage if it has one letter in Comic Sans, and certain horrible fonts (in her eyes; to tell you the truth, mine too) are banned from _Franklin_ ads. "That's the font of the lazy! I type up documents in Myriad unless the instructor forces me to write in that godforsaken dull print, and everything I do is on a Mac." Oh, was Paris about to blow a gasket. "That, and I always write letters and correspondence in longhand; it's a lost art. But I'm afraid I didn't send you any notes; I don't even know which dorm you live at." She felt sad for him. "I'm sorry."  
   
He looked down at his hands, beginning to feel played by Mrs. Gellar. He sighed, shaking his head, feeling sad. "So you didn't want you...and I...here tonight? To...you know?"  
   
I paled at the thought of him lead to believe that Paris was going to have sex with him tonight, based on her mother's lies.  
   
Un. Fucking. Believable.

Paris felt herself lurching, a mix of sadness and anger overtaking her. I began to feel so sorry for the guy, played with from a distance like a puppet by Sharon.  
   
Her jaw was clenched as she answered. "That is **definitely** not my dating modus at all. If my mother told me I was going to sleep with you, she is sorely mistaken. Nothing against you, but personally, I see us only as friends." She also cleared up further things that should have clued him in that he was played. "If I had wanted to start something, I would have given you my cell number. I never conduct anything but what is required over a landline at home, on the off chance she may listen in. I don't like taking that chance."

She was firm, but kind, trying let him down as kindly as she could. "Finally, my mother does not speak for me, Jamie. I speak for myself, and I am terribly sorry if you were misled by her into thinking I harbored feelings for you. I would have thought she would have said something to me, but obviously she's going behind my back."

As Paris tried to soothe him, Jamie was beyond devastated. His heart was crushed, and he vacantly stared down at the floormat below. I wanted him to leave Paris and I alone, but certainly, this was not how I wanted it to be.  
   
The both of us shared in his frustration as he clenched his fists. "So basically, the last four months, I've been penning love notes to her? And she's been writing back as you?" This was cold, this was low, and even more so when Jamie admitted he spurned a girl he was growing attracted to because of Sharon's plan for Paris. "I...I just don't know what to think. I feel horrible for you, Paris, that you got dragged into this arranged thing without your permission. I should have sensed it all night, but I couldn't say anything."  
   
"So, you saw it too?" Paris felt relieved that he was making the observation first. "I thought it was just me, honest!"

"I could tell there wasn't anything between us," he admitted. "When you prepared for a debate this summer, you were iron-willed and determined. Tonight, you just looked fully lost." I was still in shock from everything, feeling horrible for both of them. "Then when you ran out of the ballroom to be alone for that long time, I knew something was up. I looked for you all over, and I thought you were hiding from me."

I began to feel so guilty, for not only hating Jamie, but putting Paris through a living hell that should have never happened. I could just see her, crying in that bathroom, unhappy from the double whammy she had. She frowned, trying to come up with a spin on something.  
   
"It was me, I just felt uncomfortable," she shared, hopefully misdirecting him. "I am really, truly sorry that you came up here and wasted your time, and I hope you can forgive me."  
   
"Paris, there's no need," he assured her, rubbing his hands on top of hers. "You truthfully didn't know, and I feel bad for you. No wonder you didn't want me to come up here and meet her." She laughed a little.  
   
"I did enjoy our date, I won't deny that. But we can't be together. You're Princeton, I'm Harvard, and we're in different cities and circles. Right now, I just don't see myself defined by a guy, and if I would have found out before, I would have gladly saved you the grief."  
   
"I'm just glad that I didn't do something you would certainly regret. I could have never forgiven myself for making love to you when there was nothing there." Jamie was sincere, and I could not begrudge him for wanting to leave us on a high note.  "But now, I can get back on track."  
   
"Eyeing someone up?" Her eyes twinkled with mischief.  
   
"Eh, you could say that." He went on to describe a nice girl from Baltimore he was really wanting to pursue who he had met a couple days after the dud date and had an Internet friendship with. "I'm sure she's taken, but...well, I'm not trying to take anything away from you, but she's pretty."  
   
"Then go for it. You don't know what you have until it's gone."  
   
"And she's not a 48 year-old woman disguised as a teenager," I teased, earning death glares from the both of them. I shook my head towards them. "Hey, just pointing out the obvious here, folks."  
   
"I guess you're both right." We both got out of the car to see him to the door. "I just know that I probably did something to ruin your night, because I noticed you sulking in the corner, Rory."  
   
"We had set jobs, and Sharon's plans ruined them," I explained. "I wasn't expecting to have to watch my friend here dance with you."

He smiled at me, and I was glad to see the jealousy I felt for him quickly dissipate. "You could have said something though. I would have gladly taken any excuse not to dance, because I know I suck."  
   
"Me too. Why didn't you say anything, Gilmore?"

"Because I don't break up dates," I said weakly. "I didn't want to curse you."  
   
"Well, it's all right. Now you two are free to have fun for the rest of the night." He brought Paris into one last friendly hug, to say goodbye to her for the last time, but this time I wasn't going to stop them. "I'm sorry your mother ruined your last Formal for you. I do wish you well though, and I know you'll find someone special one of these days."  
   
"I hope so for you too, Jamie. It didn't work, but we tried. That's the most important thing." She looked up at him, serious. "I do ask one thing though; don't tell her what happened."  
   
"Are you kidding me?! I'm not even telling anyone at Princeton what happened, because they'd have a field day." He shook his head, groaning. "I still can't believe it!"  
   
Paris was curiously self-depreciating. "Well, it's something to tell the grandkids; 'Daddy almost got seduced by a Hartford MILF.'" Of course, she blanched at the very thought of her mother that way. "Seriously, I hope you have a safe drive home tomorrow, and if you ever do want to write a letter to me, the **real** me, go ahead."  
   
I jumped in myself. "Me too, I welcome them."  
   
"Thank you girls." After a few more goodbyes, the both of us watched him walk into the Capital Hilton, and I felt Paris lean against me once he pushed through the revolving doors, visibly relieved that her horrible date with Jamie was over.

Instead of continuing the sexual flirting behind the jacket further, we both had something else we had to deal with. I was still in shock as I climbed back into the car, and Paris slid against me on my left side, having to keep good humor up wearing her down quickly as she digested the details.  
   
"I can't fucking believe her." She seethed quietly against me, so riled up. "I just can't. What possessed her to lie to him about me?"  
   
"I'm not sure--"

"I have a reputation to uphold, a family name, a bloodline, and I will do so. But for her to create this bullshit where I want a guy I wanted to be only friends with, under my name. What the fuck is she thinking?" She was about to cry again, this time from anger rather from hurt. "Is it too much for her to actually, you know...talk to me? To know my needs and understand just how much I don't care about men? She stole my good name and almost got us into a very dangerous situation, all three of us!" I ran my fingers through her hair as Henrico decided to circle downtown, waiting for us to tell him where to go next. "I actually have to pay my accountant $20,000 a year to keep a constant eye on my credit report, because I'm afraid Sharon's going to try to defraud me. I have to hide my accounts, I can't even keep a checkbook, and I have a Canadian bank account in Nova Scotia so I can draw funds without her questions. What if she hadn't been trolling for a date for me, but something else?" I hated seeing her like this, freaking out, her stomach in twists. "Trust me when I say I did not want this at all. I didn't even know she was planning this."  
   
"I know, I know." I massaged her back, running my hand across the smooth skin as I tried to calm her down. "Paris, I just want to say--"  
   
"Rory, you can save it. There is nothing you have to apologize for, because we were manipulated."

Still, I had to say something. I didn't want to leave a festering wound in our relationship. "But I was a bitch, jealous of you and Jamie, and that you were going to dump me for him. I acted like a shrew, not even letting you get in an explanation. I felt so guilty all through the ride here, and I was sure that you don't want anything to do with me again." I began to ramble further. "There was absolutely no excuse for me to be so mean to you, ever. You couldn't help it, and I should have just trusted you. But I didn't, and I can't help but blame myself for this night going from bad to worse.  
   
"I don't know how I can make this up to you. I wouldn't blame you if you denied me affection for the next week or so, your sneaks notwithstanding. I don't think I deserve you because I acted so much like...like..." I just couldn't say the name, clamming up, my throat drying at even the urge to utter the name.  
   
Paris jumped in. "No." She was calming down. She brought herself close, eschewing the seatbelt just to be close to me.  
   
"You can't deny I was--"  
   
"Let's clear something up here; you will never be like Dean to me, ever. No matter how angry you might get, or the jealousy that might take you over, you will never take all of his traits." Explaining further, she reminded me of how he discouraged me to shoot higher academically, made me feel idiotic for having my own views when it came to women's rights, even my choice in television shows. "Just because you became irrational at the sight of a guy with me, that's visceral and expected. If we were vice versa, you with the guy and I was misinformed, I would have probably done the same thing." I felt her press up against me, close and intimate, the conversation echoing through the divided interior of the towncar. She continued to describe how she usually thought of me as being angry  
   
"Now I know how you are, Gilmore. I remember when you came into the school and beat yourself up over that D you got in Medina's class. But you fought back, clawed tooth and nail to prove him wrong. You got in my face and told me I was stupid for making fun of you because you were five minutes late, but still ready for the test. You didn't back down, and despite all of the Byzantine regulations of Chilton, you got to retake it. Three days later, you stopped by locker with a smile on your face, with the test paper in hand, marked with a 97."  
   
I still remember that moment, where for the first time I showed I was staying, and she would not be the one to force me out Chilton. "You gave it to me, and right in front of Madeline and Louise, reminded me that I only scored a 95. As I looked in shock at the paper..."  
   
"I said 'Meet your living hell, Gellar', and smirked, to show you could demean me all you wanted, but I wouldn't let you get to me." I felt so powerful, and smiled at the memory. "The look on your face as you gave back the paper and just silently walked away, that was priceless!" She pushed closer to me, rolling her eyes at how confident I was.

"I was stewing for a week after." She smiled, and I felt her hands slide against my arms. "But I couldn't tonight. I was hurt after you said that, but after talking to Madeline, I realized we weren't in a drama situation, just a comedy of errors."  
   
I felt that description was accurate. "It wasn't very funny though." I asked her how Madeline reacted to us being a couple.  
   
"She seems fine with it, we make a good couple and all of that. Apparently, she also has a secret thing going on herself."  
   
"With who?" She said Maddy and Brad were together, and I laughed at being proved right. "I told you they were seeing each other!"  
   
"You did, but I couldn't believe you."  
   
"Yeah, but two months ago, you couldn't see us together," I reminded her. "Now look at us, we've already had our first fight, but it turned out to be so silly."

"Actually, I don't think it was silly."  
   
Suddenly, she pushed the seatbelt button and helped to retract the belt from across my dress back into the reel. I felt rather confused, and a bit scared from how she was looking at me. Not to mention I felt rather dangerous without a seatbelt on.  
   
"Um, Par? What are you doing?" I bit my lip as she pushed against me, encouraging me to slide my left leg onto the seat. "Uh, you do realize we're in a moving car, right?"  
   
"I've just digested this whole night through my mind," she said, her voice in that dangerously sultry tone of hers. "I had such wonderful things in store for us before Sharon blew everything that I had planned." I shuddered beneath her, a bit apprehensive about what she was going to say.  
   
"I had plans of sneaking touches and glances at you all night long...of meeting you at the punch bowl and bending down, so you could finally be able to eye me up in public." I had tried to avoid staring at her deep cleavage all night through my rage, but with her front and center, I just had to stare. She went for the same effect she had from the sophomore Formal, a deep line down each breast. There was a difference this time though, in that she had her breasts a bit more pushed up, and the material over them was at least 1/4 less. Her tan from Ormond Beach helped amplify the effect of how beautiful she looked, the dark skin seeming to go perfect with the light green. I brought my hands across the smooth material along her abdomen, enjoying the feel of it within my hands. She watched me closely, deliberating her flirting.  
   
"I was going to tell you our friend at the Secret recommended a dress shop in Windsor Locks after I told her I had the Formal, and she cursed me out for thinking dowdy was best. She wanted me to stand out, and pre-warned the owner of that shop with my measurements and body frame. When I arrived there after dropping you off at the grandparents last night I thought I was going to be stuck trying on dress after dress, but she had this one picked out for me already." My breath caught as her hand slipped across my legs. "I tried it on, and immediately, it was love at first fit. I've never had that with a dress before, beyond the one from the dance marathon. The dress shop owner suggested one other thing to go with it, as a lure."  
   
"Your perfume?" She nodded, as I inhaled the aroma from her décolletage. It had a mix of a floral and sweet fragrances mixed together, such a heady mix, perfect on her body. "It was getting to me, I just didn't say anything."  
   
"Of course, I had on makeup, but it was kind of ruined." She felt a bit apprehensive about having to clean it off because of her crying. "I hope it didn't dim the effect." My gaze scraped northward, and really, I couldn't tell at all she had been crying. I also only saw her makeup from a distance only before our argument, so I didn't really notice.  
   
"Par, you're beautiful as you are. Makeup is just an accentuation for you, not a definition." My fingers wandered along her sides as she placed her left hand against my knee, while running her fingers through my hair.  
   
"All night, I wanted to be alone with you, to do something. I was actually under the impression your bathroom trip was a hint to be intimate, but obviously that was wrong." I found her sliding her hand closer to the inner portion of my thigh as she pushed above my knee. "After Madeline convinced me to go back into the hall, I was stuck with just Jamie, and my thoughts, stewing as I watched you." I couldn't say a word as she wove the scene. "I wanted you pressed against me, dancing in time with the music, my hand starting innocently above your waist, but sliding down with each revolution. I tightened up, thinking about you with me, your anger at me guiding me on.  I should not be thinking of possession as a turn-on, but it was." She fluttered her eyes, sucking her stomach in. "I kept watching towards that corner, waiting for the moment where you'd yank me off to the coat room and show that I was yours."  
   
I couldn't stand what she was doing to me, using my tantrum as fantasy fuel. I could feel myself tightening, lust beginning to overtake me as I felt myself aroused from her ability to construct the night into something else entirely. "I wanted those hands against my hips, your chin against my shoulder." She pushed me down further, hitching my dress up along my thigh. "To press yourself against me, in such a public situation. Something that would get the rumor mill going, but just as a tease. Nothing to push the suspisions."  
   
I began to realize what she was doing, her teasing more cavalier as she pushed deeper into her naughty talk. "I imagine you, dreaming of yourself as the innocent girl of your community, when it's clear you're not. You think about me, every moment of every day, in very interesting situations." I didn't understand where she was going, beyond up my thigh with her hand, which I was powerless to stop. "Your mind Is just filled with so many naughty situations, isn't it?"  
   
"If only you knew," I uttered in a breathy whisper. "I've even thought of you and me against the lockers, schooling Summer on the lost art of making out."  
   
"I couldn't do that," Paris admitted. "I have no need to rub it in to anyone. I enjoy you as I do, privately."  
   
"You're a romantic." I hmm'ed, giving her a seductive look. "So there's no way I could push you against anything and get you to stand on one foot?"  
   
"Well, you have to find the appropriate buttons," she demurred. "But we have plenty of time for that." I felt the air rushing up through my dress, the article being slid up me, while her other hand was at my side, near the zipper holding me within the dress. "But for now, I have the upper hand."  
   
I felt I did owe her for earlier, and allowed her the control. "You do." I expected her to push in for a kiss eventually...  
   
But I was surprised as just as she was about to caress my mound, she pulled away from me, retracting both of her hands, and backing up towards the left side of the car quickly, retreating. She left me stunned, and I wondered her intentions as she kept her eyes upon me.  
   
The sudden shift in her mood was unexpected, as her voice went from soft, to terse within moments. But really, I couldn't blame her, because of the reason she had to pull away.  
   
Namely, her stomach was empty, and it was growling. And uh, loudly. Let it be known that for once, her hunger wasn't sexual, and she blushed in embarrassment at her predicament. She broke apart from me, putting her hands in her lap as she tried to recover, nervously going back to her Tristan-era sexual self.  
   
"Umm..." Her facial expression took on a frown/smile mix, as she felt herself odd to want to satisfy her craving for something. "As you can tell, Jamie didn't take me out to eat."  
   
I shook my head, smiling at her. "Have you had anything since lunch?"  
   
"Not really." She sighed towards me, and got out her phone. "But thankfully, I have something in mind. How about fish and chips?"  
   
"Anywhere fancy?" I wondered, immediately thinking about something on par with a Red Lobster.  
   
"Actually, this nice place in Berlin my father frequents, the Berlin Fish Market. They double batter their fish and serve those thick fries I just enjoy. Trust me Gilmore, it's to die for." She began to dial out as I laughed at her new wonderment at the foods she used to call 'silent killers'.  
   
"I never thought you one to enjoy fried fish."

She darted a look at me as she waited for an answer from the phone. "There are plenty of other things I enjoy." She followed up with her secret smile, then a scan with her eyes down my body. It looked like the tension was beginning to melt away, as she darted a look at the cleavage peering out from my dress. She kept her stare still after the fish market picked up. "Yes, it's for Gellar. Mm-hmm, I'm Harold's daughter..." She went on to order a three-piece perch meal for both of us, along with sodas, and a cod dinner for Henrico, talking with the order taker happily like the person on the other end was an old friend.  
   
I couldn't help but stare at her lips as she talked, being a mere spectator to her and enjoying the drone of her voice, along with how she used her mouth to make her point. Of course, that brought me back to how she teased me Monday morning in the Jag backseat, and I rolled my eyes back. I felt myself going back to that moment, skirt wrapped around my waist, thankful that I had taken that shower Friday night to trim after the fitting, where I realized my previous pattern wasn't enough to go with my newly-acquired items.  
   
I thought about her tongue...that talented thing. Oh man, I have such a mouth fixation with her, down to her perfect teeth, nipping against my lips while she suckled the flesh surrounding them. Of her voice, also. I think of how she spilled over when I hummed against her clit atop of her desk and got wet at the thought.

Comparing my voice to hers though is like comparing star fruit to a pear. I haven't had the diction classes she's had over the years, and I know her voice has been well trained to be commanding and fair, even and firm, filled with the class she imparts in everything that she does. I hear shades of Katherine Hepburn of it, of Old Money, distinction, independence. Her voice is stronger than even my grandmother's, and she speaks intelligently, evenly, and never missing one beat in her words.  
   
Fuck, imagine that throat rattling her tongue against me as she speaks. If my voice vibrates, Paris's quakes and registers like Loma Prieta. I'll even admit that I've taped her during _Franklin_ and student gov meetings with my micro-cassette recorder under the impression of recording the minutes, and turned up the volume, placed it against my body, and stroked myself while trying to 'feel' her voice. I think it was the voice that did it to me to begin with, as after Tristan left, I listened to her more and fell in love with her speaking voice. From there, I saw the woman in front of me, and everything else began to fall into place.  
   
Alone, her saying my name, she's the best at it, be it Lorelai, Rory, or Ror. Even in the bathroom as she begged for forgiveness, the stab I felt when she said my name in desperation before I coldly ended the conversation still threw that familiar sting of desire through me. She's perfected speaking to me down to an art, and she knows how it gets me. It always gets my attention, no matter the tone or emotion behind it.  
   
I don't know why I'm putting so much into this thought. I mean, it's just her voice, not something like her breasts. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy every single part of her, but just her talking reminds me that the girl behind that voice isn't just some future heiress, but a woman with her own destiny in mind, to make herself the sixth generation in Harvard, past Jewish quotas be damned. Her family has already proven themselves over the years, and I have a stake in the next girl to create a nice, long and powerful branch on her family tree which with almost 99% certainty goes back to the Sephardis who came to New York a mere thirty years after the first of  the Hayden lineage landed at Plymouth (allegedly; I think it's a tall tale actually).  
   
"Rory..."  
   
Her voice is breathless, yet domineering. I don't even know what to say to her at all, and I just want to hear it forever.  
   
"Rory..."  
   
Yeah, so hot, keep talking to me, baby. I love it when you speak my name...and when you scream it...  
   
"Oh my God...Rory!"  
   
Why is her voice getting so soft, and what is wrong? It's getting so tight, what is...  
   
I suddenly realize that I've not been in a reality since I began to take in her food order, and that my eyes are shut. Not to mention, my throat is abnormally dry. Obviously, I had a sudden blackout from going on the tangent about her voice, what I was thinking probably overheating a brain so used to romance cutting away at the perfect moment before the editor got out his censorship pen.  
   
So why do I feel so clammy? The air in the car had been so dry. Suddenly my head feels cool, and my brow is dripping, along with my underarms...  
   
Of which on my right side, is pushed against me, hard.  
   
Trailing down to my arm, I realize it's not at all at my side, like I assumed that it was.  
   
It's **nowhere** near my side.  
   
Uh, did I mention that there's a huge rush of cold air going up my legs? Or that the reason for that is that my dress is hiked 3/4 up my thighs?  
   
Or that my hand...  
   
Oh fuck.  
   
 _Look at Paris, look at Paris._ _She must be thinking you’re a goddamn loonball right now...  
_    
What the hell was I thinking about during that pause? I need to ask her, she must think I'm beyond multi-faceted abnormal!  
   
Wait, why is she looking at me like that? She's close to me in the middle of the seat, and she's looking at me with...I've never seen that look on her face before at all. I know all of her expressions, how her face scowls, and how high she smiles, but never before...  
   
Her eyes look dilated, and far gone. Her mouth, opened wide, yet she bites at the inside of her lip. Her breath is heavy, and she's panting, hard. Her cheeks are red, and she's just looking me...down and up. My own face is wrinkled, as if I was in the middle of something...  
   
When I look down towards her breasts, her chest raises high and low, hard breaths swelling her as far out as she'll go. Her throat is tightened in, and her nipples...I will just say that whatever was shielding her behind the satin of the dress, it really wasn't working.  
   
She was stunned, and cold, looking at me in a way I have never known. I don't know how long it takes her to speak again as she tries to regain her bearings.  
   
I wouldn't blame her if it took the rest of the night. But if she doesn't say anything for two minutes, she thinks she's lost her voice in the world...  
   
"So my voice, eh?" Firm and direct, yet with a small sense of mirth within.  
   
"What about your voice?" I didn't think I said a word...  
   
"I was trying to tell you that the order would be ready by the time we got there, but suddenly you were blacking out and you seemed to be..." She directed her look down, "involved."  
   
"Are you sure?" Says the girl with the dampened hand and heated clitoris like a lump between her legs.  
   
She stares at me, like I had possibly gone _Sybil_ on her. "So you have absolutely no idea that you asked me to keep talking, because quote, 'it gets me so fucking wet'?"  
   
My eyes are wide. No, definitely not me. At least in reality. I'm like a sailor in my dreams. "No," I squeaked out smally.  
   
"Or that if I was a sexual phone operator, I'd need to charge $100 per minute because everyone would come within 38 seconds from my voice?" Oh God!  
   
Another squeaky "No."  
   
She's moving closer to me...what happened to the tension from earlier? And why do her breasts seem suddenly swelling within her dress? "So you couldn't have heard me say after I hung up, I saw you pushed hard against the back of your seat, gown hiked up your pale legs, fingers gliding within yourself, and you had no idea that I was watching you confess that you used minutes recordings for jilling material?"

This was getting to be a routine. "No."  
   
"Why aren't you finishing then?" She's looking at me, stopping me from pulling down my dress in embarrassment. "If a simple food order can get your trigger going, I think I'll have to hold off reading the Constitution as a bedtime story for at least a few months."

"Paris..." I felt mortified. "This is embarrassing, I shouldn't--"  
   
"I hope the next word is 'stop', because..." She scrapes her fingers across my left arm, moving her lips within inches of mine. "This is exactly what I was looking forward to for tonight. Nothing else."  
   
"Hearing that I have a voice kink?" Internally, I'm freaking out majorly. I'm composed and have a good head on my shoulders, I shouldn't be blacking out. "I let my mind wander, I'm--"  
   
"Going to masturbate until you can't stand it anymore." She lays a kiss against my lips, soft, just enough to show that she's going to be verbally aggressive towards me. "And yes, I said masturbate. It's hardly a crude term at all when you think about it. I don't understand why it has to be hidden under all of these girly terms. For instance, petting the kitty?" She scoffed. "Really? Petting the kitty. Believe me, I understand that kitty is synonymous with cat, and in turn, pussy, but let's review the facts here; I've never had a cat. Madeline had a cat. When I've petted it, it certainly hasn't been in the way I've 'petted' my so-called 'kitty'. You can call it Sherman for all I care, but it's still a pussy, and all the cutesy words in the world aren't going to cover that up!"  
   
Paris, stop it, fighting that damn urge...fighting that fucking urge! And stop blatantly showing your boobs right in front of me!  
   
"I never understood why anyone would coin it a beaver either. I've examined an actual beaver, and as far as I know, the human vagina neither has bucked teeth or a flat tail. The short fur, yes, that is an apt comparison, but that's about it. But if you went with that broad criteria, you could apply it to a hedgehog also, and frankly the only image that inspires that comparison comes every twenty-eight days or so..."

She takes this opportunity to undo the few complicated pins holding her hair within an upswept bob, going east-west around her head as she begins to let her hair fall down. I can feel the breath from her speech fall against my chest, and a few words come out strong, flinging droplets of her saliva across it. I'm letting myself fall back into her speech as she goes on further with the nickname topic.  
   
"Frankly, the best slang I've found to describe how we fuck ourselves, it has to be double-clicking the mouse. Now, I'm not into teen sex comedies at all, but it's just perfect, and it aptly describes how I both drag the cursor within the space of my trackpad, along with manipulating around my clit." She's adding a bit of a sexual commanding husk on as I press my index and middle just below my button. "The term in itself suggests an accomplishment, like after you click on an icon, you start something up you really want, say a web browser window or composing an electronic mail or instant message..."

I love how she never abbreviates anything, it adds even more words for me to get me hot to...  
   
"Sometimes it doesn't work, like if some stupid slow program is hanging everything up, but you can fix that easily in both circumstances. Boot the task from the Task Manager, or reposition yourself. Sometimes you just don't have enough room to navigate, and you're crowded in. But you make do, because your thigh makes just as good a mousepad, or you manipulate so that in the tight spot, you can still get yourself off. Frankly if you let yourself wait, the high disappears. You need to go further, whether you like it or not, and just finish yourself off."  
   
I seethe her name through my teeth, my fingers tightening within me. "Paris...more..."  
   
"Then, there was tonight, while you were watching me with Jamie. A missed opportunity to buff the pearl in the way you seem to enjoy so much."  
   
What was she talking about? I continued to stroke, circling my clit with my thumb, my eyes focused on her, but I did force out a response.  
   
"Are you kidding...me?"  
   
She was surprisingly unshakable, her voice remaining steady.  
   
"You're not being serious, are you? For at least an hour and a half, you did not sit in that chair, just focusing on the adventures of _Madam Bovary_ and not think, 'Gee, I wonder if that girl whose current date I want to pummel with a test cricket bat is repeating what she did two years ago as far as what's residing against her bum? Is she wearing anything beneath that dress? And how does it feel for her, compared to me? I'm surprised I'm in public without panties, and I don't see the big deal about attending social events like her without them on. Never mind that she goes without just to keep the focus off her ass and that pantylines to her are a true imperfection. She might not be vain, but she's not stupid; look at her brain, not her booty.'"  
   
I can't believe I'm doing this, with her driver behind a partition and disobeying the passing signs to 'Buckle Up!'. I'm listening to her dialogue, focusing my eyes on her delicious mouth, watching her tongue click atop the roof of her mouth. I'm grunting and panting her name, hearing the suction of my pussy as she goes on and on, while suggesting panties to her are like her tight bras after school, annoying. She can't push it any further, can she?  
   
"Even when I was forced to go to that horrible party your grandmother threw for you just after you arrived at Chilton, I didn't need to wear any. When I look back on that day, I don't remember the bitterness, the hate I had for you at the time. I imagine you and I, pushing into the game room, both of us so turned on, while you're so pissed off over Emily, over Tristan, over me, but yet, you're willing to fuck even your worst enemy to expel the stress. Onto the pool table, the triangle digging against your back as I lift the green overdress off from you, and unzip what you wore under to get at you. Your hands find their way beneath the wool hem of my own dress, and hitch it up until I'm almost exposed. But damn my mother for making me wear fucking pantyhose that night, how dare she, beyond a whine that I would freeze without them on."  
   
Shit...overload. She has dreams of messing with her past, imagining herself deflowering me on the day I turned 16. She's so crude, yet...so very articulate about how we go about it. Her voice is taking on that possessive growl.  
   
"You deal with them rather quickly, however, grabbing at the nylon, tearing a hole across them, freeing my cunt." She's doing the leg uncrossing...my eyes are wandering down. "Your fingers plunge in, and I'm so gone, immediately. I slide my own two between your thick curls. It's nothing loving, just anger and lust buried within, a wanting to know how Madeline, Louise, Tristan, how those three feel when they're in this depraved act. We bite, scratch, claw, and I leave a trail of marks across your form, two months older than mine. I whisper into your ear...'I hope your sixteenth is sweet, because you taste that way to me.'"  
   
I'm rubbing myself, faster...faster. Her legs are still open, nipples so fucking still against the bodice of her dress.  
   
"I manipulate our past often when I get myself off...the concert, we shove off to a bathroom under the stage. Madeline's party, I beat Tristan to get at you, and your body leaves a indelible print on the surface of that 115 year-old Steinway as you make Don Music seem like a competent composer with your feet smashing against those keys. Even the date with Tristan, I fuck up for my own depravity. I changed out of my clothes at your home, in your bathroom, but leave your mom's on the toilet seat. I walk out of the bathroom fully nude."

My eyes are tightening shut, my weeping quim inundated, my fingers cramped as I push in-out in-out, my clit swollen so hard.  
   
"I tell you I don't need your pity..." Pushing back to be close to me. "But I do need you."  
   
"And that will never change. Ever. Because, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, if I ever say that I don't, it's a goddamned lie." She's straddling across me on both sides, one hand on the suit hook above the door, the other against the seat. Paris's cleavage...up close and personal, I can strongly smell her perfume. "I think of you now, every second of every minute, every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, of every week, and finally, of every week of every year." I can clearly see the pink outline of the top of her nipples, down her dress. I'm circling my clit as if I need the release immediately.  
   
"I do not want you to ever doubt what I feel for you, ever again. I am ready to tell you..."  
   
She comes in for one last kiss, forcing her tongue within my mouth and escalating it as I begin to feel the contractions begin. I'm bumping up and down against the seat, the rubbing so overwhelming.  
   
Paris forces in a little more, pushing her tits against mine within the dress, we have no space to spare. The last of the braids falls from her hair, leaving the top of her head a sloppy mess, but a hot and sloppy mess. I'm closing my eyes again.  
   
"I want you to be mine for as long as you'll have me." I have three inside now. "When you see me with another guy, I'm thinking of you. With another woman, I'm thinking of you. Anywhere...just you, baby. I think of you." One more kiss. "Come for me, let me see you spill out, come on! Please, just for your Par-Bear, the one you want to snuggle up with at night against her chest."  
   
I love her encouragement.  
   
"Fuck...Paris...Par...oh damn!"  
   
"I want to be the only one to ever see you this way..."  
   
"Baby girl..." I don't even know how to censor myself anymore...  
   
"That's right, I'm your little baby, I'm your baby girl. You're my mama, teaching me what to do, how to let my heart come out to play. To be passionate...to be sexual, frank, honest, to feel beautiful."  
   
Oh yessss...yesss, oh lord....I've got a nickname from her, and I'm almost there. I can't even say anything, I'm reduced to gasps and curses!  
   
"And to know that there's someone out there who loves me for who I am." I can feel it bubbling, up, up, up....  
   
"Par...baby girl..."  
   
One more kiss, a deeper one...oh my God...  
   
Another pause, I don't know what's happening.  
   
"I love you, Rory Gilmore."  
   
An echo through my mind. Three words.  
   
Oh my God.  
   
I think that did it. I hear her say what she's wanted to admit for months.  
   
That's the trigger point. I can't stop this orgasm from overtaking me, as she presses hard against me, physically and emotionally with her words.  
   
I think I'm about to cry.  
   
And I am, hard as everything hits home. The four letter word, in my mind, as I feel the heat between my legs spill forth against the back of my dress. I'm shrieking, cursing God's name.  
   
Never has this happened. Ever. I'm overcome.  
   
Her words have gotten to me, the tease through her sexy voice. She knows how to get me off just right, and this is definitely beyond words. I can't say a damn thing. Two hours off what would have been the end of everything, and she's shown me the light.  
   
Literally. I see a white light within my closed eyes. My stomach sucked in as I feel the buildup of two days overcome me. I'm gone, I'm coming, I'm wanted.  
   
I'm loved.  
   
And I'm crying as I begin to settle down. Yet I'm afraid of what to say next. Do I admit the same? Do I wait?  
   
Do I--  
   
She's kissing me softly, upon my forehead, and my temple, the tip of my nose. The come down feels sticky and hot, but yet, it is a wonderful afterglow, as I let myself cry, feeling so overwhelmed by her voice. Just her voice, and my fingers, and her kisses.  
   
Along with her love.  
   
"Ror, don't say a word." She's caring, the demanding voice gone, replaced with her rare soft tone. "I don't need to hear you now, I'll wait."  
   
"But--but..." Disorientated, undone, my hair sticking against me. "I thought."  
   
"I love you for sharing that with me," she coos. "To let me watch, to enjoy you as you are. I don't need to hear it. I will not pressure." I was shocked, she's usually so demanding.  
   
"Paris, did I?" I left the question hanging. I'm letting the tears fall freely, as she helps me fix the dress and brings me against her, in a tight hug.  
   
"You did scare me tonight," she admitted. "I was so afraid, petrified. I had been holding it to my heart for a least the last three weeks, since you defended me. I don't want to lose you, hon." I'm beginning to relax, and she grabs tissue from the console dispenser to help cleanse me. "I know you needed that. You get cranky when stressed, and always, it's a natural stress reducer."  
   
"How much do you..." I hang the statement again, the petrifaction at saying the word still blocking my desire.  
   
"I can't say an exact range. But I'll tell you it broke the Range Game and Bob Barker's blowing a fucking gasket at me." I laugh a little, but my sides hurt from my coming, so I have to settle down, since I feel that dizzy sting in my head. "I'm not afraid to be myself with you, dear. You see me for who I am, and tonight when I was crying after Maddy found me, I knew I had to fight to get you back." Her body is warm, soothing. I love to be against her...  
   
"You won, baby girl. You won me back." I continue to cry against her, visibly and emotionally spent from her sharing so much with me. "I'm sorry I was--"  
   
She lays a kiss upon my lips, interrupting me before I can continue to apologize further. I know she says I don't have to, but I must. She's stopping me, though. Another kiss, and she pulls back from me, her lashes lowered and regarding me as the most beautiful thing she's ever laid her eyes on.  
   
"We have at least two and a half hours before we must be home," she mentions, and for once I'm thankful Lorelai dropped curfew for once, mentioning that I should enjoy the night and she would trust me. "Just as long as you get home before the bars close," she said. "My mother expects me to not even walk in that door until after one, and for once, I'm going to push it." She smoothes my dress out along my lap, my raspy breathing still heavy.  
   
"So that means..." I thought about the time schedule and the layout of the rest of the night.  
   
"We're rebooting the night." She compares it to a video game. "Irrational jealousy just put us on a different path, the long detour. This night will end right, I know it."  
   
For the first time since the moment I saw Jamie, I could smile without any guilt, feeling it all freed up from me. "I know it will. It's started off on a good note." I was now thinking about it since my blacking out, with her admission of her love for me. As we broke apart, I felt a renewal that no matter what Sharon did to muck up things for her, Paris would not let anything get in her way. I looked at her, so beautiful, her hair out of the odd bun from earlier, curled down across her shoulders. I'm taken aback by her every time I see her, and there's nothing she could ever do or say to kill my high from her saying 'I love you, Rory Gilmore'...  
   
"One thing though. I'm asking for some moist towelettes when we pick up our food."

"Well, of course, fish can be messy." That's when I saw her eyes wander southbound, and she clears her throat.  
   
"Not for that." She giggles a bit at me, and umm, yeah. Obviously I've been so unfulfilled for so long within a relationship, I didn't know that when I have an orgasm, I **really** have one!  
   
I shake my head and dart a dirty look towards her. "You're not exactly spic and span yourself there, hon."

She opens her mouth wide, surprised by my audacity. "Excuse me, but I feel like I have some semblance of control over my fulfillment!" She slugs me on the arm.  
   
"For now you do," I suggest darkly, moving close to her ear. "One day, you're going to scream from me, and you'll be feeling it for days." I lick her earlobe, chuckling as I move back, and see her roll her eyes up. Obviously, she doesn't believe that whenever I do so, I will make her brain melt into a puddle.  
   
"I'd like to see you try," she comes back, and I feel like I finally have the last word to win the argument.  
   
"Oh, you know you'd love me for it," I respond sweetly, crossing my legs and putting my seatbelt back on. Now I can throw her confession of love right back, and be all smug and high in front of her.  
   
And for the next three hours, we're all alone, beyond a driver who won't say a word about us because he cares about her, but also because you don't mess with Paris, ever.  
   
I already have things in mind, and trust me when I say this will be a Formal night we'll never forget. I know it's burned into my mind permanently, taking the place of my hate for that damned Barbie that said _Math is hard_.

A memory I don't mind losing, because I now have someone can undress and do whatever I want to, and I'm not about to pull her head off.  
   
And she loves me.  
   
I now have a true lover.  
   
God, I love her...  
   
 **Paris's POV, 12:30am-1:00am**

 ****I have never had a crazier evening than I had tonight.  
   
I'm being truthful here. Every night I've lived, compared to this, has been calm and collected compared to December 7, 2002.  
   
Not even the night Louise caught some kind of illness and feared she was pregnant, forcing Madeline and I to her house at 2:30am in the morning with 3 CVS-bought test kits in hand (along with a $50 bribe to shut the clerk up), having to calm her down as she swore she would never, ever have sex again.  
   
When she didn't see the line though, she kept her schedule and had another guy after she felt better, three days later. That night also changed Madeline's attitude towards sex, and since then she's been so very cautious.  
   
I tell you this, because this happened only seven months ago. I've never told Rory, and neither has Madeline, because of a vow to Louise to never say anything. Louise is playing with fire right now, and I'm just thankful that Madeline has veered away from Lou's current course. Even if in my mind I'd rather she go out with anyone but Brad, he is good for her. Her grades are up, her eyes are on the prize, and she's finally under the impression that she can do good in this world, and I know she will.  
   
But I was even more surprised to see her so accepting of Rory as my girlfriend. I didn't think of her as willing to accept it, remembering her 'fuck off, pervert, I'm not a lez' comment when guys circled her and Louise at a party, hoping they'd kiss. However, in the conversation in the bathroom when I brought it up, she said she just meant it to get the men away from her, not as her feelings at all.  
   
"I would never hate anyone attracted to the same sex," she explained. "I really don't see what the big deal is about gay marriage being fought and everything. I'd think the wedding industry would love it, and if those in denial would marry someone they loved if they were their own sex, I think we wouldn't see as much divorce. I hate divorce, it's so mean, and any lawyer involved with divorce is an asshole."  
   
"Madeline!"  
   
"Well, not your father's, she fought the good fight for him. Your mom's on the other hand...grrr." She finished her point. "You should be happy. But you shouldn't be happy because you denied yourself other happiness. Rory has been good for all of us, but most of all, she's been good for you. I think you need to tell her that tonight if she gets her head out of her ass."  
   
"But you know her issues with admissions," I explained. "You don't remember two years ago with Dean?"  
   
"Paris," she reminded me calmly. "He did it in the wrong way, in the classical big buildup where she had almost no choice and would've been the bitch if she said nothing, and she was stuck. He didn't say it in a normal moment at all, and if I was in that position with him, I'd be petrified. But you have all this momentum with her, where nothing can go wrong."  
   
This would be the turning point in stopping me from just leaving Rory in the lurch. "Now, if you two can clean up things just right, follow your heart, look at her, and know from there if the moment is right." She set her hand against my shoulder, and I saw her be all I needed to be; a friend giving me advice I truly needed. "I know you have issues with Sharon and Tristan was a big quagmire, but from what you've said about her tonight, this is you being humble, human, and wanting of her. You've asserted your femininity with her, and the both of you, there's no shyness beyond the romantic kind. You're no longer the girl who slid down her locker just because Tristan greeted you. You're happy with her, and you should tell her that."

"If you're sure," I said, scared about what was to happen after I called Lorelai to start the plan to get her back.  
   
"You have to be." We then went on to talk about said plan, and she gave me the idea to call Lorelai, and eventually, I was back to being able to shorten Rory's name again, along with being her lover.  
   
Also, I said the three words. Words, which I had never used with anyone else before.  
   
I remember pausing just a bit before I said them, wondering if she was ready or not. Just a half-hour after being pissed at me, she was getting herself off in front of me, to the sound of my voice. I said them tentatively, knowing something could turn one way or another. I also prepared myself just in case she felt it was the wrong time, that if she reacted wrong, she would know that I wasn't going to leave her at all. That like I told her earlier, this wasn't a situation like she was in with Dean. I've been hurt myself, and I know how she felt to have someone abandon her coldly.  
   
But she responded positively, despite not returning them at my behest. Through it all, we have solidified our bond further. We're both so full of tension, and again being affectionate. I'm sure Henrico in the front is wondering if he'll score combat pay for having to deal with two horny women (the answer to that is him and his family will have quite the Christmas this year), and I can tell that he's happy for me, though behind the partition I'm sure he was playing his music cassettes as loud as he could without interrupting our own harmony. Still, I know he doesn't mind, and that he's just as angry at Sharon as I am.  
   
Frankly, that Rory and I recovered as much as we did is a miracle, considering how cold she had been to me up until I pointed out her lack of a cell phone. But we have, and with Madeline encouraging me further, if I had ignored her advice I may have done something I might have regretted. Not only sleeping with Jamie out of spite for Ror (I actually considered it, but for two seconds), but that I would have just left without a word and let the situation fester until Rory and I were further broken apart and only would unite on the stage at graduation.  
   
But I kept her. I used a mix of my education, and my newly found skills in the art of flirting and driving her up a wall to win her back. A month ago, I would not have pictured myself using my shorthand sig against her vagina, but it worked. It riled her up, and it got her to think that I still saw things her way.  
   
Of course, it left me feeling tight once I realized she decided to take my cue and go to the Formal without panties on. I swear, Gilmore looks innocent and pure if you just look at her. But inside, she's making me feel like the Big Bad Wolf leering at Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood.  
   
At least this time, everything doesn't end with me being cornered by her horny grandma: I apologize profusely if your thoughts wandered to Emily behaving like that.  
   
But I'm glad that after we talked out the tension and she got out her other tension, I was also able to eat, finally. I was so hungry for my fish and chips, and it was well worth it to finally take in another one of my culinary guilty pleasures besides mac and cheese. Rory was just as hungry, and we enjoyed our dinners on the way to the Hollow (no, I did not forget Henrico and he ate too), talking about homework things and about layout plans for Formal coverage in the next _Franklin_ issue. Although I wasn't able to see the event on the sidelines like I thought I would, it seemed like a success, since we also had a toy drive component where a new toy could be brought in at the ticket sale for a discount. We had so many toys we filled the barrel, and the last-minute attendees filled it again, forcing us to use a spare foot locker from the locker room. I think we did well as far as fundraising, and thanks to new security I think we'll do a lot better controlling fights between morons than we had the past few years.  
   
However, none of that was on my mind at all. I was surprised that Rory asked me to go home, rather than hang out somewhere in Hartford.  
   
"Doesn't everything close by eight?" I asked.  
   
"You're right." She smiled towards me. "But I know somewhere that's open almost all night." When I asked she didn't say a word, so I was left in a fog of mystery as to where the rest of the night would lead. I couldn't think of anything except her having Luke stay open late, but I know the guy's a sucker for punctuality and always closes by around 8:30. When I asked where we were headed to, she shook her head. I was left to my own devices, and due to my limited knowledge as to the layout of Stars Hollow's plat and businesses, I was left to think we might be headed for a Laundromat for all I knew.  
   
Which of course, connected to thoughts of Rory naked while her dress was in the spin cycle. Frustration, she is a cruel goddess.  
   
With our food finished and the time at about 11:30pm, Rory guided Henrico past Monty, local steel rooster/directional landmark, and had him drive towards the town square until we were at the west side of the circle surrounding the gazebo in the center of the town.  
   
"We're here," she said cheerfully.

"How long do we need?"  
   
"Um, could you have him meet you at 1:15am at my house?" I smiled, and hit the button on the intercom to speak to him.  
                                                                                                                             
" _Un quince en un treintados Carril de Cerezas. Estaré allí, daré o tomaré algunos minutos._ "  
   
" _Sí, Senorita Gellar. Buena tarde a ti y a Senorita Gilmore._ "  
   
" _Gracias._ " We left the car, and he drove off, as Rory regarded me oddly.  
   
"You enjoy speaking their language, don't you?" she asked, and I nodded.  
   
"Rory, I'm not like your grandmother who thinks of maids in the same way as utility outfielders. At least 80% of the staff of the Manor has been there since I've been born, and 35% were serving my grandfather and my daddy when he was a child in the 60s. We love to think of them as family, and beyond my mother, they've always been treated fairly and enjoy their employment with us. Fran, for instance was hired by my father based on a friend's recommendation when his wife went into labor in Lisbon and Fran was her midwife. He took that recommendation very seriously, and did everything for her."  
   
"Did she help give birth to you?"  
   
"Mm-hmm; my mother refused to open her eyes until I was all clean and my father was somewhat petrified at having some unknown intern hold my umbilical cord in place for cutting, so she held it in place while the scissors were put through." I brought my jacket close, feeling an extreme chill in the air. "She was actually a prodigy herself though, graduating high in her intermediate school class and having strong English fluency. It took her awhile to speak bilingually, and there are some traits that aren't going to be fixed in her speech. But she understands everything well, and she understands me. I remember I was taught by my father to follow Portuguese as a second language, but it was my first to begin with. When I was three I asked for a glass of _leite_ from a maid, and she had no idea what I was asking for. My father had actually been learning Portuguese to keep up with Francisca and I, and knew it was milk I wanted."  
   
"I couldn't imagine remembering two languages at that age."  
   
"I know, it was hard. But since it was naturally part of my upbringing, I love it. I enjoy being able to correspond with more than Commonwealth countries." We continued to walk, her talking about Emily's long line of maids as we headed towards our destination. I didn't know where we were headed, and we walked three blocks around the town square. The temperature on the Oak Cities Savings & Loan clock read 24°F, and the sky was pink. Rory walked slowly, anticipating something, her head craned up towards the sky.  
   
"What are you doing?" I looked up with her. "There's no stars we can see."  
   
"I know, I just get this feeling, you know? That sense that there's a change coming?"  
   
"A change?"  
   
"In the weather," she explained. "You remember how my mother is obsessed with snow?"  
   
"How could I ever forget?" I rolled my eyes, remembering the phone call I made to Rory last January cursing that debate prep would have to be pushed out of the way because of a snow day. "I swear, snow has the same effect as cocaine on her."  
   
Rory smiled slightly towards me, the comparison apt for her. "I won't disagree. I love snow myself, but when it gets in my way I don't enjoy it. I got stuck once at Grandma's one day after school because of it."  
   
"I had to go through a power outage from a snowstorm at the Vermont cabin once," I shared. "We had the fireplace, but I was still freezing horribly. It was dark out too, and the next cell tower was 25 miles away. By the time it came back on the next morning, I swear my earlobes could hammer a nail in."  
   
"How far away were you from anything?"  
   
"We couldn't even get any television from Burlington, and the only radio stations locally available were in French and from Quebec."  
   
"You knew French I hope."  
   
"Just a bit at that time," I responded. "But I learned just enough to communicate emergency warnings to my parents. When spring came, my father immediately had a generator and a fuel supply installed near the cabin so it wouldn't happen again. My grandfather had a hard time with it though. He had the cabin built in the 30's to help out the local population during the Depression, and he hated to see us make it 'luxurious' when it was meant to be an escape from the bustle of urban New England."  
   
"Kind of like our Cape Cod house."  
   
"Yeah, except we know there's no one out where we are except for maple syrup smugglers and bears." We chatted on for a little while longer, past the library and the firehouse, basking in the silence of the usually busting village at 11:15 on a December Saturday evening. The holiday lights in the town square and on light poles were all turned off, the few cars parked along the street those used by occupants of downtown apartments. I couldn't hear anything at all beyond our footsteps and the rustling of the wind against trees. It was so quiet I could also make out the clicking of the switch blinking a stop sign about 300 feet away.  
   
The turmoil I felt after Jamie revealed that my mother was playing with my love life was dissipating, though the anger remained at her for using my name in such a way as to change things around. I don't know that this time I can get over her doing this to me. Before she had been subtle and I could easily ignore her demands and threats towards my love life. But she proved to me tonight that I couldn't avoid her anymore. I felt a horrible sourness in my stomach thinking about her writing love missives to Jamie in 'my voice'.  
   
I also think about how she signed my name within those letters. I have a complicated hallmark that's tall and slants to the right as left-handed writing is apt to do, and I thought it was so foolproof that my right-handed mother could never copy it. But since Jamie never saw me sign anything, for all I know she signed my name with a heart above the I and a happy face at the end. But I think she used my real one, probably acquiring it from something I signed and having it printed on a rubber stamp. People might think me paranoid for having all my cards printed with 'see ID' and that my father and I are the only ones authorized to do anything with my banks and investment houses. But it's better to be overly cautious than slip up on something as simple as a library request form.  
   
I'll be honest, I'm freaking out internally at what she's been doing, that with her hand, she can change anything, even my reputation. I still have an empty feeling in my stomach that she's suspicious of where I am at times, that she's catching on. She hasn't seemed to catch on yet, but one day, soon, she will.  
   
But for now, I have that in the back in my mind. I can't think positively if I'm basing every decision I make on what Mother would do to interfere. For tonight was about proving to Rory how much love I had for exactly beyond my _Price is Right_ -infused wisecrack of earlier.  
   
It was another five minutes and a conversation about life sciences before we arrived at where Rory said was open all night.  
   
"We're here," she said brightly. I looked up, surprised.  
   
"Here?" I pointed towards the building. "But its 11:30 in the evening. How are you going to get in?"  
   
"A key." She gave me a questioning glare, as if I didn't know how to open the door, while she reached into her bag for her keyring. "Were you expecting to be somewhere else?"  
   
"An all night restaurant, or maybe the Inn," I admitted. "But not here." The 'here' being the former rail depot, now Miss Patty's dance studio/default town meeting site/polling place. I didn't want to seem like I was breaking any rules. "How did you get the key anyway?"  
   
"Miss Patty trusts me; sometimes when the library or Inn are both too crowded to study, I can use the old ticket booth inside to study. I also help her out with more than that, such as props for her recitals and holiday events." She unlocked the door, and I still felt uncomfortable, no matter that Ms. LaCosta was the first to know about us. I stood still as she opened up the front door.  
   
"Paris, I assure you, we're both fine." She smiled in my direction, stretching out her arm as to invite me in. "No one ever comes in at this time at night. It's quiet and a place to go, and offers privacy in this town." Still, I was nervous, even if Lorelai assured me to have fun and to not feel pressured to bring back Rory so fast.  
   
It was then she noted how red my cheeks were. "Get inside, you're freezing!"  
   
I saw her look at me, and I know I couldn't refuse her, no matter my fears. I also couldn't deny that I was in a town where peace and quiet beyond gossip was something you had to find and ferret out.  
   
One more minute I was outside, and then I went in with her, as she closed the door behind me and locked it, turning on a couple banks of lights lining the outer walls of the station, enough to create a visible atmosphere. The building was warm, much unlike the ice cold weather outside which was freezing my legs. My feet hurt in the heels I wore, but I kept on the shoes for a bit as Rory slid her hand into mine.  
   
"Is this better?" she said softly, the words echoing through the former station lobby. "I just haven't had a quiet moment with you, alone tonight. Not that your driver didn't leave us alone, but I just don't need him privy to a private moment."  
   
My eyes scanned the depot, old dancing posters in both Spanish and English along the walls of the room, along with a few old train schedules and advertisements. I never really had a close examination of the building during the play rehearsals, and found myself wanting to explore further. I let go of Ror's hand, and took off my jacket to hang on a hook near the dressing room where I assumed all the ballet students changed.  
   
I felt the days of my youth return, a flashback to the school where I honed my dance skills every day after school, and for most of the summer, as an escape from my mother's idea of fun, which involved flash cards and repetitive ESPN2-like workouts. I know with certainly there was no way I could perform even a simple _fouetté_ in the current day, which was child's play way back then for me. I let the regret of losing that possible career rise up within me, wondering how it could have been if Ms. LaCosta was my teacher way back then.  
   
When I finished hanging my coat, I came back to Rory's side, watching her starting into a glass display case towards the back of the room.  
   
"What are you looking at?" I walked towards her.  
   
"I haven't been here since the day before the marathon. Apparently, Miss Patty is really proud of us." She had me look down, towards a display recapping this year's marathon. Clippings from the _Courant_ and the high school's paper were on a shelf, along with a program listing all of the competitors on the floor opened up to the page our names appeared on.  
   
A picture of us, captioned as having been taken around the time of our break at 4:30 am, showed us bonding, talking over strategy on first glance. My legs laid against the bleachers as Rory massaged my feet in the small space before the end of the yellow card break. We looked so close and intimate, that we didn't even know the picture was taken, too busy in our own little world as we strategized how to take down Kirk and Carrie. On each side of the picture, our '131' numbers, which we thought we had discarded wrapped around to define the display, and below the picture, a stopwatch reading 23:48:07.64 was still stopped at the exact moment, as if time stood still. Other pictures were in the display on the bottom shelf, of us in the crowd during the early hours, right in the middle, and in the center...  
   
"How did they get a photo of that moment?" I was utterly in shock, reminded of the moment when I came back in and swept Rory off her feet just before my yellow card time expired. Below it, the text read _Paris pushed the limits to bring the best out of her partner._ "I...I didn't even think it was that big of a deal."  
   
"She hasn't done a display this complicated in years," Rory noted, looking down towards my hands, tightened into fists from being so nervous. "Usually with Kirk she just puts up a plaque and a picture, and it's good enough. But this year she went all out."

"It's nice," I said, smiling. Usually because of the prestige of the sports teams over academics, I always felt as if celebrations of my academic victories were too muted. It was always celebrated just by myself, or the team out at some suburban restaurant in Bristol, which was always picked because the guys hoped to meet Stuart Scott or Chris Berman having dinner or something. To show off a victory, an award in the trophy case was good enough.  
   
This, however was beyond awesome. The both of us looking at the results of such an accomplishment, to outlast the entire town on the dance floor, I loved it, to share the moment with her. That even against the odds, we won that marathon, it brings back the confidence that we can do anything if we're passionate and focused on each other and the goal.  
   
I was focused on her in that moment, and I unclenched my fists, moving to pin her against the case. "How we did that on such a hormone overload, I will never figure out. Between the two of us, we were probably beyond overloaded by the end of the night." I brushed some hair from her eyes, looking up at her as if she was the most beautiful girl. "And even after. We had to have spent at least 96 hours between prep, the event, and the confession holding everything in."  
   
"It was more than that for me, I hadn't done a thing since that morning I had to borrow a shirt from you. I would have partaken if I didn't have to break up with Dean. Until you left I had to make do with cold showers and bad thoughts about you." She felt a bit down having to admit she held out five days for her own pleasure, to focus on trying to romance me. "How long was it between for you?"  
   
"The night you broke up with him, I was in my room, wearing your shirt." I tittered nervously, admitting my depravity. "I didn't think I'd ever get so close to holding something of yours in my arms, even if you had borrowed it. It was wonderful, seeing you in my blouse. I still haven't washed it, and I have no plans to, probably ever." I was blushing, deeply, as she moved closer to the edge of the case. "I remember when you stripped off your wet shirt, how hot and nervous I felt with you in my bedroom. It was...it was..." We were moving closer together, the satin of my dress rubbing against her grey frock. "I remember the way your nipples tightened against the ribbed cotton of the tank top, how I wanted to slide my hands beneath your arms and slide them around within my fingers..."  
   
"Paris." Her voice was deepened, hoarse, her eyes shutting, overwhelmed with the stimuli. "You really need to stop having a way with words."  
   
"What's wrong, hon?" I pouted my lips. "Realizing that maybe you needed to wear underwear after all?"  
   
"No, not that." She looked down towards my cleavage. "I really need to cool down, is all. You're creating these vivid pictures in my head, and I feel like what I'm thinking about pales in comparison." Her hand moved along the side of my stomach. "There was a reason I brought you here other than a quiet place."

I blanched, feeling bad that I was overtaking her after giving her so much to grieve over through the night. "I'm sorry, Ror. I guess I got a little carried away."  
   
"It's all right." She smiled shyly, and broke from me, moving towards the center of the room. "I'm so tense right now." She slipped off her shoes, moving towards the entertainment center on the other side of the room.

 _What is she doing?_ I was trying to figure out exactly what was going through her mind, and the reasoning for why we were in the dance studio. I know this is where her flirtation with Tristan flamed out, but I was focused more on the play at that time than her. I couldn't figure out the significance of why we were here exactly.  
   
She bent down to grab the remote controlling everything, and turned on the system. She turned around to face me.  
   
"Do you remember the cable channel that standards are on? I don't usually tune to those music channels."  
   
I thought to my own cable system. "I think it's 836. Why?" She tuned the cable box to that channel, and a soft tune began to play over the speakers pointed down from the rafters.  
   
"Because," she walked towards me. "I still owe you a dance for this evening." I watched her stride confidently my way, and felt a lump in my throat forming.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
"A dance?" I was numb, not thinking at all about dancing. "But we weren't going to dance at the Formal."  
   
"So?" Her eyes lit up as she brought herself closer to me. "I was planning to myself, in some way tonight. How could I resist sharing another dance with you?" Man, she was trying to flatter me with such compliments, buttering me up. I tried to shift away from her.  
   
"Rory, it's all right, honestly. I don't have to dance with you..." I felt cornered, and very turned on.  
   
"Lose the shoes, Par-Bear." I began to moving closer. She was bringing me out of the shyness I tried to maintain when she had the upper hand. "Your feet must hurt, right?"  
   
I nodded, my heels were indeed painful.  I stepped out of the shoes slowly, and the temperature of the cold wooden floor when I stepped onto it sent a shock up my spine. "They're also going to be cold though."

She slowly approached, beginning to undo the clips and barrettes holding her hair in a bun. Like I did earlier, she knew how much undoing her hair weakened me. It's just something about the setting, going from the stuffy ritualistic setting of the Formal, where we have to act and behave a certain way. There's nothing we can do in that situation, besides undress each other with our eyes and peer through the walls of sexuality set up by tradition and community.

But here, it was just us, alone. If we felt the need the music could be bluegrass or that Misdemeanor Elliot woman talking about rain or something while cursing out guys who could only last a minute at something I'm not sure of. Sex, maybe? Or was it watching soap operas?  
   
Yeah, I wasn't dwelling on that as her eyes shone with want for me, and I took her into my arms, trying to find a rhythm with the unknown music. I was sort of wishing that Rory had been as resourceful as when she brought _Eternal Flame_ with her, but it was spur of the moment.  
   
"Still cold?" She looked down at me as we stepped carefully, doing a slow waltz.  
   
I smiled towards her, her body heat and fragrance intoxicating. "Not really." To begin with we started out with uncomplicated moves, letting myself get used to the resumption of physical activity. Soon, the rhythm of the song picked up, and we became more daring.  
   
Not so daring that we were throwing each other around, but enough to show off the purpose of each of our Formal dresses, to lure each other in. I twirled her around, out from me, my hand holding hers tightly. She twisted back towards me in a slow revolution, and back against my body. Then, she brought me into my own spin, and though it didn't come off as professional as mine, it was just as comparable. The fabric of the bottom of my dress spun up from the revolutions, showing off a little leg to her. I tried to keep my focus on her, and her attention wasn't wandering off from me at all. I then spun back towards her, as she guided me perfectly into my arms, my back against her front. The fabric of her dress was so flattering against her breasts, displaying her cleavage in a way suggestive of a long ice cream dish from her pale skin.  
   
I was amazed with her footwork, despite a month having passed since the marathon. I still remember that I ditched my shoes towards the end, but she didn't at all, going on and on in them. But watching her own feet bare against the smooth hardwood of the former rail depot, I could see she wasn't forgetting those steps at all.  
   
"You know, I really did want to dance, show you off." I continued to be under her spell as the beat picked up. "When I danced with Dean, I could never be in any way daring, or blatant. I even tried pushing myself against him once during a Stars Hollow dance, and he pushed me away, as if my trying to feel him against me was wrong." More spinning, quick steps, close blatant touches moving lower and lower as the song went on. "My first thought when I saw you was that you looked so beautiful and graceful. That finally, you know that your mother has no business telling you how to look, and you are sexual on your own." I felt so flattered as she went on and on, describing how the bright satin green brought out my eyes, and the sheen of my hair further. "All that jealousy building built in me as you danced with Jamie, keeping him arms length from you. Yet I knew that you could be doing so much more in this dress.  
   
"I wanted to watch you do what you did last month here, in that halter dress. You were so beautiful in it, your skin looking perfect within it, your long legs distracting me often." Another twirl from my end. "By the end of the marathon, I knew that I wanted you even more than anyone else. You were so beautiful and confident, drawn out, having such a good time. We were both competitive, and it was such a turn-on. To see you competitive, whether it be dancing...like this..." She pressed herself close to me as the song's bridge ended. "Or you're on that stage, hunched over, not even paying one mind to that index card sitting in front of you, speaking into that mike. It's suggestive, full of innuendo, how you work your mouth to speak, shout, cry out to make your points. It's so wrong, but like I said earlier, I get off on you being aggressive, fighting for a victory. I picture the way the microphone vibrates as you speak into it, thinking of those tremors against me."  
   
I began to tighten up, like I had earlier, but which dissipated as I brought the focus towards Rory frigging herself from my words. My legs, rubbing against each other, felt slick, wet between. The sinful slit in my dress made me feel so exposed, showing off my right leg up to almost mid-thigh. I continued to dance with her, feeling so wound up, turned on. Rory's hand, pressed provocatively against the curve of my ass, her eyes lowered, knowing now that I never wore underwear during social events. God, if we ever bumped into each other at a party Emily threw it would be a hard night to get through!  
   
I love her voice when it gets so suggestive and deep. Gone was her usual small-town squeak, the sense of whimsy and mischief she had in common with her mother. Instead, it was even and targeted, the way she speaks in desperation if some smug ass just tried to make a point they thought she wouldn't top.  
   
There began to be an overriding sense that this was just some kind of foreplay...  
   
"I can sense there's a change between us." I could no longer hear the music, which was fading into the background. "You looked so let down tonight, and my conscience nagged at me that I was bitchy in my reaction. And I was, so much so. You could've gotten revenge by getting dirty with Jamie on the floor tonight, but you kept him away. Like you wanted me to cut in and show everyone how it's done." My breath became shallow as she read my mind. All night, I had been anticipating her bringing me under control, deciding all the sudden to fuck her book, slam it down on the chair, and bring me into a close dance as Jamie watched us, stunned and frozen in place while Rory had her wicked way with me.  
   
Her hand was moving lower...  
   
"You can't resist me, baby girl; I see it in your eyes." To be reminded of the 78 days separating our births through her new nickname for me, it made me feel even more wrong for being just that much younger than her. That my brain might top hers, but physically, she has a few more days of experience than I do. "I bet when you drive off at night from my house, you just feel so hot, getting to reduce me from quick and witty to hot and all wound up. You love to be so blatant, caressing my legs, leaving me notes within my margins, giving me phone messages that remind me how much you care for me. I've been astonished at how you prove you enjoy being my girlfriend. It's so sweet and unexpected, beyond how I ever thought things would be between us."  
   
Lower again...I was gritting my teeth. Another whirl around the center of the room. "I remember how smug and righteous you were the first time we met, trying to prove you wouldn't let anyone get to you, including me. You closed yourself off, scared of being hurt, or taking a risk that didn't fit The Plan. Of how you would use space to keep us apart, be it at Chilton or Harvard, and that until I proved myself, I would never be an equal to you. After a while, it got to me, and I began to prove myself. But looking at you each time Tristan mucked things up, I hated it. Hated seeing you leave me because of something so stupid, with someone I wouldn't ever see as more than a nuisance."

Building up even more, I felt with each step the friction dissipating, replaced with a slickness. My throat tightened as she speeded the steps and moves, faster and faster. Her cadence remained straight all through, her speech still strong-willed. "But I saw through that hurt. You might think until the moment we first kissed I saw you as the Queen B, never to be taken. You would never fall victim to anyone, nor would you surrender anything to me." She moved her mouth closer to mine as I took her in, the strong chronology defining what our relationship is. "I just saw you though, a little girl lost, knowing what you wanted in everything except your heart. I hated seeing you hurt, and that you would live with that hurt, it made me see you as more than just a bitter classmate, or someone cannot handle pain well."  
   
Her hand came around my backside, moving against the top of my thigh. Closer...closer....  
   
"I could just stand here all night just looking at you," she said, her voice deep with want. Soon we were slowing down, and she moved her free arm up to brace me. "Looking into those beautiful eyes, finding myself enchanted with you. You are indelible, and I can't not think about you anymore." My breath quickened as her hand slid down the material, and she brought me into a dip.  
   
"You're so beautiful to me, and all I can think right now is that..." she wandered off, letting me fall against her hand along my back, while her right hand slid beneath the daring slit. She pushed up the material as she brought it higher along my thigh. A breeze went up through the dress, and suddenly I felt exposed. I closed my eyes, feeling a straining cry involuntarily emit from my throat. Surely this wasn't the innocent girl I thought would leave Chilton in less than three weeks after her arrival.  
   
Such a tease...such hands...sliding up towards my center, the slit pushed up so high there was no hiding the red ache between my legs any longer. I was losing my mind, I was sure, as she brought her mouth to mine...  
   
"I need you to get a blanket."

I couldn't have heard that. No...she was beginning to pull away, what was happening? My mind was in a panic.  
   
"A...a blanket?" Maybe she sensed something in me, the panic, and it projected.  
   
"There's some in the emergency locker in the supply room." Her voice was returning to normal as the music faded out. "I did say I could stand here looking at you, but I want to relax a little. We have time. I'm going to grab a few mats for us to lay down on." She broke apart from me, and I thought I could tell that there was a little bit of revenge thrown in from my car play from earlier. I was stunned, trying to regain my bearings as I realized that the music and the dance had an intoxicating effect on the both of us.  
   
Yet, I did shudder for a moment. Not at the insinuation that she wanted me to relax, but something else that I had to do for my own sanity.  
   
"Uhh, umm...do you mind if I grab two blankets?" I asked, feeling a bit freaked. "I don't want to insult any of your fellow townspeople, but I do have a bit of mysophobia, a fear of some germs. Even if they're dressed, I just feel odd, you know?" Why I was so unfocused, I didn't know, but I felt like a freak in that one moment. I'm not extreme to the point of washing my hands raw or anything, but beyond the privacy concerns I have in public showers, I also tread lightly because of how icky locker rooms are.  
   
Yet, Rory understood, which surprised me. She looked towards me and smiled, completely open to trying to make the situation as calming and centered as she could make it for me.  
   
"If you want to, we can lay on our jackets too," she responded. "I don't want you to feel uncomfortable." She laughed a little. "It's OK, go on."  
   
"Um, thanks," I said, relieved that I could keep clean. I really felt as if I couldn't insult the town anymore and tried to make sure I didn't, even through something as little as contact with a gym mat. I breathed out calmly and proceeded to the storage room as Rory made her way over to the pile of mats on the other side of the room.  
   
Still, I was a bit unsettled. Thinking about what else went on all through the night with the exception of the incident in the town car, I thought we had blown any chance at intimacy. _You cried when she brought you down_ , I reminded myself internally, even without any fault on my end. I didn't stop a thing, so I thought to myself that I deserved such punishment. I had refused to listen to my own advice to discount my mother, and I was paying for it now, with Rory stopping me before things got hot.

Opening the old surplus locker, I found a some pastel-colored wool blankets, meant for a king sized bed, thinking about how tired I was indeed. It had been a long night, first with the two hours with Jamie, then the hour and a half settling things down with Gilmore and eating.  
   
Maybe I did need to settle my hormones a bit. After all, three weeks before, I was content with the occasional touch and fondle of her, and the same on her end. A few days after, a call triggered a rush to be erotic, and I felt myself losing control of my inhibitions. Mind you, I didn't take a sex before marriage pledge, mainly because I thought I wouldn't even have sex before I was married in any way. In the months after Tristan left and before Washington I had enjoyed being a single woman and not giving a damn about anyone's pleasure but mine. It was something I didn't need to deal with. I mean doing 'it', my mother makes it out to be this big thing with fireworks and multiple orgasms and the like, and my first time must be like that, period. My father comes more from the school of denial and went with the idea that sex is fun, but full of a minefield of consequences.  
   
Sometimes it seems much easier when your only sexual partners have been the vibe stick in my dresser drawer, or my hands. I knew myself, and in reality I've had a fear of someone else touching me. I made progress on that through the weekend during the sleepover with her rubbing against me and her oral exploration. But the first time, I was still covered by underwear and still had the cami-bra on. I was covered when I took her virginity.  
   
I looked down at myself, examining my body, feeling so weird about her seeing me fully nude. It always comes down to that fear for me, that she'll think me unworthy. I am fine with my own nudeness, but scared with someone else. There's only six others who have seen me fully nude outside of a locker room, including my parents, Fran, my pediatrician, and Tristan, who did so when he was five and we were playing doctor.  
   
Louise has, but I'm uncomfortable sharing exactly why. It was a friends thing, and it wasn't in ill will, that's all I can say.  
   
I closed my eyes, remembering my acceptance of Rory's 'crooked' lips (which are not). I don't know if I could deal with her judging me in that way.  
   
 _No, I am not nervous,_ I told myself, shaky confidence breaking the statement a bit. _You do love her, and if she wants you, it's because she loves you too. She's over the hurt of earlier, and I should not be scared to share anything with her, even if my body isn't much to look at._ I took the blanket into my hands, sucking up all of the fears I held.  
   
After all, we were just going to relax and look into each other's eyes, right?  
   
However, I had no idea of how this dance studio figured in Rory's past as I left the storage room, blankets in my hands. It was a hidden part of Hollow history she hid behind for so long as I walked out to watch her, slowly moving towards me.  
   
In the time she had left, she had used the washroom and washed her makeup off, leaving only her true natural beauty. The uniform paleness of her face was gone, replaced with freckles on her cheeks, messy hair, and a casualness to her steps that was unlike her stiff formal stride of earlier.  
   
The only time I saw her this way was six days ago, when she woke up...  
   
She was walking towards me, and ready to share once again.  
   
"Par, there is a reason I asked you here," she started, looking at me straight on. "The last few times I've been in this hall outside of town stuff, it hasn't gone well. Over on that table over there, for instance." She pointed towards the 'platform' she laid on during the play rehearsals. "We had to deal with an inattentive Louise, and an ambivalent Tristan only bent on playing on your last nerve, along with my boyfriend. I didn't want him here, nor you, because I knew there was trouble ahead. Yet, we went on, and thankfully we had a miracle where everything fell into place."  
   
She pushed four light yoga mats together, layering them 2x2 on top of each other with our jackets to the side so I could layer a top blanket on top of the mates. "But we're not here to talk about that." Looking down at the mats, she brought up the worst day of her life as I spread out the blue blanket to layer over the mats. I was glad to see them covered up as Rory then put the jackets on top to complete the safety net I needed for our impromptu bed.  
   
"The night of the Formal in our sophomore year, Dean and I ended up here, talking and flirting. I thought then he was truly the love of my life, that he would be mine forever. When we came into here to browse the room and talk about nothing and everything, I was under a spell with him. He was influencing me, and even after the fight with Tristan, I still wanted him. Dean...he was the one for me, and the town at first hated him, but eventually found him perfect for me."

She continued down, as I lay down on the mat, my eyes feeling heavy. "At first, things were relaxed, wonderful. We were enchanted and lost into each other's eyes. And that night, I was curious."  
   
"Curious?"  
   
"I had been finally glad to have some kind of relationship with someone who didn't immediately find me to be a pariah, or untouchable. Dean had no idea of my past in Stars Hollow, about how much school sucked for me. He was a clean slate, and didn't give a damn about the gossip at Hollow High. I was beginning to fall for him, and in turn, I was curious." She lowered her eyebrows. "I had been having dreams of him. Not innocent dreams. But sexual dreams of the both of us. We were together, and we had sex. Sometimes, the dream would end in a nightmare, but usually it was a happy moment."  
   
"Why tell me this?" I asked, inquiring as to why I was being told all of this.  
   
"Because...I need to be open and honest with you," she said, softly. "I don't want to do anything more with you until I get this out. To scare off the demons of old, and let you in fully." She unfurled the blanket next to me, and laid next to me, as we looked at each other face to face. "What I'm about to say, there is no one who knows about this. Nobody at all. Not Lane, not my mother, not even Dean himself, at least how I felt after. If I ever said a word about this to anyone, I don't know how anyone would react, beyond rage and hate for what I did, along with a sense I'm making things up to justify why I eventually broke up with him."  
   
"And if I get mad?" Suddenly, I was finding myself fearful that what she was admitting would change my worldview of her in a whirlwind.  
   
"Then you get mad." She paused for a few seconds, and gathered herself to let everything out. "But if I don't say anything, you'll find out from Dean whenever we come out, and his spin won't be the truth."  
   
"It isn't..." My mind spun into negative things. "He didn't, did he?"  
   
She shook her head. "It's more like what **I** did." With that, she told me what happened that night, describing it as a three hour period before Ms. LaCosta and the Morning Yoga group found them. "We were just two teenagers, finding ourselves enchanted with each other. I had gone into the date thinking that he wanted something for me, and the nights before after I asked him out, I prepared myself for the possibility of Dean asking me...asking if we could be more than steady."  
   
"So, what do you mean?" Her eyes told me the guilt she had.  
   
"I was ready," she stated, without ceremony. "We had been seeing each other officially for a couple of months, and unofficially a couple weeks before then. I felt as if I could handle things, that I could want him that way, and I felt I couldn't get pregnant at that time." She held up her hand to stop my objection. "Yes, I know how I came into this world, but I know my ovulation. It couldn't happen at that time and I was going to do all I could not to.  
   
"The entire night, I was nervous, thinking about how to tell him that I was ready." I was stunned that I was the only one to know this. "No one knew, not even him." A breath. "Remember when we went to Providence during the field trip to see that play, the week before?"  
   
I nodded, the field trip foggy beyond the destination. "Yes."  
   
"When we made the lunch stop in Cranston, I ran across the street to that mini mart under the assumption of picking up a _ProJo_. Really, I was hoping to find a condom machine. Thankfully, there was one, and it went in the disk pocket of my backpack." It was a surprising revelation from her that she wanted him that way so early. She went on further.

"When we arrived here, after a bit, we fell asleep for an hour. I had the condom in my bag, within my wallet, beneath my Social Security card." She struggled a bit to get through. "When I woke up, I was staring at this handsome boy, looking so peaceful, probably thinking about me next to him. It was dark in the room, 2am in the morning. And the closeness we shared, it was so overwhelming."  
   
The details to come were shocking, but in the manner of something unexpected. "We had been touching each other, doing silly things that kind of stuff. And all I could think about since the moment I laid down with him was how it felt to...how it was to touch...touch...it." She was ashamed. "Everything in my mind, and I was thinking about his cock. How it would feel, if it was really as wonderful as advertised. How I eyed it up blatantly when he wasn't noticing, through his pants. I had sexual thoughts about him, wanting to feel him inside. I flushed each time I thought about it, but I was turned on by it.  
   
"But I had issues in the past about masturbation, wanting Dean in that way and getting myself off. I was so ashamed, dirty thinking that way. With my fingers, thinking about him, of him inside of me. My fingers, and an old curved highlighter, the only things I used. I was just then getting over my fears, and the morning before the dance, I had an erotic, bed-soaking dream about him. I wanted to be with him that way, that night."  
   
She went on to describe what she did as she woke him up, with a deep kiss, pushing herself against him. He woke up, surprised that Rory was acting this way, but joining in on it anyways. Describing the process of sharing a mat with him, how hot she felt around him, and wanting for him.  
   
"Eventually, I was cavalier, telling him how much I wanted him. He voiced out nervous concerns about my mother, but I assured him they'd never get back to her. I told him how much I wanted to feel him, that I wanted him so bad." She felt odd admitting that. "I told him that I was ready for him, no matter what everything in my being was telling me, that I would regret it eventually.  
   
She shared more details, about how she undid his pants, exposing his briefs and so on, until with his permission, she began to explore him. At first she thought it big, but now she knows that his endowment was average sized. She stroked it through his underwear, being slow and teasing, like she read about. Rory watched his facial reactions, and at first was just intending to get him hard enough.  
   
"But I was intimidated suddenly. I felt like I didn't want that in me, at least not without practice. I felt sudden pressure upon myself to deliver, and that maybe I'd be lousy. But he surprised me, telling me it was all right if I could just do a hand job."  
   
I felt flushed as she went on and on, describing her slow stroking of him, until eventually she felt comfortable and slowly eased him out until she began to stroke him with the condom (good thinking). She described him as so pent up with frustration and wanting, and that she continued to go slow, until eventually, he came, breathing in and out heavily.  
   
"It looked like he was quite satisfied, and he came well. I thought I had satisfied him and given him something he dreamed about..."  
   
I was expecting her to say something positive.  
   
She frowned at that moment. "When I asked him how it felt? He didn't say a word. Nothing, at all." She frowned. "He kissed me, smiled, disposed of the condom discreetly and went back to sleep. That's it."  
   
"Oh."  
   
"But that's not it." I then became privy to information never shared by her before. I could see that she was sad, frustrated with her confession, and I had no idea what she'd admit.  
   
"I stayed awake next to him, just looking at him, watching him sleep, falling in love with him with each passing minute. Until..." She choked back a tear. "Until he began to have a dream. An erotic dream, right next to me." I couldn't understand why she would be crying about that. It seemed like a good thing, like my sleep talking during the summer. Dreams are good, right?  
   
It was then I found out why she could never truly trust Dean to be her first, even as her mind and the entirety of the Hollow unofficially proclaimed Dean to be her soulmate.  
   
"Par..." she grasped my hand. "In all of my time here, you are the only one I know of who has actually thought of me sexually and erotically, and wanted to push those feelings upon me. I know he dreamed of me that way, he just didn't want me to share in them."

I felt stunned in place as she brought the conversation to a head. "He never got over Beth."  
   
"Beth?" Who was she?  
   
"His girlfriend in Chicago." She felt pain go through her, saying the name. "He never really thought of me sexually in reality. Next to me, he redreamed my handjob as if Beth did it."

I thought she was just thinking oddly; there was no way that Dean would be with this beautiful girl and ever want to think of anyone else. "Rory, I'm sure he didn't mean it--"  
   
She interrupted me, quickly clearing things up. "He said in his sleep, 'God, you stroke me better than that girl in Connecticut! Beth...oh Beth...Bethy!'" She was crying. "And he went on, saying he was in love with her, still."  
   
"What does this have to do with me?" I asked, pulling her close as the silk lining of my jacket felt luxurious against the both of us.  
   
"Because," she gathered herself up for the full catharsis. "I grew to find you attractive, mainly because Dean has been hiding things from me. I was clueless for all of these months. After he said that in his sleep I assumed that he was just thinking of us in a kinky sense, but as time wore on, it was getting to the point where he thought of himself petulantly being pulled out of Chicago from the love of his life and having to find someone new that was unlike his first love." She snarled her lip, as I found myself dealing with something no one should ever deal with.  
   
"He might have loved me here," she said, "but never really ended it with Beth."

"What?" I was...I didn't know how I felt, beyond numb. "How do you know?"  
   
"Because, I borrowed his computer when school started a couple of months ago to Google something when I was over at his house, and an IM window popped up with 'Hey there D-boy ;)'. The guy's an idiot and doesn't know how to work anything to keep secrets." Everything I despised about him began to multiply quadfold. "He has a hidden Yahoo account he uses to talk to someone who just happens to look like a teenage girl in Winnetka. They talked daily, and according to the transcripts I could find on the PC while he was out of the room, they were doing more than that. The chats were extremely specific to saying that I wasn't in the picture at all, beyond being 'that girl who likes me'." She continued on. "There was cybersex in them. Something I tried myself when I was in the mood, but could never do with him because he said 'POS' like it was his fucking catchphrase; mind you his house's computer room is in a locked office! It was specific and dirty, and I just...oh my God, I found out about all of this days after I came back. I had tried to do something with him when he came back, but he refused me, and it was then that I knew why.  
   
Her jaw clenched as she described the secrets Dean was hiding. "Apparently, him and Beth renewed things the moment he got back to Illinois, and the reason why his postcards to Washington always sucked and he didn't share much was that him and Beth were too busy this summer in bed with each other when he went back there to see his grandparents!" She was beyond pissed, as I took her into my arms. "He's always pushed off every sexual advance since I gave him that handjob, because apparently, I suck at bring a girlfriend! He said he loved me and everything, but just not enough to get him off." She hyperventilated, beyond tearful. "I read through that month of chats, about how he said he missed 'her loving'. I didn't know before then that I was with a cheater, and...and...and..."  
   
"Before you found out, you sacrificed your feelings for me so that you could love him." I was matter-of-fact, very sympathetic to her. "You thought the dream was a slip of the tongue and lived with his lack of anything sexual involving him, but it was because..." I was just stunned. "He never really broke it off with Beth."  
   
"Not for a moment." Rory hated herself for not seeing the signs. "I didn't want to confront him because I hate conflict, so after that, I decided to hell with what he wanted, I wanted you. I gave him the cold shoulder after I found out and only allowed him to kiss me, that's it. It make my skin crawl each time he touched me or said he loved me. I looked for any excuse to ditch him, and thankfully Dwight's sprinklers came into play, so I was able to break it off without telling him I knew he was a cheating bastard. I laid into him with everything I had, but I didn't say one word about knowing he was fucking Beth, or that he still talked to her. I just told him what was also a truth; I couldn't stand him and I was sick of him treating me as if I'm fragile. I mean, in what world does it make sense that you're cheating on a girlfriend really there for you and willing to love you, but you're getting your rocks off through some chick typing on a keyboard or doing God knows what on a webcam? I didn't check that, because c'mon, I don't need to see that!"  
   
"Rory...Rory..." I slid my arms around her. "Settle...please, settle down."  
   
"Am I really that repulsive?" She was in a panic. "I went through a few days where I considered not eating because I didn't look like Beth, slim and skinny Beth! I thought there was something wrong with me, that there was a reason he hated to see me sexy, and that I was abnormal. I always thought I was loyal and cute, and that I'm definitely a get. I thought when he gave me the bracelet for my 16th, Beth was just a girl in his past, never to be thought of again."  
   
I couldn't believe that she ever thought about herself that way. All of this insecurity bubbling up within her, the betrayal that was put over her for years. I always thought the guy was a jerk for being so controlling, but this topped all. He messed with the heart of the woman I love, kept her in the dark.  
   
"I screwed up...I wasted two years of my life on a first love who never loved me! He said he did, but I was just a stand-in until he could get back to the Windy City. He said he's going back to the Chicago area to attend the College of DuPage as a jump to get a hockey scholarship at a WCHA school, whatever that is, but I don't believe that for a moment. He's...he just gets by, and..."  
   
"Shh, hon, don't get wound up on him, please, don't do it." I shifted over, massaging Rory's scalp as I brought her close to me. "Why did you never say anything?"  
   
"Who would believe me?" She was crying, and it was then I could see the exact reason she reacted so violently to even the inkling of me with another man. _No wonder she cut into you deep_ , I thought to myself. _The way he treated her within that relationship, there's so much hidden hurt within her.  
_    
I wanted to understand her, and I began to see her insecurities and drive as more than just avoiding her mother's errors (I can't use the 'm' word anymore, because without it, we wouldn't be here). She has so many complex problems that I don't know about yet, and though when she came into Chilton I only saw accomplishments and GPA numbers, there's much more than that with her.  
   
"I would have believed you," I said. "People in this town, beyond a few, are obviously stupid if they thought you two were ever right for each other." I rubbed at her neck, playing with the silver necklace adorning it. "I always got this sense that he was possessive over you, and one day I'd either see you fall apart before my eyes or just resign and give up under his pressure."  
   
"Par, you couldn't have known. It was demeaning to be with him. The day I got some Harvard materials in the mail, I wanted to go over them at my own pace, slowly, just enjoy the crimson printing and class descriptions. But I had to push it off a couple of days because he wanted me to come over and bond with him and his father over an _American Chopper_ marathon." She slowly begins to calm down. "I mean, modifying motorcycles? I had to watch this for four hours and to watch these guys bicker on TV about brakes and tires and throttles, it's like who cares? And all through, they thought they were teaching me that motorcycles are cool. They aren't!"  
   
"Not that kind at least," I mused. "I respect Harleys much more myself. But I'm more about speed bikes."  
   
"Huh?" She looked at me, confused. "You're into motorcycles?"  
   
A crooked smile from me, as I was glad for a distraction. "You haven't lived until you've taken a ten mile stretch of Sunrise Highway on the Island at 115 mph, the only thing keeping you alive being mere inches of rubber, a circumference of fabric, foam and hard plastic around your head, a padded suit, and a metal guardrail. I hate the 'manly' type of motorcycle, the one where it's just this huge mess of metal and chrome in front of you. I prefer speed and something that says 'stay out of my way'."  
   
"Why, Paris Gellar, I do believe you're full of surprises," she teased. "All this time I was stuck watching that, and I could've been riding with you?"  
   
I disclaimed a wee bit. "Actually, you'd be my first ever passenger, I've always rode alone on my Ducati. But if you want to, and your mother trusts me, I'll take you on a ride sometime in the spring or the summer."

"I would enjoy that." We stayed close for a few moments, my hands still in her hair, mine against her back. "What didn't I see in you before Tristan left? All of this time, we had all these things in common, and uncommon things I'm interested in, and we kept apart. And for what? For your mother to set you up with duds, while I stayed with a guy still pining for his first girlfriend." She hesitated, closing her eyes and trying to come up with something. "Men are just trainwrecks."  
   
"Not all men," I corrected. "My father is wonderful. Luke is great, if a bit surly. And Brad, Madeline describes him as a true gentleman." I smiled at her, trying to cheer her up. "I just think it's the way things went, that we were not meant to have the best luck with guys."  
   
"I know, but there was Jess. I think if I had found there were sparks there I might have gone for it, but when we kissed, it just felt as if I was Marcia and kissing Greg." She laughed nervously. "It was a good fairy tale moment, he swept me and it was sudden. But it was just too friendly, and we're on two different planes."  
   
"It was the same with Jamie outside of the restaurant in Washington; I just didn't feel a thing. I was prepared to, but there wasn't that sense of building tension and want that we had when we first kissed. We had an entire summer to build up, and then two months after, and it came to a head on the couch, when everything was just right, I looked into your eyes, and saw that there was something there." She bit on her lip, as our eyes met together. "The countdown to the inevitable, that we shared something beyond topping the classes. I remember that moment right now." She was breathing, in and out, deeply, the moment flashing around us, along with the notebook list. How I fell for her slowly, and closed the distance with her. That wobbly feeling of excitement of jumping into the unknown came back to me.  
   
There was still an open matter that we had to deal with before the night ended, that white elephant with the floppy hair that kept us apart for so long.  
   
"Are you sure you're not mad at me, about Dean?" Shyly, she pushed herself away from me. "You have every right to, considering how I treated you tonight." I hated that she was doing this to herself, beating herself up over something that never should have happened.  
   
I sighed, and watched as she got up, to sort out a pain in her back. I then rose up, sitting with my knees across. "I'm not going to dwell on your past. You've justified to me that he never deserved you, but we're together. That's the important thing for me." I slid my fingers through my hair to smooth it out. "How many ways do I have to say it? You have nothing to apologize for."  
   
"How can you be so calm about this?" she argued. "You're taking everything well. It's odd, and I expected a fight." I asked her why. "Because, that's how you always dealt with problems in the past, we talked them out and threw words at each other until we both left in angry huffs."

"Ror, that might work when you're trying to squeeze your story onto page two, but when we're together like this, we need to just look at situations one at a time. What happened between us, it could be dealt with rationally, so I went about making you see things in a sane manner. I wasn't going to argue with you because the only thing that does is further the rift." I looked up towards her, suddenly having a carnal feeling rising within me, being able to look down her dress. "If I had to, I would've pulled another 4:30 visit to make you see that I didn't want Jamie." I looked up at her. "I only want you."

"Paris." She was taken aback as I focused in towards her, making it clear I wasn't going to let her go. "You...you would've come back here?"  
   
"Anything for you. If I had to, I'd have sent you a multitude of flowers asking for your forgiveness tomorrow." I lay back down on the mat, looking up towards her. "The only problem with the whole sneaking into your room plan now though, is that I can't stop thinking about undressing you in bed."  
   
With a chuckle, Rory let herself stretch out, the hem of her dress rise up, giving me a view of her legs up to mid-thigh. "You don't know what that thought's doing to me right now." She was flushing. "It's enough that I got off to your voice in the town car earlier, but somehow I still don't feel sated enough." Slowly, she began to re-approach. "Thanks to you, missy, I'm down to panties and tank tops in bed, and the top's off by my first bathroom break of the night!"

I felt overwhelmed by that image. "Have you been dreaming about me in your sleep?"  
   
"Maybe," she spoke, her voice tinny. "Can I plead the Fifth on sharing that information?"  
   
"Absolutely." I decided to rile her up a little more. "However, I will waive my own and tell you that my laundry costs are rising."  
   
"Oh, I'm sure they are, hon." She spun around to give me a teasing twirl. "I may not make it to laundry day myself."  
   
"You are gonna kill me, I swear." I shook my head at the idea of her fully bare beneath her uniform.  
   
Little did she know, that all through baring her soul about Dean, in the back of my mind I had been preparing to give the mats below us a true blessing. Our legs had rubbed together all through her talk, and the more I thought about it each moment, I felt my wanting to hold back from her slip away. I had given her a true way to remember Monday morning next to the pond. But I had continually dwelled on knowing that I was ready for her myself, fully. After admitting my love, it was only a matter of time. The only thing was I needed to find the perfect moment to do so.  
   
But as I lay down on that mat and the blanket and jackets, all the nervousness seemed to melt away for me, about being fully intimate. Her hands had wandered me throughout, and as we grew closer the fear I felt at her seeing me nude was disappearing. I felt easy-going and comfortable, less nervous than I did a month ago where just the very insinuation by her of taking off my clothes, even something as little as a dress knot, scared me.  
   
I looked into her eyes, trying to muster if this was the moment I was looking for. Rory had just admitted her experience with Dean was worse than I feared, and to take advantage of that in a contest sort of way, to assert sexual control over her, made me feel uncomfortable.  
   
"Paris?" She mustered a sensual whisper in her voice, and as she moved towards the center of the room, I could sense she was nervous. About what exactly, was unknown to me. I asked her what was wrong.  
   
"How did you hold back on doing anything in the towncar while I was stroking myself from your voice?" Slowly, she walked back towards me, her feet softly padding the hardwood floor. "That must've taken some tenacity."  
   
"I--I was fine," I said, watching her approach. "I was too stunned to have any reaction beyond babbling about self-loving lingo to hasten you on further."  
   
Rory stopped, letting her feet rest evenly. "You looked like you wanted to do something though. Somehow I think I stole your thunder." Smiling, her right hand moved towards the left strap of her dress. "You were so apologetic about everything, but behind it, I could tell that my being stubborn was doing something to you. You kept staring at me from the floor, as I read my book. And then trying to get out of the ride, you were just waiting for me to realize my phone was missing."  
   
She took the thin ribbon of silk between her fingers. "I know you, baby girl. Inside you were a panicked mess of nerves, angry at me for being so obstinate that you and Jamie were together, even if there was nothing going on. I could sense that stare a few times, those deep browns of yours fired up, making it clear that if I moved from that spot, I would not leave the floor alive." She pushed the strap from her shoulder, slowly, teasing me with the bareness of her freckled shoulders. "From the moment you woke up this morning, I know you had one goal in mind." Another slow step, as she blatantly bent down to work her way out of the strap. "We talked a few hours before the dance, teasing each other about what we would wear. I was willing to share in full detail. However, you wouldn't, because you wanted me to be surprised. Which meant I had a very boring shower, and it left me in knots, trying to figure out what I'd see you in."  
   
She ran her tongue along her mouth, and tossed her hair back, a mess out of her intended hairstyle. "All through the ride to the venue, I kept thinking about what the mystery was as to why you were hiding your dress from me. I thought you'd go conservative just to get me all hot and bothered, something tight that hugged your curves, but didn't show anything off. Boy, was I wrong, and I'm glad I failed that test." Her other hand moved towards her other strap. She eyed me up, her eyes trained blatantly on my generous breasts. "While I was on that sideline, watching you dance, I was so pissed I didn't get to be right next to you. Still, even though I swore that I'd never speak to you again, I still stared, your legs looking delicious in my view. Watching the curve of your arch as you spun on your heel, the classic symmetry of your body, and how I was able to sneak a look at your tattoo, knowing I was the only one who knew the meaning. I wanted to be on that floor, doing a risky tango with you."  
   
Down came the other strap, in such a sensual and erotic way, her eyes steady against the leg bared by the slit. "I just wanted to walk on that floor and show everyone exactly why we won the dance marathon last month. Sitting there, stewing, wishing I could be at your side. My stomach still felt dizzy though, just watching you dance, and I knew more about you than Jamie could ever bear to take in."  
   
The bodice of the dress was only hanging on against her bust from gravity and friction. I sucked my stomach in, anticipating the fall of the article. I took in her words, softly spoken, the bitterness of earlier gone. "And through all of that, I could've been reading my book, but instead I was thinking about Monday morning, how everything felt between us as we flirted throughout the morning, until it all came to a head in the back of your car." Smiling down towards me, she held up the dress as she used her other hand to create a teasing path towards the back zipper. "I've thought about it all week, how wonderful that you made me feel, seducing me, making me feel wanted and beautiful. When I was at Hollow High, I was none of those things to anyone. I was either seen as a _She's All That_ -type nerd meant to be the prize of a dare, or else the date of someone willing to settle. I never felt prized, special. I was treated like crap, and the entire experience almost turned me off to guys. If not for Dean, I would still be single."  
   
She reached the zipper, as I began to feel myself slicken up, so turned on by her voice myself. "It was the same when I started Chilton, even with Tristan thinking I was the hottest thing in saddle shoes. I actually had dreams of him and I together, but I just felt...I don't know. It didn't fit, the two of us. He got me mad and I didn't like him, but to have him as a sex partner, it wouldn't be the worst thing. I mean in the two months before he went Duncan and Bowman's way I admit I had sexual dreams of him. But it never felt right, because you were there first, and I was honing in on your turf. When you cut me off, it did hurt that you believed the gossip about the tickets. I was glad we fixed things though, and after he left, I began to feel more comfortable, able to express myself. I no longer had to think about any kind of distraction, beyond you at Chilton.  
   
"Except when he was finally gone..." I heard the zip begin. "I was finally able to let myself relax around you. I noticed you more, beyond being a taskmaster and someone looking to put her stamp on everything."  
   
She began to fall down to her knees, in front of me, releasing her hand from her dress so she could continue the sweet torture. I was getting so hot, turned on, the entire night beginning to come to a head. Her curled hair cascaded down from her beautifully bared shoulders. "It began during the performance, and went further from there. My eyes would wander from the material in class, towards you, so stiff and regal in your uniform. Yet, you knew how to tease me. Those long socks, for instance." She scanned down my legs. "They drew me towards your beautiful legs, a wish to see them bared. I would have these dreams of working them off, and the day you came to school only wearing the short kind, I knew I was in big trouble, because I couldn't help but be distracted." She continued to ease the zipper down, her breasts slowly inching out from the bodice.  
   
Truly, I was caught in an odd position, with Rory seducing me. My brain was addled, worn out from everything that led us into the empty depot. To know that she had tried something in that room before and was deemed a failure, she didn't have to share anything involving what I thought would be a guy's dream come true. Recalling, I put myself back into the dream situation she described over the phone, of us here. The irony of living out that fantasy wasn't lost on me at all.  
   
She lifted the hem of her dress above her knees and pushed towards me, those cerulean eyes of hers clear as turquoise. I felt them weigh down on me as she continued to talk and show off what had to be the most understated burlesque performance that can be mustered.  
   
"I have no idea why the simple things you do attract me. When we were doing the layout for the last paper of the year and graduation extra, it was a hot and miserable day, leaving you in the newsroom with rolled up sleeves and an undone tie around your neck." I closed my eyes, remembering the setting, the hot newsroom lacking air conditioning easily remembered. "Your prescription anti-perspirant failed, and you sweated, no matter how many bottles of Poland Spring you drank.  
   
"I looked at you when I could, hot myself but cool because I decided to work in my undershirt, dress code be damned. Biting down on the cap end of a pen as I scribbled changes and typed in tags for the online edition to organize it, you sat there, worn out, hair thrown in a damp ponytail, dunked in water from the darkroom sink in a desperate attempt to keep cool." I could sense her heat moving towards me. "A half-hour later, your tie was still hanging around your neck, two buttons undone while you complained about the inane notes in a piece you wouldn't use in the extra. Your shirt untucked, bent over your desk with your glasses on and a magnifier in one hand because Farley Coles enjoyed typing his stories in 8-point legal type."  
   
Her left hand caressed my right foot, softly. "You were doing so much for me during those afternoons, keeping me sane and collected, showing that even you were distracted by the heat."  
   
"Rory..." I gulped, the flashes of those days coming back in the aftermath of the election win and the recognition that Rory would be at my side for the next year. My hormones were in flux, and I awaited June 11th, the day of leaving with anticipation.  
   
"God, if you could be in my shoes through those days. All wound up and wet, frustrated. The back of the skirt sticking to your legs, your hot leather work chair definitely the worst place of all to sit. Yet there you were, working hard and proving you were the best, driving me in turn."  
   
She moved up my body, hands drifting across my knees. "When I came towards your desk while you proofed and did layout, I saw you there, looking so beautiful despite the heat. You didn't let it get to you, and you had no care to leave for even a shower because it would kill your preparation. You wanted to finish your job even if it led to a heat stroke."  
   
The vivid images came back, in a new light not seen that day. She described the frustration I felt during those afternoons, how I felt so uncomfortable in the newsroom that even a fan at my side didn't help, blowing warm air into my face. I thought I would never get anything done and by the second day I was ready to just go home and finish up layouts and my editorial for the Class of 2002 from the comfort of my own laptop.  
   
There was another reason that I felt uncomfortable. Having to watch Rory in only a blue babydoll shirt with the Chilton Blue Demon logo on the front, I was distracted and extremely nervous, and I actually yelled at her a couple of times through the afternoon to put her blouse back on in at least an unbuttoned state. I thought it would help, but inevitably after fifteen minutes the blue Oxford shirt was once again draped across her chair. Coming off the election our bond had deepened further, more so as we talked more on the phone to plan our packing and such. I couldn't stop staring at her, and I would peer over my light brown horn-rimmed reading glasses, lowering them down just enough to keep my 'focus' on the material, but my eyes upon her from across the room. I kept thinking of her stripping it off. I would distract with another story and grating grammatical error, but sooner or later, my attention was back to her.  
   
"You brushed off my help, but I was tenacious, standing above you and just enjoying the way you looked over your corrections." I felt glued to the mat, stilled by the seduction. "What drew me in more though was your scent. Dripping in sweat, your hair damp, mixed in with the spare body spray you spritzed on before the start of the paper layout. I let my nose take in your fragrance, perspiration mixing with lavender. I couldn't help but want to stay near you, because you were just that irresistible. I was pulled in your direction and couldn't leave your side."  
   
Her hands drifted along my legs, reveling in the feel of the dress fabric. "In that moment I thought you looked so beautiful. I didn't know why, because at the time I had my feelings for you really hidden, far back. I thought you'd never be interested in much more than a grudging friendship." Rory's voice cracked, the emotions of that period of time raw. "I mean, when you had me run for VP I thought you were truly just going for the 'hot girl next to the nerd' thing to draw voters in, because I was approachable, and you were cold." I kept my mouth closed, knowing that this seduction wasn't going to be so plain by any means. "But I had time to think about everything, after the kiss with Jess, the election results, being pulled away to Washington for two months. There were all these people concerned about my well-being while I was gone, that leaving my sheltered town was taking me away from them. I was scared to leave at first because you'd be the only familiar face, and I'd have to be around you for all this time.  
   
"I had to deal with my mom making bad Marion Berry and Lewinsky jokes, while my grandparents told me I should use the trip to find political and college connections rather than have fun. Dean, you know how he felt, and Lane had jealousy because we wouldn't have a summer. I was ready that afternoon to ask you if it would be OK to not come with, just so I could spare everyone else's feelings." Slowly, her hands slid up, and she moved her legs between mine. I kept my eyes on her, trying to avoid a blatant stare into her dress, falling off her at a slow pace. "I was going to say something at that moment I approached you for help, hopeful you'd take it well."  
   
Then she sighed, looking down at me, so much desire in her eyes, and her cheeks warmed. "But when you turned around and asked 'Gilmore, can you get me another bottle of Poland Spring from the mini-fridge'..." A pause as her fingers slid up my arms. "I laid my eyes upon you, damp, sweaty, your fingers stained with black, blue, and red pen ink, eyes tired within your beautiful glasses and with that annoyed scowl from knowing I was the only one who could understand you. I saw the year flash before my eyes, from the moment you told me the wrong time to come into the office for the first meeting and that I was so pissed off at you, to coming into town for the Dinner and the story idea, your grade panic where we had the sleepover, along with the aborted night of celebrating when I was introduced to my father's new girlfriend. I saw it all, along with the feelings I had growing for you that I wanted to deny, throw off to the side, because Dean was it, he was the one for me."  
   
She brought the back of her left hand up to along my neck, caressing me softly. "Looking at you in that moment that should have been your worst, tired and defeated, something sparked, made me feel winded. Just staring into your eyes, seeing that you were ready to give up and head home to finish because you were so stressed out. That was when my mind...when I thought..." Rory began to lose her train of thought, afraid to admit what she wanted to.  
   
I took her other hand at the wrist, and circled the heel of her hand with a finger. "Come on, go ahead hon," I intoned, softly. "I'm not hurt."  
   
Rory took a deep and calming breath, girding herself to finish out the situation. "OK, here goes." She closed her eyes, and then laid herself against me. "The thing is, as junior year drifted on, I had dreams about you. The sexual kind, of course. Before then it was all you being a terror, but February on I began to think of you sexually. I attributed it to lack of progress with Dean at first and ignored them. Well, beyond the sweaty ones where I woke up in a cold sweat. Heh." Laughing nervously, I was fully invested in what she had to say. "But as I had the dreams, more and more I looked at you. I tried to avoid what arose in me, that it was abnormal and wrong, against society, I couldn't think of you that way. You'd kill me if you ever knew and be offended." I tried to speak up, but was stopped before I could say anything. "I felt weird, and thought if I just could stay in denial, I would be able to stop feeling how I did. And if I could find an excuse to not go to Washington, I could forget all about it by the start of school."  
   
Her face below mine, she told me what that moment did to her. "I was about to tell you I wasn't going to DC, but then, seeing you like that, I saw us together, just like this, in a situation where we were utterly and passionately inseparable. Both of us drawn together to be the sane forces in each of our lives, me with too many noses in my business, you thinking a 93 means a failure and scorn from Sharon. I stared into your eyes, and for the first time, it was clear. I could avoid what I felt and wish for what might have been..." Small tears fell from her eyes. "I could avoid these growing feelings, these thoughts that to me, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever known, that I see through the layers and know you for who you really are. I could leave you lost in the federal city all summer, your heart broken because I couldn't stand even one evening with you in the same room, much less eighty of them. I could be back here, with Dean for all the wrong reasons, or Jess because of our thread of a literate connection, while thinking if I didn't go, I would never be so kindred with you. I was ready to leave you behind, Paris. We would have never been in this room right now, much less on that dance floor."

Her hand moved to the back of my dress, locating the zipper. "I could have said no and let this all never have happened. There were 381 reasons that would have kept me in Connecticut all summer. All not mine. All of them would have not followed what my heart wanted."  
   
I was losing my breath, Rory's fragrance overwhelming my nostrils, her words perking my ears solid. My body was completely still as the teeth on the zipper grinded down, the only sound between us. She was face to face with me, mere millimeters keeping us apart.  
   
"But in my heart, the only reason I needed to know that Washington was right. Not for the contacts, or the learning experience, or going to all those meetings and getting to know these politicians. None of that mattered to me. Looking at you, I knew there was only one reason I needed to go. If it was slow, it was slow. If it was fast, we'd go fast."  
   
I felt her breath against my lips, her eyes upon mine. The zip of the dress, as far as it would go. I didn't even know where I was physically anymore, beyond in her arms.  
   
"I went for you." A bare whisper. I couldn't say a word, my mind stunned.  
   
"Just for you, Par. My heart told me we were meant for each other, and I've never found it to guide me wrong. It's saved me from going further with Dean, from anything with Jess, to abandoning Chilton when you were at your worst or when I learned my grandparents would pay my tuition in exchange for regular meetings with them. My heart guides my decisions, and it told me I would be gravely wrong if I left you behind."  
   
She laid a soft peck on my upper lip. "My heart told me to listen to you when I found out about Jamie. My emotions shouted it down. I should have listened to it to begin with, but I thank God for your forgiveness."  
   
I felt her pulling the dress down from my arms, so it came down just above my breasts. The flesh where my heart was bare, exposed, and she placed her hand on it, feeling the hard thumping against my heated skin.  
   
"It was that afternoon that led me to know that I could possibly love you, one day."  
   
I placed my own left hand upon her chest, on her heart.  
   
"And now, I know I do."  Her other hand, rested upon my back. I felt closed in, intimate and wanting. My world at that moment was just her. My eyes watered, her beautiful words making me feel so...so...  
   
I need not speak any further on, for Rory Gilmore's next words to me broke through my barriers, fully and without any resistance.  
   
" _Eu te amo, Paris Gellar. Com todo o meu coração, eu amo você._ " (I love you, Paris Gellar. With all of my heart, I love you.)  
   
I couldn't say one word at all. Not one. If I had expected the three words, they would have been in English and said with overwhelming passion. My breath stilled, and I swear I could feel my heart suddenly stop for a couple of beats.  
   
I had dreamt this moment in hundreds of my dreams, all ending in 'I love you' before the cruel reality of the world came back to remind me that she really didn't. Against walls, in beds, falling asleep in desk chairs and couches or in cars. The words never changed, the feeling behind them never overwhelming.  
   
But to be told I was loved by her in the language I grew to love and treasure, the one of the woman who had raised me to believe that the horizon was limitless and to never surrender hope. All of the dreams I ever had, the moment she said it, it wasn't the reality. It was my fiction, and I was ready to accept it as it was.  
   
She would not. The words were meant, the passion within her throat. Her translation of the words was pitch perfect. She spoke the language like I did casually, there was no fault in her words at all.  
   
The events of the rest of the night were now forgotten. In that moment, I could only say one thing, my voice disappearing with each syllable.  
   
" _Eu te amo demais, Rory. Está lindo, suas palavras são bonitas._ " (I love you too, Rory. You are beautiful, your words are beautiful.)  
   
I was afraid she wouldn't understand the last sentence.  
   
" _Você é bonito também._ " (You are beautiful also.)  
   
Usually, I'd ask how she learned Portuguese within the space of a month in detail.  
   
That would not happen, as we shared the softest and most tender kiss we've ever had, both of us to lost within each other. She tipped back my throat and we just fell into the moment. I was enchanted, the hours before with Jamie seeming to be within another generation entirely. I felt my body respond, hungered from the denied touch of her over the last five days. From my throat, to my lips, and then my forehead, she circled my face with touching busses. Kissing my eyelids was so intimate, along with her whispers that I looked so elegant, with or without the makeup. I could barely breathe as the ice around my heart melted, and I opened myself completely to her.  
   
I can truthfully say I enjoy the intimacy, but the kissing and petting which leads up to it makes it all worth it. Hearing the rustling of the blanket below me, and the slight groan in the distressed old floor of New Brunswick maple it rested upon. The atmosphere was perfect, quiet, close. The large space could not dissipate our intimacy.  
   
I slid my hands onto her arms loosely, letting her determine where things would go. I felt safe with Rory, perfectly guided. I then reached behind her to finish the undoing of her gown. The bodice of the dress fell to her hips and hung loose, giving me a true view of her flat stomach, the pale skin of her torso, all the way down to where the dress hung tantalizingly at the bottom of her abdomen, making me imagine what was lower. The hair along my arms stood on end as her hands trailed down to hike up my dress and she began to slowly undress me.  
   
"I love you in green," she husked. "This especially, showing yourself off. You're really coming out of your shell." I felt her lips move down from my mouth, small kisses trailing along my right cheek, and lower. I seemed to idle, still overwhelmed, falling deeper into the chasm. I closed my eyes when I tipped my head back as I found them dead-on with a ceiling fixture.  
   
With a sense lost and taste not in the mix for that moment, the other three amplified. I could feel more air stream along my legs as she pushed the dress up as her thumbs circled out and then in along my thighs. I moaned softly, letting her have control. Along my neck, my legs, she touched softly, exploring and familiarizing herself with what got me hot outside of the rushed situations of last weekend. There was no hurry or a sense of time, and I was astonished by her assertiveness over the situation.

That included slowly sliding off the thin garment that made up my dress. The zipping from earlier may have been speedy, but the rustling of fabric was very soft, as if it was...being centimetered off? I know the term is inched, but an inch is such a large measurement. She was being purposefully slow and teasing, sliding the straps down first, and then the bodice, leaving soft kisses down the middle of my chest with each new piece of exposed skin. I stayed still beyond my lungs filling and emptying, thinking about how this was going to happen.  
   
The air in the room was cool, a side effect of the large space and being in it after the usual heating hours. However I felt warm enough. Her hand pushed up the blatant slit of my dress, taking in the strong curve of my leg as I became lost to the situation. My building doubts about my body image seemed to be knocked down with each new compliment from Rory.  
   
"You're so smooth, beautiful." I love the sound of her voice when she's in passion, a deep timbre rarely heard by anyone else. I wish I could have a guidepoint to compare it to, but I guess you could think of a singer with a throaty voice. I was so dizzy from what she was doing.

"Ror...lower." I was failing to find words to describe what I wanted. Her hand slowly exposed each of my breasts from the cups of the dress. My skin was warm, my nipples hardened from the slow torture of the entire evening, of having to watch her work her clit in a circle as I talked her through her orgasm.

The image was ineradicable in my mind as her tongue took in my taste. The thin wisps of brown curls in a neat sort of inverted pyramid, surrounded by reddened and pearlish tissue glistening in the spare city lights as we headed south on Berlin Turnpike. Small fingers circling counter-clockwise, occasionally venturing in and out to hasten her fulfillment, her deep moans reassuring me that I was giving her the fuel she needed to spill over.  
   
Her nose brushed against the sensitive tip of one of my nubs, and there was a violent upheaval within me as I grasped the mat below suddenly, seething out a profanity, begging her to further. Everything from thereon out seemed to be beyond indescribable. Indeed, my wont to describe every possible action she instigated in the hour seemed to disappear as image blurred into image, kiss into kiss, and each new touch became a part of another touch.  I was now feeling what she was within the Jaguar, that first sense of knowing your lover, what they want to do, how they want to make you feel good.

I can't understand why she enjoys my breasts so much, but I know I shouldn't be complaining. Her mouth around each nipple as she went back and forth, her hands caressed them in a slow and aching wander. Her nails scratched across the outer circumference of each one. I shrieked aloud as the effects of the cooling saliva that was a remainder of her kisses pushed through me.  
   
She slid down the dress from my legs, making me nervous. Her lashes fluttered as she took me in, and there was an urge to shift my arms across my breasts while shielding myself with a hand as if in the Venus de Milo. I felt exposed to her, all of my faults out there to see.  
   
My inner dialogue built my doubts further. _God, I need to lose ten pounds for sure, she doesn't seem to approve._ The rhythm of my heart accelerated as I felt her sparkling blues rake over me, taking in those imperfections of mine. The dress was dragged over my feet, and then softly set aside at the foot of the mat.  
   
My conscience became the Jewish mother I never had. _She does realize her ex was at least built, right? What is she doing with me, thinking I'm sexy? Looking at my face, sure, but the only thing I've done is tease through shirts and pants. I don't have a body like Louise's by any means, and I'm so shy...  
_    
Rory took me in from above, and if I was afraid that would be the point of rejection, I would have been disappointed. She moved up to meet me at eye level, perusing my curves, taking me in as if I was one of those lollipops with the chocolate center. The raspberry kind that unlike the owl says, takes 493 licks to get to (as revealed by Madeline during a ninth grade science project).  
   
Smirking, she let her hands wander across my waist, her hair cascading down, while she positioned herself so that we met face to face, while her legs brushed against my ankles.  
   
How did I feel at that moment? With my lover on top of me, internally a mess from the emotions of the night, but probably for the first time not running away because I held her back from doing so. She was a runner, scared of conflict, and even tonight in the bathroom as she confronted me over Jamie, angered and pissed that I wouldn't say anything about him to her, I still saw her fear. She was closed off, prepared to end things right there to spare her heart.  
   
I blocked her way. I put my heart on the line to save the relationship, but even I didn't think the result would be this. She, against me, in the same place where she realized Dean and she were compatible, but not sexually. Bringing her anger out, the betrayal she felt towards Dean, the scars he left with her that she wasn't to even utter 'fuck' because that would ruin her china doll image, leavened with a bit of acid towards Sharon.  
   
Her eyes weighted down on me, as her hand slid down from my stomach, and towards the strip of hair, all that was between us and knocking down that last fence protecting the line between friends and lovers. If the person above me was Tristan, I would have probably been scared. Not just shitless, but paralyzed and unable to move. My mind would have been a spinning quagmire featuring a calendar and a timer stating when I took my last pill, a fear he would push in too fast, his dirty talk sort of offensive as he'd probably say something like he'd want to suck my breasts, but they'd be described in a crude plural term that rhymes with 'soccer' or 'mitt'. Of him spilling into me within a couple minutes, not even getting me started. Not to even mention that my first destination after his come would be the shower because his musk would be all over me, the signs of what he did all over, with bruises and pain. Fears that it would just be sex, nothing more, something I would remember forever, but he would recount _I Love the 80's_ style in front of a bluescreen as part of a countdown, between Denise Terreo and Lemon Vermouth.  
   
Like Rory said, sex with Tristan would probably be wonderful and fulfilling, and I dreamed about it many times. But in the end, looking back, I'm content I made the right decision on shutting him out after his ticket ploy and never sleeping with him. When all is said and done, I don't regret anything. Tristan will be happy with someone else, while I can be happy with Rory.  
   
Very, very happy. Oh dear, I must be sounding a step above demented...  
   
Her thumbs brushed across the sides of my breasts as she took me in warmly, with the nervousness of the week gone. She felt confident in her own skin, her eyes not displaying any kind of fear towards me, lips pouted, nostrils flared. A lump in her throat, I could tell the only thing on her mind was my pleasure. I felt my throat squeak, a bit intimidated at watching her above me. There was that fiery confidence in her that always comes through at the right time.  
   
Brushing against the lower part of one, I flinched, kicking up on reflex, shocked. I knew where I felt turned on but wanted her to be surprised. I moaned her name out, and she felt encourage on further. I let my hands settle at her waist while my thumbs rested on the top of her backside.  
   
Slowly I found myself coming into my own and willing to let her explore. She was caring and deliberate with her touches, kisses along my cheeks, her words softened. The bitterness of earlier was replaced with wary caution to turn me on but know that I didn't want rough play. I wanted slow, and she was great in that regard. I heard her whisper nothings to me, mentions of the taste of my skin, the scent of my perfume, how silky my hair felt. Admittedly I was clenching my fists at times and trying to hold back, but relaxation came quickly with loving strokes.  
   
It took a while to warm up, as she concentrated on finding my erogenous zones, especially my scalp and the small of my back, and including my stomach. She spoke about how beautiful I was nude, how natural my beauty was. "I could just stare at you all night and be fulfilled," she said softly as her hands explored my curves. I felt her against me, her nipples as hard as mine and pushed against my breasts, occasionally brushing at my sensitive nubs and causing me to react with a seething call of her name out loud. The mat was about the only odd thing in the whole setting as I felt myself sticking against it, but it was a little thing.  
   
She lavished my breasts with touches, kisses, and then moved up towards my neck. She fit perfectly against me, and as the minutes passed the anticipation built. Her hand would slide down to occasionally brush my sensitive clit to tease me, the reaction seemingly pleasing her. In the periphery of my vision I could see what began as dark red marks, fading out as her lipcolor dissipated along the swell of my bust. As she went on, she would pull her hand away to slide across my stomach, but circled lower with each new tease.  
   
Lower, lower...its odd how I enjoy her nails only grown out an eighth of an inch. They aren't long, but they're just enough for me, so perfect. She curled them down my center line in a tight three pattern along the edge of the indentation to start out with and as she moved down opened the stroke to be more of a nine with a small loop. My insides were gel and I was reacting involuntarily to the touch as it began to approach my hairline. She kissed my eyelids as the circles drifted ever lower as she switched her strokes to counter-clockwise sixes. My breathing was ragged, thoughts about her preparing for this with herself for so many months running through my mind.  
   
"Want you, all for myself." She tucked my hair behind my ear. "Want you, baby girl."  
   
"How much?" She was beginning to position herself above me, sensing where things were going.

Chills went through me when she answered. "More than Harvard." She instigated another deep kiss and I was too far gone to even answer. My body began to respond as I pulled her down a bit, her hand just over my clit as she attempted to tease.  
   
I wanted this so much, there was no doubt about it. I was soaking and so turned on by her seductive moves before all of this, and we now knew each other more than we could have ever fathomed before I discovered the notebook. There wasn't a need for permission, a moment of pause where I had those second thoughts before reassuring myself that I wanted this. My eyes said it all to her, wide and watery, begging her to make this the moment the little Jewish girl finally let herself be a woman.  
   
"I love you." Those were my last words before her hand breached me, and I lost all conscious thought as she took me to a plane I know that nobody else could have ever taken me. I could describe everything in agonizing detail, but I also forgot so many of them because I was so overwhelmingly turned on and hot, each memory only there to further the moment on. Suffice to say she didn't tease, nor did she hold back at all. It was long, it was agonizing and beautiful. The way she took me was beyond how I could've ever dreamed it, her thin fingers carefully sliding in. One first, then two, and then, finally three, with her thumb manipulating my clit. My fear that Rory had no idea how to make love to me was instead replaced with a thought that I don't know if I could live if we couldn't be together like this ever again. My throat was ragged by the end, my hair ravaged and my body...a good kind of hurting going through my bones from her passion.  
   
I could've never dreamed that by the end of this evening I'd be giving the most precious thing I bear to the girl I loved in such a way, after going through so many obstacles and hearing how her devotion to someone has burned her before. A memory she wanted to forget and never have reoccur.  
   
Well I can tell you right now despite how vocal I am in my sleep talking, the thought of Tristan, or any man for that matter, giving me the passion that Rory did in the time that passed after is hereby impossible. The way her fingers slid effortlessly within me, how she knew where I wanted to be touched, and how it naturally went from a focus on me to lovemaking between the both of us in every sense of the word, there wasn't anything that I wanted to change at all. Even the argument in the bathroom and the coldness of the Formal is something that has strengthened us further. We both learned tonight that we have to share how we feel, that we need to defend each other and prepare for any kind of suspicion, and reassure each other that the words we said tonight will remain the statement that defines us in the future, not something that's said due to chronological convenience or a panic.  
   
We're both just settling down now from the outpouring of passion and lust, my body against her slim form and fitting within her perfectly. We're both so damp, and I feel limp as I look at her about to close my eyes. God, I want to get up, but how can I? Can I really justify moving away from Rory when my heart is yearning to stay so close? The blankets are loosely wrapped around us, the lining of my jacket sticking against me, everything which had been on our persons thrown haphazardly around the mats, and my rationality is telling me to get the fuck out of here lest we be discovered...  
   
But my hand is clasped in hers, a warm, secure feeling, and her dimmed eyes are telling me I can't go, along with her quiet voice, reassuring and calm. That small-town squeak within it catches my breath every time.  
   
"You know, you've just guaranteed I won't be out of bed until one o'clock." Her legs brush against mine and she brushes a buss across my lips. "Who would've thought you'd be the one to ruin my highly organized Sundays?"  
   
"I'm sure Lorelai appreciates it," I noted. "I'm just glad that we got to this step without any kind of pro-con list whatsoever."  
   
"Hey!" She slugged my arm. "I'll have you know, missy, that I still had a plan in my head."  
   
"A plan sidetracked by my mother, so you had to improvise." I smirked. "You had to scramble after I made you see that your cell was at home."  
   
"How did you know that anyways?" she asked.  
   
I tried to avoid the truth. "Just an educated guess that somehow my messages went unheeded."  
   
"Riggght." She shook her head. "I'm pretty sure that you checked with my mom before you went with your plan of attack."  
   
"Perhaps I did. But even if I didn't it would have been 50/50 that you were without your phone." I decided to tease her a little bit more. "I suppose then you totally missed the other messages I left you before Sharon sprung Jamie on me."  
   
"Come to think of it I left it charging since last night." She was visibly annoyed as she realized her absent-mindedness. "Then again I was sort of forgetful all through the evening; my mind was elsewhere all through dinner with the grandparents."  
   
"Really now? Was it about the test Mercurio has us taking on _War and Peace_ Tuesday morning?"  
   
"No." Pushing closer to me she let her hands settle against the small of my back, making herself comfortable. "I...I kind of had to go upstairs after only finishing half my plate."  
   
I didn't understand the lead of the conversation because her voice seemed unsettled. "So?" I saw her sigh and smile weirdly at me.  
   
"So, I can't stop thinking about you! Grandma going on about my refusal to get a Yale interview in before December ends, Grandpa going on about Yale traditions, and Mom arguing about Yale with them, it was pretty much an all-Yale dinner. It made me feel sick."  
   
"I'm sorry. God, you really just need to burn a Yale jersey or the _Daily News_ in front of them just to get the point across." I felt so much sympathy for her having to go through this stupid debate about a college which isn't where she wants to be. I kissed her forehead and then rested in the crook of her neck as we began to talk ourselves asleep.  
   
"And that's why I said I was sick and wanted to lie down, I needed space from them. I needed space from their pre-ordained idea of life for me. I escaped up to my bedroom at the mansion and thought of the both of us, like we did, making love. I still had your scent in my mind from hours earlier, along with the anticipation of seeing you tonight, and I just felt...so overwhelmed. Like I can only think about you."  
   
Trembling against me, she was emotional. "I don't know why I've fallen so hard and so fast for you, Par. I mean a month ago when I could only watch you I thought I could keep everything in control, stay focused and not have every moment I could spare result in thinking about you. I just was under this mindset that if we were together we'd end up moving at the same speed as I did with Dean. That it would be...sane." She looked down.  
   
"You forget though, love is the least sane emotion of them all." I ran my hand along her back. "I understand much more about why you stayed with Dean now, even as you were pulled towards me. He offered you so much safety, a bit of control to keep yourself from heading off the end, and that's why you always had that sense in your mind that your 'I love you' to him in the courtyard wasn't what you really felt. You did love him, like I did Tristan. It just wasn't a kind of love where you gave him your heart and soul, you didn't let go of it because those thoughts of Beth were always with you."  
   
"That's why when he said it in the junkyard, I couldn't say it back," she explained pensively. "Did he really mean it? How could he know that he loved me after exactly 90-92 days of dating? I mean if he said it before then or didn't bring it up until later, I wouldn't have held the doubts about Beth because I knew the words were true, from his heart, not pre-conceptions."  
   
Pausing for a moment, she seemed to be lost in thought, going back to something in her past. After a bit of searching, she found what she wanted to say. "I've never said this, but I regret telling him I loved him." There was no hesitation in her words, and I was surprised by her tone.  
   
"But you did," I said softly. "Why would you?"  
   
Rory, staring at me with those eyes so clear, brushed a finger against my cheek, and with her soft voice, melted my heart. "Because he didn't treasure the love I have for another like you do." I was stunned, my emotions completely stunted by her confession. "There were times where I knew he meant it, but it was always when it was expected, when he was at my house and in front of my mother. He would never say it when I visited his house, or when I met him in front of the high school after an early dismissal, or just because. It was just a suffix to his goodbye, something familiar he knew I'd never question." She sighed, and then made the ring motion with her index finger around mine. "If I would have known that his love would be so boring I would have broken up with him."  
   
To add finality to how she stood with me, she reminded me of what we went through tonight. "I could have lost your love tonight with that outburst in the bathroom, and rightly so. But you weren't like Dean. You didn't act like a five year-old and wait for me to come around and apologize. You decided to be proactive and you made it damned clear that the only way you're going to lose me is in a way that's beyond your control. And even then you'll continue to fight for me until you can't. You love me, Paris, and I love you. I know others would think that we're acting too fast, we're irrational, and that we have no idea how to love or be in love."  
   
She quickly paused to catch her breath within our heated embrace, the words coming out in a rush of emotion. "But I look at it this way. We're perfect for each other. I was stuck in a two year relationship that wouldn't budge beyond puppy love, no matter what I tried to do to make that clear to Dean, who I just could never see as really wanting me beyond a replacement for Beth. You, on the other hand, you've wanted a relationship for so long, on your own terms, but you haven't been able to. Tristan, whoever Sharon pushes off on you, along with Louise trying to force you to think that the sex beyond everything else is what makes a relationship great. It just alienated you from even considering one. We want someone we can love on every level, be passionate with, share everything and anything. We have that in so many ways, and..." her voice finally faded down as she began to feel tired. "I love you for everything you did tonight. For thinking fast and getting me in the town car before I almost ruined the best night we've had so far before it ever started. For being there to hear me out, my worries and doubts, and letting me be there to comfort you when your mother's intentions became clear. And for letting me bring you here, a place that holds so much meaning for me. I can never forget this night."  
   
I touched her side softly, crying as everything she said overwhelmed me. I couldn't really put how everything affected me into words, everything she said. All I knew was that I wouldn't forget tonight either. Kissing her softly, I closed my eyes and whispered how much she meant to me.  
   
"Thank you for coming back, my love." I pulled up the blanket, brought her close. "If we can get through something like what happened with Jamie, we can get through anything."  
   
"I love you, Paris."  
   
"I love you too." I smiled, and then brought everything to a close. "Do we want to get up? I don't know that I can after...that."

"Miss Patty has no Sunday yoga tomorrow as far as I remember." She curled up against me, ready to rest.  
   
"Good." With that, she began to fall asleep, and I began to think of what this night resulted in, beyond no longer having to carry the Mary tag silently within Chilton.  
   
I lay here, about to fall asleep, thinking about how much Rory has confided in me, the way she trusted me with all this information about how hurt she was in the past with Dean. How simple it was for her to apply a fictional veneer to her small town life that showed that she was an unhappy part of a happy couple. It makes me consider what could have happened if somehow Tristan would have found cause to get together with me.  
   
What was I thinking at that time, honestly? He was just coming off that relationship with Summer and I'd be the girlfriend to set him straight? Really I'm glad all of my delusions of his not wanting Rory were gone with the kiss in the music room. I don't regret the way things went after the date, but if I would have known Rory was telling the truth I know things might have gone differently.  
   
Like for instance instead of hearing about Deano's front drive foray from Madeline, I could've been there to try and avert it from ever happening. If I knew then what I knew now I could've announced to the world that his jack-off material consisted not of my brown-eyed beauty, but some assembly line richie from the North Shore. How he could choose her over Rory, I don't think I'll ever know. But Rory knows I never liked him to begin with. He was an idiot, someone who's the nice boy and doesn't ruffle any feathers at all.  
   
Much less a bra strap.  
   
But I'm getting the last laugh now. In the same room where two years ago he had his chance he blew, the girl who was to love him left him completely behind, telling me she loved me. Then of her proceeding to make love to me in a way that turned my dreams from vivid and color to dull and sepia. The real woman, with the real heart and passion, has overtaken the girl I thought about for over a year doing these things.  
   
She looks so beautiful when she sleeps, and as I let my eyes close for a quick nap, I can't help but think that maybe that pink sky out there was a foretelling. Her mother has always said that 'wonderful things happen in snow'.  
   
I don't know if it is for sure, but If there's flakes falling, I think my opinion of snow as an annoyance may be changing...  
   
 **Rory's POV, 3:50am-4:05am**

 ****You know, it seems like this night has stretched on to forever. Like it will never end. Sure, I know it has to eventually end. I'm never usually up at this hour at all, and the one time I was before it seemed like my future was doomed. Coming home from the studio with my mother waiting to put me on the pill and lock me up. If it wasn't for Grandpa being rushed to the hospital it could have changed us forever and created a rift between us.  
   
Two years and an attraction to the same sex however, can change quite a few things about that paranoia. I was just glad that everything tonight worked out the way it did.  
   
That, and we were able to get out of the studio before anyone could find us sleeping on their mats. I was sleeping soundly against Paris when I suddenly heard a faint noise from a distance. I brushed it off as part of a dream at first, but it became louder and louder, repeating after five seconds. I didn't want to get up, and eventually it went away. But about a minute later it began again. I tried to block it out, but then I remembered the familiar sound.  
   
It was Paris's ringer, which was a refrain from _The Four Seasons._ Obviously it was important if they were calling so early in the morning, and it may have been her driver. I didn't want to move, but I had to answer, lest suddenly Henrico didn't get an answer, he assumed the worst, and my girlfriend would be part of a missing woman media blitz by the time _Sunday Today_ began.  
   
I got up to get to her purse on the other side of the room completely naked and then dug through her purse to find her cell phone. Of course I wasn't thinking clearly at the time, so I failed to check the caller ID before I flipped open the phone and answered it, watching my dozing lover as I spoke in a sleepy voice.  
   
"Hello?"  
   
"Why, it's my daughter, who is...about two hours late for her generous curfew. What's up, kiddo?"  
   
"Ummmmmm..." Where I was tired moments before, I was now wide awake!

I did mention the being naked part, right?  
   
"Mom?"  
   
"Yes, I am your mother, and I'm sitting here on the couch watching the Magic Bullet infomercial while I wait for my daughter to come home, and she hasn't shown up quite yet." If it was possible, I was blushing deeper than Violet Beauregard. "I'm assuming that either Paris is sleeping or is avoiding the phone just in case the Wicked Witch of the West Hartford Hills decides to call."  
   
"Uhhhh...the first?" I felt so nervous, I pulled at my sleeve.  
   
A sleeve that wasn't there. So I yanked at skin and yelped instead, covering it up by pulling the phone quickly away from me, and then back.  
   
"So you two were sleeping, and I woke you up?"

My neurons weren't firing on all cylinders as I answered the question. "Um, you could say that."

"Really?" There's the 'Mom voice'. "You kind of seem a bit apprehensive."  
   
"What time is it?"  
   
"About 2:30."  
   
"Oh God." I was panicked. "I'm so sorry, I...I wanted to be home by one."  
   
"Rory..."  
   
"Mom, please. I just...I need time to digest. I'm sorry, but when I get home, we will talk. We have to." I shook my head, feeling so guilty about everything. I hope I didn't ruin everything between Paris and I while creating a rift with Lorelai at the same time. "Paris should come too?"  
   
"Mm-hmm." Eventually I said goodbye, and I had to wake up Paris, who I can tell you is definitely not an early morning person. After telling her my mom just called, her only responses were annoyed Luke-like grunts and that she didn't want to put her dress back on. "You're the one who brought me here," she reminded me.  
   
"I know, I thought it would be romantic!"  
   
"It was," she assured, slipping on the silky frock and putting back on her shoes. "I'll always remember this, but my back is going to be in pain for a week, I'm sure."  
   
Shaking my head, I was glad she was too tired to get on my case about answering her phone, and in record time we were dressed, the mats were back in place, the blankets were folded in the lockers, and we out the depot, locking the door behind us and as dressed as we could possibly be in our interrupted post-coital bliss. The temperature outside was colder than it was when we went into the studio and the whole time over Paris had her arms close together as she slowly woke up while I guided her down the streets towards the house. She grumped all the way there, cursing her choice of a thin jacket rather than the comfort of her Chilton overcoat. We also ran a bit. Well, as much as we could in heels.  
   
Oh, and it was starting to snow too. Usually a point where I'd get happy and wistful,  but instead it had me treading carefully just in case I slipped and fell hard on my butt.  
   
Ten minutes later we were running up the driveway towards the house, where Mom was waiting out front, relieved that we were both alive and in one piece. She opened the door for us and we walked into the house.  
   
The moment Par entered the foyer though, I could tell that there was a change in attitude with her. The assertive shyness she had shown earlier with me as I slowly wooed her had dissipated, and I could tell the gravity of the situation was finally hitting her. There was that fear, of discovery, of self-doubt that she made the right decision in giving me her love tonight. Just alone between us it had seemed right, but now as Lorelai's gaze weighed down upon her shoulders, she was beginning to doubt the last two weeks. Her hands shook, her eyes downcast as she began to feel doubt rise in her. The fear that my mom would call Mrs. Gellar and let her know, or that she was going to be shouted down at.  
   
I didn't feel very complacent myself. What I had done, the entire evening seemed to flash before my eyes. Since the moment I picked up that phone Thanksgiving evening, I'd found myself unwilling to define my relationship within Mom's rules. Slow and steady wasn't the speed I craved, and I had been following what my heart wanted.  
   
I needed a lover, not just someone to make out with. Throwing all my pre-conceptions aside, that thinking likely was about to bring me trouble, and as I sat down next to my girlfriend on the sofa, I prepared for the lecture of the century. Paris, with her eyes shut probably wanted to rush her reincarnation into something beyond the mortified girl who would have a chastity belt slapped on her the moment she got back to Gellar Manor. My mother pacing, I held her hand, trying to tell her it was all going to be OK. Not immediately, but sometime in the next decade.  
   
After preparing herself a bit more, Mom was finally ready to start talking to the both of us. Imagine her on the chair, as we sit on the couch with our hair in disarray and makeup pretty much mussed and non-existent. I closed my eyes, trying to calm my nerves just in case she tried to strike one. I couldn't judge what Paris was going to do, but facing up to my mother like she did Villard Hall last year during a strong illegal immigration debate probably wasn't in her plan. Her hand was tight in mine.  
   
I expected Mom to say horrible, horrible things, that I had done everything too fast, ruined my life. There was shame in how I felt, the decisions I made, how she thought I was the good one and I turned out much different than that. _Whatever she says, she's right. This is going too fast. We're not thinking, we're in this fully blind and the fact that we love each other is no excuse for what we did.  
   
_I was ready for an argument, and I'm sure Paris would be eventually.  
   
What we weren't prepared for was...acceptance?  
   
"I guess hormones beat parliamentary procedure every time. Isn't that right, Paris?" Directing a look towards her, she was startled at the direction of questioning going right to her instead of me. It was so unexpected. Flaring up, Paris sunk into the couch cushions.

She was literally speechless, unable to respond in any way except for a squeak, strangled.  
   
"Far be it for me to wonder that you were twenty minutes away from school on Monday morning, with my daughter. I think to myself 'she'll get there with so much time to spare that they could play a pickup soccer game'. Around noon though, I get a call on my cell phone, from a friendly recorded voice mentioning that my daughter missed two classes that morning." Shaking her head, she smiled at her. "I thought I would never receive that call a second time after Rory's little day trip to Brooklyn, and I held it back from Sookie, who was in the same room and wondering who it was."  
   
"Ms. Gilmore..." Paris was about to say anything, but was stopped.  
   
"Paris, I'm about to say something to you and my daughter that I thought I would never, ever say. All my life I've always thought of myself as her protector, the one to warn her off from danger or sticky situations. But the thing is, she's always tried to be more adult than I am. She's so focused on how something affects her life, she writes out pro/con lists before she decides on anything."

A pause, and a deep breath. I'm so nervous about this. What is she going to do? I felt mortified about what Mom was about to say. I thought this was the end of everything, that I just had my last taste of her. We went too far...  
   
"You're both bringing each other out of your shells. Watching and observing, the few times I've been able to, I spent the first few days after I caught you two thinking that I did something wrong." She expressed her doubts in a candor I never had heard from her before as she turned to face me. "I never wanted to admit this, but the day after when I was in my office at the Inn, I kept thinking if I had done something wrong with you. I questioned my entire relationship history, going over everything to see if there may have been a way to misdirect you back to Dean, or even to Jess. I hated myself for thinking that, the very idea of wanting you torn apart, but it was something real that I thought about. And then the thoughts of you breaking each other's hearts." She shook her head, closing her eyes. The guilt she felt must have been painful. "I was happy for you both, but crying because here I thought I knew my daughter. I knew what she wanted, what made her happy, who gave her the drive to be the way she is."

She took a sip of the water in front of her, needing to hydrate herself. It was odd to watch my mom like this, not joking or the way she was two years ago, thinking I had blown my life because of Dean. Continuing, her voice was unsteady. "But I've watched you these last three weeks, together in the front drive and in my foyer, or on my couch, watching a movie together or just being close to each other." She sighed, setting the bottle down. "At first I felt uncomfortable, and there was that need to tear you apart and say this wasn't right. That voice in my mind telling me that Rory needed to find someone like Christopher on her own." It was then she recalled the drive back from Hartford after our Christmas shopping. "But I noticed something changing with you, Rory. It wasn't just in the way you couldn't stop talking about Paris, but when I looked at you in the mall as we tackled each store, there was a difference from how you were a month ago. I...I saw how unhappy you were with Dean, the frustration you felt because he took himself too seriously as not allowing you to express yourself. He felt like I'd gang up on him as soon as he went for more, but I had relaxed by the middle of last year. I assumed he would make his move and that some time, everything would change."  
   
Mom then told me about the signs that she knew I wasn't happy that she missed. How I would avoid going over to Dean's or was a bitch regarding her cooing over our having our 15-month and 18-month anniversaries, which just to me were becoming milestones of him not getting the hint that I wanted him to be my first. The pressure I felt inside that I wanted him as my first, combined with the frustration that nothing I could do would make him see that I was ready for him. My love letters went ignored, my demands to go deeper brushed off as me being lovesick. Hearing Mom talk about it as a disappointment in him rather than me was a relief.  
   
She continued, alluding to how my love for Paris had overwhelmed what I felt for Dean. "I know...I know the both of you aren't like anybody else in your entire school. Education is your first priority and the gossip circle is at best tertiary to your achievements. I kept thinking over and over that you both were too young to rush into this, that you need some time to think and realize the consequences before you do anything. In bed I've been plagued by some dreams of the town hating you, thinking of you as a corruptor of Rory's virtue, that she was unwilling to go into this at all and you've bullied your way into her heart."  
   
Soon, she came to her point. "But then thinking of that call, and of tonight, while I waited for you both to come. I put myself in your shoes, Paris. They were kind of uncomfortable and bulky, the socks were odd and you double-tie them so I'm not used to them, but I did." Taking another pause for water, she hesitated, looking at my girlfriend, who felt odd about the humor. She brought her gaze down to her hands, while I circled my hand within Paris's palm.  
   
"Looking at the situation at your age, your time, rather than my view as outside, I...I'm struggling to say this, but I have to, because it took me too long to think about you two in more than a friendship, much less romantic."

"Mom?" I questioned. I knew she was unsettled if she used so many words before finding her point. "What are you trying to say?"

Her words came out, a bit shaky. "I'm saying that...when I saw you two in the bedroom, I forgot that you were adults, or are on the cusp of adulthood. I keep thinking of you two as kids, but that ended on October 8th for you, kiddo. I looked at things as Paris does, and I'm looking at how you were thinking about it, and I'm beginning to understand what kind of give and take you both have in your relationship. It's complex and sometimes odd, but on the most basic of levels, it works. I keep thinking about all of these fights you have and how you bounce insults off one another when you're both pissed off. If that was me, I'd keep a grudge. But somehow, you both...well, I hate to be so blunt and I should slap myself for telling my **daughter** this." She stopped. "You both get off on it."  
   
Yup, there I was, flushing deeply at the bluntness of her opinion. You can never say that my mother minces words, and she was finding her voice as she told us how she felt.  
   
"You're both primed to be around each other, competitive and always trying to outdo each other, and somehow that's developed into something else entirely. I could say that I don't want you to be around each other, but I can't. There's something the both of you see about each other that I can't, or everyone else, and I know that whatever it is, you're connected on this small hidden level that I know would unhinge you both if someone tried to break you off. At this point, you need each other, and somehow I'm relieved that it's with you, Paris."  
   
She finally voiced the concerns about Dean she had for months, her attention moving towards me. "I admit, I was prepared whenever you had your first time with Dean. By last year, I thought it was inevitable. But when you hadn't, I was surprised, and a bit disturbed. I saw it in your eyes as you prepared to go out with him and experimented with more makeup and thinner dress. You wanted him and you thought he'd return those feelings. You'd come home though, say the date was fine, and when I tried to ask you what happened, you always sounded bored, like you were forced to date him. Then you tell me all these things about him being possessive or denying you affection because Jess happened to be at the diner and you had to order something from him, it was appalling for him to be so possessive. I never thought to say something about it, but I thought you were dealing with it."

"I was." I stared down at my hands as I went into detail about it. "I dealt with it internally at first, because no one seemed to understand. You told me to hope, while Lane said I should be happy that he was in the right for wanting to be proper with my chastity. Par was the only one to tell me I was wrong. We talked about it several times over the summer, when I came back to Howard with another pithy postcard in the mail. She hates to see me this way, worrying over mail I poured my heart into, only to be regarded on the same level as junk mail." My lip quivered as I went on, my internal filter making sure to leave out he was cheating with Beth and I knew it. From there I explained again what drew me to Paris and exactly what drew me to her sexually. I admitted what we did Monday and tonight, while Paris explained everything that she thought about Dean, though she was struggling to stay awake, her biological clock out of whack. I was fully expecting of my mom to put more restrictions on us from seeing each other outside of school, such as directly coming home after paper work or a call when we got to Chilton. But we both promised that we would no longer detour off-route, that Monday morning was a one time thing.  
   
Still, there were some concerns from her. "I'm sort of disappointed that you two didn't wait and just jumped into things, I guess. But if you two feel that you're mature enough, and you can handle this, I won't try to stop you."  
   
"Thank you--" Paris was interrupted.  
   
"I won't try to stop you, but the open door rule remains here at home." Her stern tone was surprising, but understandable. "If you're both here without me I'm going to trust you not to do anything that I wouldn't want to see. I also expect you both to keep your grades up like you have so far, and the Thursday night visits are still mandatory. As for Bracebridge night, I'm afraid you can't invite Paris here, Rory."

I readied an objection, but Paris stopped me. "Don't worry, I won't be going. Mother found out I went last year and she chastised me for associating with 'yokels'. I'm sure it'll be better this year, hopefully."  
   
"Yeah, me too," Mom said. She shook her head and asked her one last question. "I'm sorry I have to exclude you, but the probability of someone in town finding out about you two is going to be very high. I can't risk someone like Kirk or Babbette walking into your room and blabbing all about it. As someone who had to hide a pregnancy for a few months, I know how it is to keep quiet. As much as you'd both like to come out, it's not time, right?"  
   
We both shook our heads at the same time, but that brought Paris into the perfect opportunity to ask me something. "If you don't mind, I'd like to invite Rory to dinner with my father at his loft in downtown Wednesday night." I was startled for a moment as the implication of what she was asking hit me.  
   
"You want to come out to him?" I asked.  
   
"I need to, hon." She kissed me on the cheek, placing her hand on my knee. "I wanted him to be the first after your mom to know, but Madeline took that place. I can't break that trust the two of us have had against Mother, and I don't want to hide it from him."  
   
"Does he know I'm coming?"  
   
"I let him know I'd be over on Wednesday, but not that you'd be coming." I thought for a moment about the ramifications of coming out to Mr. Gellar. Would he accept me, think of me as worthy? Or would he be like Mr. Forrester, tolerating me while he went on about 'that Beth girl' and how he wished she was back in his son's life full time?

I knew though, that it had to be done, and soon. Right now, between holidays, we can come out without the stress of those days on us yet. No awkward uncles or weird nephews to judge us, just the closest people to us.  
   
That made me think of the other important family in my life. Something that I felt I needed to share soon so that they wouldn't have the wrong idea. I told them about ending things with Dean, so I'm sure during the Christmas party they're going to have a 'meet market' situation where I'll suddenly see so many Chilton guys wanting a piece of the Gilmore wealth. I really didn't want them to waste their time, so I crossed my fingers that I could figure out a way to come out to the grandparents before Grandma tried to set me up with someone that night. But I had to deal with the here and now.  
   
"I'll come with you," I said. "I do want to meet your father. He seems like a nice man."  
   
"He cares about me," she said, cuddling close to me. "I'm his whole world, and I don't see him being vile towards you at all. He only wants the best for me and he knows what it's like to yearn for someone so long and finally get them."  
   
Mom then shared her opinion of Paris's father. "I knew your father from when he was in his 20's. He'd be over at our house having drinks with my father and other associates from his company, looking to offer their drugs at reduced cost under Dad's insurance company. He was drained from medical school but knew that he'd rather his drugs go to those who deserve it rather than just because they could charge $200 for twenty pills. I respect him, though I don't see much of him since I left Hartford."  
   
"He's never changed," Paris said proudly. "The divorce almost sapped his energy, but with all these other companies advertising unneeded pills he wants to get some out that actually make a difference. He's a little guy in their world, but I know that if he can do it, his legacy will be remembered well."  
   
"I'd like to think we'd all love to be proud of our parents," I said, settling in against Paris as the talk of the night shifted towards a more relaxed pace. She prepared to call Henrico to come at 4am so I had just a bit more time with her. Every minute I have with her, especially after tonight, I treasure, and I enjoyed watching her as she began to be conciliatory with Mom. She put a comic spin on the Jamie situation, and the cell phone drama, which seemed like it would kill all of our progress hours before, quickly became a distant footnote, explained away with a joking warning I'd be frisked for a phone from now on.  
   
Unlike two years ago, there was no yelling, screaming, and Paris's head was safe from dull hedge clippers for the time being. There was a calm over all three of us that wasn't there two weeks ago when we were walked in on, a sense that the bumps in the road were coming, but that here we'd have a rest stop, a respite from the chaos to come in the next few weeks.

It's now about 10 minutes to 4, and Mom just went to bed after saying her goodnights to us, while telling us that we have nothing to be ashamed about at all. "At least you were warm when you lost yours," she said, while I whined about her reminding me where I was conceived. Of course, Paris didn't have to know where!  
   
That left my girlfriend waiting downstairs for Henrico, and I decided to brush my teeth and wash my face before I bid Paris adieu for the evening. I'm not prepared for more than a goodnight kiss from her, and as I walk towards my bedroom, I expect that she's standing in the foyer, waiting for her ride home. All the lights are turned out except for a couple dim ones and the light over the sink in the kitchen. I notice the door to my bedroom is almost closed, but since I left it that way I don't suspect anything amiss at all.  
   
I open the door to enter and set my grooming supplies on the desk...  
   
I'm surprised to find as I close the door and prepare to head to my dresser, hands wrapping around my waist from behind.

"I really had a wonderful time tonight." Her voice is soft, elegant, her breath tickling the shell of my ear. "The first two hours were awful, but we made up lost time in those last six."

"Paris..." I'm surprised, shocked. "What are you doing in here?"  
   
"Saying goodnight, darling." She turns me around so I'm reversed, and she walks me towards the bed. "You know, those eyes really sparkle within the dimmest light. It's almost as if a whole galaxy resides within your irises."

"Hon, you can't be in here. What...what about Mom? And the rules!" I noticed that she attempts to kick the door closed, but it comes up just short.  
   
"As long as the door doesn't close all the way, we can be in here," she husks, her hands sliding down the middle of my back. She finds the catch of my zipper. "I am currently following the rules to the letter. The door is not closed."

"But...but..." I feel her lips touch mine as she induces me into a slow kiss, her other hand caressing my cheek as she lets herself revel in me. I still taste the cocoa she made up from the Swiss Miss powder in the kitchen to warm herself up after the conversation, her lips still stained a bit by the substance. Her kiss is slow and teasing, her touches are wandering.  
   
"Technically, we are not doing anything sexual at all," she notes, using the law to have her way. "I am getting you ready for bed."

I'm a little shocked at her audacity. "What about pajamas?"

She's bringing down my zipper in response.  
   
"Not tonight," Paris says, her tone like silk as she brings down the straps of my dress. "Tonight, no pajamas. You're going to be much too warm to have to wear them."  
   
"It's 20 degrees outside; I need something to wear."  
   
"Untuck your sheets," she commands, as we near my bed, while she continues to unzip me.  
   
"Can't I...can't I at least grab some underwear?" I see her shake her head in the darkness.  
   
"Why, are you afraid of your own nudity?" She stares me over as she brings down the dress, exposing my breasts.  
   
"It's not that. I have a robe, I'm just, well. I...I'm a bit self-conscious about being fully...naked." I'm flustered as her hand brushes across a breast, her eyes moving down to take in my exposed skin.  
   
"You were in Miss Patty's and had no problem."  
   
"But I put my clothes on as soon as I could," I say, my lips trembling as she pushes the dress the rest of the way down, until it pools at my ankles. "And if I have a dream about you, well, I um, you know."  
   
"You soak your sheets. You can't hold back what you feel, so you ruin them, thinking about me." I push the blankets aside to crawl in, as she backs me against the rail of the bed. "I bet you dream about me loudly, moan my name in pleasure. You push a sheet against your mound, rubbing your clit round and round, or you just rub in your sleep. I bet you'd feel even sexier, naughtier without anything to stop you except your mons."  
   
"Par..." I'm overwhelmed by her. This is that evil side she still revels in from time to time, where she just gets so naughty. I'm so not prepared at all. I should be going to bed, not indulging in her one last time. But there she is, standing above me, her fingers circling across my stomach, her eyes darkened with the latent want that I thought I would have never seen, but now seems to be a permanent feature when she sees me. She forces me to sit at the edge of the bed, while I look up at her.  
   
"Rory," she says softly. "I just want to thank you for making me feel special tonight. Even with that rough start, that you admitted you made a mistake in the way you did, even though I had no need to forgive you, it's heartening to see that the girl I love is so selfless and afraid. I feel the love I have for you in my heart, and when we were in the depot I could have felt so many ways about everything you confided in me tonight. But it makes me see you as more than you are. The real you is the girl I'm in love with, and there's something to be treasured in knowing that I'm not the only one to have doubts in myself." I felt her take my hand, and I had the spinning feeling in my stomach from how she described this evening. That she felt special...loved. I felt a lump in my throat that I was in her heart.  
   
"Baby girl," I say nervously. "Did...did I break through the stone?" I don't know why I asked, but I go back to that whole fight in the locker room, where I described her as having rock for a soul. The words still feel acidic, the anger at her for not accepting a compliment, bitter. She pulls me onto the bed, forcing me to the left side so she could lay at my right, on the covers. Staring at me, I see the sheen of her lips in the darkness, her soft breathing so soothing to me.  
   
She brings my right hand to her, sliding down her left dress strap to expose the top of her bosom. Laying it upon the spot of her heart, the warm and tanned skin is beautiful, smooth. I think that if she ages, she will do so gracefully, her beauty slowly maturing and never declining.  
   
She commands me to take in her heartbeat. "Feel it pumping through, the blood flowing, my body in flux, dealing with the passion we shared tonight." The beat is fast; probably 15-20 beats every ten seconds if I can estimate. "I opened my heart to you, and I hope that soon I can share something just as deep like you have tonight." Her coda for the night was strong, beautiful. "I know that we've shared more in less than thirty days than we both shared with Tristan and Dean combined. My eyes are open to everything, the possibilities, the hope, the fears." She caresses my hair softly, reaching over to lay her head against the good Colonel. "I know that I will not take you for granted, ever, like that boy did. I never want you to regret me, and though things aren't going to be like this all the time and we'll have some bumps, know right now that what we're committing to, this is a democracy. Tell me how you feel, I'll tell you the same. Ask for what you want, be the way you are, say what you want to me. In you, I have a special girl, but I want you to know that I'm not going to treat you like china. I love you, and I want you to see that every day. For now, just in private. But when we have to leave our nest and be out, I'll be there to hold your hand."  She lays against me as I stare up at her, the romance I have for her becoming much more than it ever could in my dreams. She pulls the covers up until I'm tucked in all tight and I feel so much for her.  
   
"I feel the same," I say softly, my voice cracking. "If you wouldn't have pulled up to pick me up at the curb, I'd be in this bed, crying, dreaming of what might have been, but never was. If I would have lost you with what I said, I would have been at your locker Monday morning, doing almost anything to be your friend again. But tonight, after Jamie left and we were able to make the most of the night, I can never forget that. I can't forget you. The moment you said you loved me, I knew that my fears were gone. I was afraid to say it before you did, because I wanted you to have that moment. That clarity that I was the one you wanted, the only one. Once you said those words, in that passion I felt for you, I knew I had to say them. I wanted them to touch you though, not just be ordinary. That's why I told you I loved you in Portuguese, because I know that if any one should be touched by what I said beyond you, it should be your nanny." Her hand rubbed my arm, mouth formed in a soft smile as I stated to her that this night went beyond the pale. "I can't see you like I did when I first came to Chilton, the way your mother wanted you to be. You're finally standing up to her and living for yourself, and that takes courage."  
   
"I'll be thinking of you at that cocktail party tomorrow night." She pushes up her dress again while she sighs. "I really don't want to be there. I just get the feeling when I get home, or whenever the fuck Sharon wakes up from her latest .23 bender, Jamie's going to be the first subject."  
   
"I'm sure if she calls him he'll lie about knowing."  
   
"I know that. The poor kid, he thought he was in love with me, and I crushed his heart. I hope that girl in Charm City gets a shot at him, he's really a nice guy."  
   
"I feel bad for thinking mean things about him in my mind," I mentioned.  
   
"Was there a vise involved?"

"There may have been," I joked. I felt relaxed with her next to me in bed, that even if we weren't doing anything sexual, we could talk lightly like this, without any kind of tension. We stare at each other while talking softly about our plans for the next couple days, including some paper work, obviously. We both feel a bit bad for neglecting the _Franklin_ , but we'd make up for it, I'm sure. After all, there hasn't seemed to be a problem staying until seven to work on the paper. I think we could probably pull it off.  
   
I was hoping that she could stay with me all night, but soon I hear a knocking on the front door. I feel myself deflate immediately, knowing that our night was over.  
   
"Time to go, Ror." She kisses my forehead and rises from the bed, looking so beautiful with her mussed hair and sleepy eyes. "Remember, do not get out of that bed."  
   
"But, Paris..." She waves her finger in my direction.  
   
"I'm sleeping until 2:30 tomorrow...after I take a shower. I'm in such a wonderful mood I'm not even going to wear a robe after I slip out of this." She smiles, and I feel so warm from her suggestiveness. "I would probably check your mail too before 7 o'clock. I'm not doing the awkward thing with the camera phone again, so I'll just do it with my mirror."  
   
"Are you going to be wearing something...daring?"

She shakes her head. "This was daring. Tomorrow night I'm going to make sure that I remain a 'no man's land.' But since you have this seemingly insane obsession about what I wear, I will send you pictures."  
   
"I am not insane," I argue. "I'm 'multi-faceted abnormal.'"  
   
"I'm sure Dr. Birnbaum would want to argue that point." She picks up her bag, sitting on top of my dresser. "Now you stay in that bed and rest away most of the day, like I am. Just enjoy what we did tonight, and that we have a bit more leeway to do what we want."  
   
"Fine, I'm staying." I flop my head onto the pillow. "I feel all weird though."  
   
She gives a reminder of why she asked me to do so. "If we're going to sleep together, we have to get used to doing so without clothes. Very awkward to have sex and then throw our pajamas back on." She looks at me one last time, backing towards the door, with her hand on the knob. "You know what I mean, right?"  
   
"Yes, Par." I am indeed feeling warm despite the lack of anything to wear as she opens the door. "I'll see you Monday morning, hon. I love you."  
   
" _Boa noite, meu amor. Até o próximo encontro._ " She closes the door, shutting it softly, and I hear her heels clack across the floor as she leaves the house, as I'm thankful that the library has those CD courses to give me a basic overview of Portuguese. I really wanted to watch her depart, but I know if I did I'd leave the bed and she'd be disappointed. Tucking me in like Mom did when I was younger, saying goodnight the way she did, Paris is proving that she's more than I could have ever imagined.  
   
I hear the purring of the town car engine and the sound of the gravel as the car drives out, and I think to myself that this night was definitely the best I've ever had. I was able to be the most special person in her life in that depot, and to be the way I am with her, I know now that I'm too ahead now to just end things without a reason.  
   
Really, I could sleep twenty hours now. My body is too relaxed and I only feel my eyes weighing down with sleep. I don't know that I have the energy to indulge in my sexual fantasies at all to fall asleep.  
   
Not that I need to anyways. Somehow I think that my dreams will take care of that for me. I'm guessing I'll be able to be the one with her on the dance floor instead of Jamie and that I'll dream of the both of us heading onto that balcony above the floor of the armory and do some interesting things around there.  
   
Just as long as my dream doesn't end up with us walking in on Madeline and Brad I think I'll be fine. Or anyone I've ever known. I really want to remember this night beyond the reality, and not just because it was magical from the lightly falling snow outside the window...  
   
 **Madeline's POV, 4:10am-4:25am  
**    
I've never stayed the night with a guy before.  
   
OK, I have, technically. But not in the whole 'we're sharing a bed' sense. Either I've had a co-ed sleepover where the guys shared a room with us and nothing sexual happened, or I slept in another room or on the floor below after sex. Mainly because I don't like the awkwardness of being felt up in the middle of the night, or pushed to do it again when I don't want to. Oh, and some guys...they smell. Yeah, no one should have to suffer through that.  
   
Right now, I'm upstairs in Brad's house, in his bedroom.  
   
I'm was next to him as he softly snoozed in his bed, my view colored by a Mets poster and one of those big life-sized sticky thingys with an athlete on it. It's weird, knowing Brad lost his virginity to me while David Beckham watched from above. Suddenly bending it like that guy has a whole new meaning in my head!

Now I know you're all 'Madeline, what if he knocks you up, oh God, you weren't prepared!'. Calm down, dudes, we were. That's why Rite-Aid was founded, I have the awesomest OB-GYN in the state, and I have the compact with the little pills in it. You really don't think the two of us would go into this without protection, would you? Even if my Red Fox had to be a little embarrassed about buying condoms. Poor guy, the girl at the counter made fun of him while I went to get a box of Whoppers for a snack on the way home.  
   
That changed when I slapped his cute little butt and smiled at him for being all adorable. Counter bitch shut her trap right then. Serves her right for making assumptions about the class of girl he could be with.  
   
All I have to say is thank God Mrs. Langford gave me her blessing a week ago when I asked if would be OK for me to ask if we could take the next step after Formal. Also, that she had an important taxidermy convention up in New Hampshire this weekend, so nothing to stop us.  
   
I won't go into much detail about what we did, but I will say this for Brad. He might not know everything (yet), but he knows how to please a girl. He's chivalrous and kind, and we went slow and steady. There was no rush, nothing naughty or any dirty talk. We just made love, and it was perfect, great. Nothing I could do in a Chilton closet could beat the look he gave me as he lifted off his undershirt nervously and asked me what I thought about him.  
   
There was no hesitation, looking up at him, clad only in boxer briefs, a sexy trail of red hair in a perfectly line down from his navel. I swooned, and smiled at him.  
   
"I think the geek just won the girl," I said. "And I think he'll keep her for a long time." Everything else from there...well, I'm wearing a smile that hasn't disappeared for three hours, even when we went to bed after an hour and a half.  
   
I really do love him so much, and I felt such a responsibility to make sure his first time didn't end up like Jim launching the rockets early on Nadia, twice. I concentrated on his chest, slowly making my way down and did I could to make him hold off as long as he could. His stamina was amazing, and uh...oh, is Louise going to hate me when she finds out about it.  
   
He doubled me, right where he needed to. Burying his head in the books and on the Internet made him learn where I was most sensitive, and you could say, he turned two. The boy, he's beyond amazing. I mean, c'mon, he's a born actor. Of course he prepares for sex like it's a big role. Whatever he did, I'm going to have a glow for at least the next three days that won't disappear.  
   
Brad went to sleep after some cute pillow talk, and I eventually drifted off too. But wouldn't you know it? Me having hot chocolate duty turned out to be not so hot, and I drank a little too much of the stuff, along with water and juice. So I got up about twenty minutes ago to go pee.  
   
What, I have a bashful bladder!  
   
Anyways, I went and washed, and was about to head back into bed, when I noticed my cell rattling on top of Brad's nightstand.  
   
"Who could be calling now?" I wondered, so I picked up the phone and opened it up to read the incoming screen.  
   
 _Interesting_ , I thought, reading the name and number. I didn't want to be rude, and I didn't want to wake Brad up so I ran out to the hall and closed the door to a sliver so I could talk uninterrupted, and flipped open the phone.  
   
"Hello?"  
   
The voice on the other end was very surprised. "Madeline?"  
   
"What brings you to call me at 4am, Paris?" I had never heard from her so late, unless it was to 'shut your trap' during our sleepovers.  
   
"I...I actually didn't expect you to be up," she admitted. "I was just going to leave you a message."  
   
"I didn't expect to be up, but I am." I laughed nervously.  
   
"Well if I woke you up at a time you didn't want to be, I suppose I can talk to you later--"  
   
"Paris, don't hang up. I know what you're calling about and to tell the truth, I was expecting this call. Though more at 11am than 4am, but still, we're here, you're queer, I'm used to it."  
   
"You make my sexual orientation sound like a campaign slogan."  
   
"Ah, if only you and Rory would have been a couple then. The poll numbers would have been so interesting."  
   
"Mads--"  
   
I went on, despite her aural annoyance. "Could you imagine? You win, you go up to the podium and you kiss your running mate in a hot manner. Oh, that would get attention!"  
   
"No, that would get me an expulsion. Plus I'd never do it because Chilton is not the setting for a Hooters commercial."  
   
"I know, but you have to admit, you're thinking about it."  
   
"I'm not. I have **thought** about it, but not right now." She was sort of guilty.  
   
"Oh, Paris, you think you're all innocent and perfect."  
   
"I was innocent and perfect. Until tonight."  
   
 _Whoa, put on the full brakes, Captain!!_ What on earth was she talking about?  
   
"Was?"  
   
"Well, I guess you're wondering what happened after you left and gave Rory that evil eye."  
   
"Not really," I lied. "I'd rather hear about Louise's exploits with the captain of the intermural rugby team."  
   
"What happened to Football Guy?"  
   
"I was watching Fox Sports World when she came to pick up an old _Seventeen_ and an Irish rugby match was on. Bad idea in retrospect."  
   
I could sense the eye roll within her voice. "I feel like you're the smarter one now."

"I feel like she needs a kick in the ass." I bit my lip, shaking my head. "But enough about her, what happened with you and Rory?"  
   
"What didn't happen?" she hinted. My eyes popped right open as I heard her voice curl in a way I never heard before. "Pretty much I pulled up, I had her get in, and when she tried to find her cell phone she pretty much made up with me right away."  
   
I heard Brainy Smurf in my head boasting that 'I was right, I was right!' "See, what did I tell you?"  
   
"But that's not the half of it, at all. When all three of us got to Jamie's hotel, he thought I was going to go in with him and that for four months I'd been writing love letters non-stop waiting for the day he'd come for me."  
   
"Really?" I was surprised. "I thought that you liked her."  
   
"I do. It was my mother who wrote to him as myself." Going into the details of how her plan worked until they both realized they were had, I found myself seething at the audacity of that bitch to try to bring them into a romance they didn't want. I felt angered and betrayed at Sharon Gellar and how she managed to take Rory, a great girl with a good head on her shoulders, and made her so mad that she reduced my good friend into a pile of tears from a miscommunication.  
   
"I owe her, an apology, don't I?" I slumped against the wall. "Oh my God, I was mean to her. I told her she was dense and...crap."

"Madeline, you have nothing to apologize for," she assured. "Your reaction was key to making her see that she wasn't acting right."  
   
"But I feel awful," I admitted.  
   
"Remember how you were the only friend to her through that summer? How you ignored my demands to be cold? From day one, you saw what I should have seen to begin with, that I should have been her friend. To see you be mean to her, I think that gave her a shock that she was stupid, and it made getting her into the car much easier than if you pretended everything was fine."  
   
I hesitated a bit. "If you're sure."  
   
"I am, Mads. What you did for me tonight was what a true friend does, and I will be forever grateful to you for giving us that reset for the evening. It went beyond anything I could have ever dreamed would happen tonight."  
   
She then explained what transpired after they left Jamie at the hotel, from their stop for fish to their visit to the dance studio. But it was all the naughty details she told me about their night that totally made the conversation.  
   
Paris described everything romantically, like a whole new woman. Her voice was light and happy, her descriptions of them in the dance studio just...wow. The play-by-play of one of Louise's dates now pales in my mind when compared to the tit-for-tat, as I learned why exactly they weren't in school on Monday. I couldn't help but feel entranced by the details, the romance of their young love just so refreshing and something I've wanted for Paris for years. Not just so she'll stop yelling at me, but just because. I'm tired of everyone passing her by just because she's a little rough around the edges and speaks her mind. I felt horrible for her that no one noticed her, and was even more angered to see Tristan kiss Rory in a weak moment in my piano room. I remember being scared to show her the tape, but unlike Lou, who whined and complained when she burned the cassette because she wanted some 'fun', I was hoping that Paris made the right choice.  
   
To hear her describe Lorelai's reaction to their night of fun was cute. I didn't expect the woman to hate them at all, and was happy to hear she was as fine with it as she could be. That she was also doing the same thing I was, keeping the secret, I knew then that everything was right and well. Although the reaction of everyone else to come was going to be rough for the both of them I held the hope that it would be easy for them, though I knew that it wouldn't. Chilton is complicated, and there will be someone to protest them together.  
   
But those are thoughts for another night. For that moment, I was happy that for the first time in many years, Paris and I were totally friendly towards each other, having a long ten-minute conversation where my usual stoic buddy was far from that. She was in love, Rory was in love with her, and all was well in the world.  
   
"What are you doing up anyway?" she asked. "And where are you? When you're at home you have your phone turned off or unplugged."  
   
I smiled, but was hopeful she wasn't about to tease me. "You could say that you weren't the only one in the Class of 2003 to punch their V-ticket tonight."  
   
A silent pause, an intake of breath. Then, utter shock. "Madeline Linda Lynn, you didn't!"  
   
I glowed. "I did!"

I think she was most likely horrified. "You and Brad."  
   
"Yes." I heard her stumbling for breath.  
   
"And you stayed."  
   
"I did. I'm wearing his Boy Scout shirt as we speak!" My finger caressed the letters of his name patch. "It smells really sexy."  
   
"Brad and sexy are two terms I never want to hear again." Her reaction was so uncharacteristic after I explained the circumstances leading me to his bed. "Oh God, my friend did Duckie! Man, I never thought I'd see the day when you stood your ground and didn't let Lou get to you."

"He's just a smart and caring guy," I gushed, "I don't know why I find him to be so perfect for me. I had my doubts to begin with, but I feel like to know each other like we do, it's nice. I don't have to focus on just one thing, the sexual. I can build it up slowly, at my own pace, and I won't scare him off."

I shared an apprehension that I still had about myself. "I'm still scared that my past will come back to bite me. I want this to last, but what if he thinks I'm not in it long term?"

"Madeline, you can do it," she said strongly, the stirring of her voice apparent through the phone. "I know that right now you're in this glow like I am and you're trying to forget the reality to come, but think about what we've gone through. Both of us have anxieties in relationships, and while with me I tried to avoid it, you jumped in even if you were unhappy. The both of us were influenced by Sharon and Louise, and we look at them and think that it's impossible to have a positive relationship with anybody. We just have to stay away from their examples and just let things evolve between our lovers the way we want them to. I mean you're off to a great start if Brad is perfect to your parents and Mrs. Langford trusts you enough with her son."  
   
"I know. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt him." I looked into the peek of the slightly opened door, looking at my boy sleeping comfortably. "He liked me since the rehearsals and it actually hurt him to leave to go to Hillside. He told me that the rabbi told him to face his fears, and one of them happened to be him asking me to be a friend to him. Not even a girlfriend, just a plain vanilla friend."  
   
"He was scared," she thought.  
   
"Mm-hmm, you and Louise, he felt intimidated. It was only after I was friendly to him at that dance that he opened up. A little faster than we both thought, but I love that there was an instant connection between us." I flipped some wayward hair back, sighing into the mic as I let the night wash over me. "Like you and Rory have."  
   
"It took us two years," she reminded me. "You can't describe us as instant unless you're talking in era terms."  
   
"No, Paris. It was instant." I shared my theory. "Usually when you sized up those coming in on scholarships you got the information and then you just blew them away without having to do what you did with Gilmore. She was beguiling to you from the moment her and Lorelai walked past us on the staircase her first day. They walked past and Louise was just kind of bored while I was like 'yay, new kid.' But your eyes trained onto her as she walked past. You sized her up, examined her body language, tried to determine if she'd be 'Dorothy Gale, small and meek' or someone to give you competition. Now in the back of your mind, that first glance, looking through the files, you were interested, but not exactly feeling like she was a threat. Then her ass met your moat. She's sorry, she wants to fix it, but you'd rather do it alone. She keeps on begging for you to help her anyways, and without the teacher getting in the way she just might have been helping you out. So she tackled your questions, laid down the gauntlet, and a month later you're being taunted for not saying anything when you called her a loser. From there...well, I say you've talked about her more than you ever did Tristan."  
   
She took in my argument, weighing everything that I said. Probably shocked at how I argued everything, she hesitated into the phone for a bit before her response.  
   
"Maybe you would make a good scientist. That was well-argued." I felt vindicated for stating things so concisely. "It's amazing you have more clarity about my past than I do."  
   
"You needed a neutral view, and I'm giving it to you. Besides, playing dumb for so long's gotten tiring. I hate that we've drifted apart over the years thanks to Louise." That was the first time I ever admitted to feeling the blonde was ruining our bond.  
   
"I...I do too. You might not have known me for most of my life like Lou has, but you bring levity to my life, Mads. If it wasn't for you I might deny myself happiness often."  
   
"Well..." I lowered my voice to try to do a horrible Charlie Brown. "Happiness is a warm pussy." I giggled as I heard Paris groan deeply, pulling the phone away. I felt pretty pleased with myself as she came back on the line.  
   
"I'm glad you find my baby steps into Sapphic romance so inspirational."

I smiled, wanting to get an idea of things. "So Rory isn't at all like she came off to Dean?"  
   
"She couldn't come off to Dean, much less get off. Trust me, how she was with Dean was her on mute. I'm only at half-volume with her right now. Imagine what she'll be like when we get deeper, at 11." I was shocked to hear about their exploits within Gellar Manor Sunday into Monday, and where nothing Louise does is very surprising anymore, the details about her sneaking into her very own shower to bring her girlfriend off, and the oral turnabout from Rory later was enough to get my heart pumping and, um, feel very funny. Going on to describe how loud Rory gets in orgasm along with her voice fetish, I only had one thing to say to my longtime friend.  
   
"It's official. You are definitely the most insatiable among us, Gel. No wonder you held out for so long, your libido is like Cookie Monster!" I smiled, so happy that happiness was finding all four of us, but especially a girl I've known for so long that has suffered enough in her life.  
   
"I'm sure I'll trail off, eventually," she demurred. "But I'm happy for you too. Coming out of your element, going after what you really want and depending more on your wits than sex appeal. I'm proud of you tonight, Mads, but I have been since you've been with Louise less often."  
   
"I'm not going to let her ruin us," I said, determined. "We're both doing well, and I'm going to fight for you. Will you fight for me?"  
   
"I've got your back. Right now, you two are safe with me. The images of you two having sex...that'll be something for Birnbaum to sort out during my next appointment." She shuddered, and I sighed dreamily about my man.  
   
"My new secret nickname for him is totally the Big Brad Wolf."  
   
"Madeline," she warned.  
   
"He can huff and puff and blow me away anytime. And I should've seen the signs you and Rory were together. Your skin is clearer and your hands are less clammy. Meanwhile your eyes when we were playing lacrosse through the week, they were really intense, like they took a lighter brown shade. You just seemed, brighter, better. It was more than your traditional November tan in Florida usually does." I went on, noting the closeness of the two, along with how their arguments were more playful, and in retrospect seemed like flirting. I noticed a change in her at the beginning of the year, and I could finally put my finger on the reason for her looser dress and kinder authority. When she lets me slip in a small dating section into the _Franklin_ classifieds without argument, you know something rocked her world.  
   
We talked a bit more, about school and such, along with about how nice Ms. Gilmore was to her despite the shock of her daughter with my friend. The conversation drifted several times, and it seemed like the closeness gone for so many years was back. Our secrets brought us back towards actual friendship and everything else. I know we're not about to talk about boys anytime soon, but who cares? The Paris of old (by old I mean since 1998) is gone, slinking away and replaced with this new girl who I know can build a relationship with Rory that will work for the both of them.  
   
Slowly we get to our goodnights and I let her go, saying that I'll see her on Monday. But she leaves me with a message to pass on to Brad.  
   
"What is it?"  
   
Her tone turned serious. "If Brad does one thing to upset you enough to ruin the relationship, he's getting a Mary Queen of Scots-style beheading."

The old Paris was still there, I guess. But I still understood her side of things as far as true love got. If there's one wonderful thing about her, its that motherly concern of her that keeps me close to her and in line with sanity. I smiled, thinking about how much of a gentleman he really is. He opens the door and pushes in chairs for me. No guy has done that for me before, ever.  
   
"I'll be sure to warn him, Par. And you two better not mess this up. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."  
   
"Trust me, I think Ror got that point loud and clear."

"She better." I placed my finger on the END button. "Night, Par."  
   
"See you on Monday." We hung up, and I felt the unease about them fully disappear. I was nervous about them and hoped they would make up quickly, and I'm glad they did. I always thought about them as close friends and that they'd actually be that way, to the point that Rory would be the maid of honor at her wedding.  
   
Little did I know that I might take that slot at their wedding. OK, a bit fast and maybe putting my eggs in a basket too soon, but even if I've only heard about them together, they seem like they're so unbreakable. As I slip the handset into the breast pocket of the shirt, I think about how scared I've always been for Paris. That Tristan brushed her off for so long, and how her mother has discouraged romance that doesn't have some kind of influence or scripted feel to it. She's been so discouraged, and I know Louise and I have been bad examples.  
   
But I know that the both of us, we can change and open up to new ideas. I have already by changing so much from Lou, while I hear all the hope in Paris's voice that her stiff and regal demeanor may be loosening up around her girlfriend. I mean, anyone would be lucky enough to have Paris. She's smart, loyal, beautiful, witty and she gives more than 100% to everything she does. While I can only say that although I don't have a sexual attraction towards her (or Louise, let's get that idea of a threesome out of your head right now; Brad told me he only wants me), if I had a list of qualities in a lover, she would fulfill many of them. I'm glad for her, I'm glad for Rory, and for once, I will treasure the intimate moments between them meant for no one to see, but Brad and I can watch and know that we're not alone in this crazy quest for this love thing.  
   
I guess I better get back off to bed, I wouldn't want him to get worried...  
   
Whoa, something's wrapping up around me! What on earth...  
   
And there's a gusty breath in my ear. Oh boy, um, I was so not expecting this. He must have heard quite a bit...  
   
"So I'm like a wolf," a nervous voice says into my ear as the hands of my lover drape across my stomach. "You know, I love wolves. I never thought I'd be compared to one."  
   
"You're a red wolf," I respond, gasping as he folds over the collar of his shirt to expose my neck.  
   
" _Canis rufus_ , a shy and wary species indigenous to the South. Pair-bonding is strong between a male and a female." Oh, lord! It's so late in the evening, and um...he's pressing up against me. Why, hello there, Brad! I was taken aback and struggled for words.  
   
"Brad...sneaking up behind me? Scoring major points with me right now." I feel him press his lips against a spot he earlier marked which should stay hidden beneath my uniform.  
   
"Tell Paris I got her message, but I really want to keep it." I felt him turn me around so we could back right into the bedroom. "Actually, both of them. Um, no need for her to get any ideas about, you know that woman in Virginia, Lorena, I think? I..."  
   
"Shhh, baby. I got it, but we need not say anything." I backed towards the bed. "This would be the first time someone wanted seconds with me."  
   
"Really, never?" I shook my head. "But, you're so beautiful. Who would turn you down?"

"Stupid guys who don't have encyclopedic knowledge of taxidermy and the entire works of the most famous playwrights filling their pot-addled brains." I slide my hand down his stomach and push it into his boxer briefs. "After hearing about Par and Rory doing things all over tarnation, I think I need you."  
   
"Was...um, I'm scared to say something about them."  
   
"Brad, they're hot. I know you think that. And if my talking to Paris about it gets you all hard, who am I to stop you, my ravenous boyfriend, from taking me until I'm exhausted?" Smirking at him, I brought him close. "That's why I didn't have you buy just one condom out of a bathroom machine; I know you want me, so one will hardly do."  
   
"Maddy..." His eyes were wide as he takes me in, beginning to unbutton the shirt. "You're amazing!" He felt like the luckiest guy ever in the history of Chilton.  
   
"You think I'm amazing the first time, just try to think up another word for me the second time, Mr. Cutie." He begins to kiss me and well...  
   
I think my mind will otherwise be occupied for the next two hours or so, sorry folks! All I have to say is, I think the four of us will have heavenly bright glows as we walk into those Chilton doors Monday morning...  


* * *

 ** _To be continued..._**   



	19. Darkroom Encounters & Non-Booty Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What should be a boring Tuesday at the Franklin ends up being much more than Rory bargained for as she finds herself both surprised and scared at what occurs in the offices, and out.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Nineteen | Darkroom Encounters & Non-Booty Calls**  
 **Author:** Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, mostly Rory POV with a Paris POV at the end  
 **Spoilers:** Mostly for the Francie situation in early season three, but not set around a specific episode as it takes place in an area of the timeline where no episodes occured.  
 **Rating:** R (profanity, sexual situations)  
 **Disclaimer:** The lovely ladies are from a concept from Amy-Sherman Palladino and produced by Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund Polone, and Warner Bros. Television. The lameness of _90210_ and how stupid Dawn Ostroff was to lease the CW Sunday night to people who would usually run a pyramid scheme and instead ran a bad drama about the payday loan business and a third rate version of _Cupid_? Nobody wants to own those things. Or dare to tell Shanae Grimes to eat a cheeseburger. Or act. Gah, who finds such lousy actors and puts them on television? **  
Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** What should be a boring Tuesday at the _Franklin_ ends up being much more than Rory bargained for as she finds herself both surprised and scared at what occurs in the offices, and out.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** I hope this turns out to be a chapter that you really enjoy, it brings things further to a head with a plot thread that I'm sure I wasn't going to really touch except from a distance, but ended up really plugging away from. Let's just say that for once, I'm glad that a certain parallel plot in real life is finally coming to an end and on January 20 we can begin to put a few things behind us. Then again, some things remain the same and will never change.  
   
Thanks so much to Danielle for making my mind my tenses and commas and making sure that this story didn't get too out of control. Without her I swear that this story would have unexpectedly crossed over with _Camp Rock_ or _The Suite Life on Deck_ without my realizing that I did so. Though if they did, hopefully it would because Paris bought Camp Rock and put it right out of business because "we don't need any more untalented triple threat artists and horrid singing, and umm, electric guitars don't belong in a camp! Now get out, I need to make this place a nature preserve for the Girl Scouts who won't put these boats to waste! Leave now, Nick Jonas, or be arrested for trespassing and crimes against my ears for your horrid so-called 'music'! Oh, and your hair sucks. Hey! Stop crying, you idiot!" Ahh, how I love turning around bad story ideas and awful bands...  
   
I couldn't have timed this to come out at a better time, because it happens to be at the end of the road for my recommended story, Chelle Storey-Daniel's _One Heart Too Many_ , which you can find either on her fanfiction LiveJournal or under the same name on ff.net. I won't even claim I'm in the same league as she is because in forty chapters she managed to take a plotline that was treated like a joke by a bunch of far-sighted assholes at ABC, the relationship between Callie and Erica in _Grey's Anatomy_ (how's that whole Sadie thing and the Izzie/Denny necromance working out for you, ABC?), and turn it into an amazing piece of work which goes beyond just fanfiction or anything else of the sort. This is exactly why I write, so I can meet talented writers like this who think beyond the show, beyond canon and into how characters would be in real life. Her story is amazing and beyond words, and I urge you to read it, if not for just the femslash, just what a writer can do with characters seen as 'limited' in the regular sense when they put their minds to it. I enjoy it when stories take us beyond the show, and that's how I write. I think it's more than that for Chelle, it's a passion for her, and just by going by comments coming in from the end of her story, it's not just a story that should be shrugged at by anybody at all.  
   
You know the deal ff.net'ers...this has ladies doing naughty things to each other. If you don't like it, don't read. And please, if you do read, please review and give me feedback, I love it lots.  
   
Onto the new chapter...  


* * *

 ** Rory's POV, 9:00pm **

****Have you ever had one of those days you just never wanted to end? That you went into thinking as you got up from bed that it was going to be gloomy and grey, and that you'd spend most of it brooding and grumpy, but it became wonderful because of some kind of event occurred?  
   
Usually, that never happened at Stars Hollow High. If there was one thing that took us out of the classroom, it was assembly. Or as I think of it, an hour of silent torture while most of the teachers hung out at the corner, smoking and venting about their students while a skeleton staff hoped whoever was on stage kept us occupied enough.  
   
Let me say something right now. Assemblies in Stars Hollow might be the lamest things ever. You'd think they'd be fun. But they never were. Tortuous puppet shows about stranger danger, theater company rejects warning us about cocaine, corporate video presentations that make me dread the day I have to enter a newspaper's auditorium and watch the Up with People-like sexual harassment videos. And then the speakers...the freakin' speakers! My principal had horrible taste in speakers and picked out people who mumbled their words, robotically went through the topic like they had with every high school in the Valley, and just did not light any kind of fire under my ass.  
   
I hated assemblies in Stars Hollow. At least at Chilton, we get the high-ticket assemblies with people who actually give a damn, knowing if they suck, the students of Chilton will boo them off the stage instead of snooze through them. We're paying big bucks to be in this school, and you better have a damned good reason to put our asses in those seats.  
   
OK, I'm not making the assembly point because say, Derek Jeter came to our school and spoke about something. There was no assembly today at all. But I love fun things. Fun and surprising things that you would never expect to occur. Especially when they turn a dull day into a bright day.  
   
Wait, did I just admit I have a crush on Derek Jeter? Ohh boy, I guess he has a cute butt. But if I ever told Paris that, she would certainly disown me, her family having held Fenway season tickets since the 20's. Luke wouldn't mind, being the Yankees fan that he is.  
   
What, I may be a lesbian, but I still have plenty of fun things to say about guys. I just don't want them sexually, that's all. Hey, if Par can still proclaim her somewhat secret want for that Canadian guy on _Whose Line?_ , I can still crush on a boy.  
   
Great, everything was going well until I admitted that. I am so dead now.  
   
Although if Paris were to have killed me tonight, I think it would've been more from overwhelming desire than anything else. I mean, oh my God, I woke up, and it was just Tuesday. That's it. Nothing more than that. Three days after I became the lucky recipient of that lovely blonde's v-card, I was feeling the let down from the euphoria of that night. I had a heavy homework load last night, I got an invitation from the Springsteens for a second dinner that I had to beg myself out of, and to top it all off, I nicked my left leg pretty badly trying to shave it in the shower pretty badly.  
   
Remind me when Paris has to do her spa day next week. I will come with her and hopefully she'll treat for leg waxing.  
   
She was also quiet on the way up to Hartford on the ride north. Eerily quiet. I thought at the time she was also in a grumpy mood.  
   
I forget how sneaky Paris is. Instead of having one of those odd and cold days...well, let's just say she made me feel very warmed and loved. Oh, this is going to be fun to tell, and certainly it tops any boring old assembly I've ever had.  
   
I also now have a new appreciation for closed in spaces. Along with slinky lingerie and how fucking wet she makes me when she gets pissed.

It's too bad there's only twenty-four hours in a day. I wish this one could be much longer. Maybe like, 240 hours long.  
   
Then again, that might be too much of a good thing. But good things come to those who wait.  
   
And I've waited a long time to have a very wonderful night like this.  


* * *

You'd think she'd be timid and cautious around me, a hair trigger trying not to go off as she just looks at me from afar, trying to hold back her thoughts and remain innocent.  
   
But what was a slow tide to begin with, rolling gradually towards the shore, seems to have become a tsunami since the Formal. The subtle touches from her are more drawn out, the insinuations peering over my shoulder much broader, less hidden. The confidence that built up last week is finally manifesting within her, and the shy academic of old is still there, but she's becoming a bit more open about where she wants to stand in this relationship.  
   
At lunch, she's actually taken to stealing a bit of my salad and even the carrot cake that comes as dessert. She'll distract me with a leg brush or some kind of question, reach over with her fork and stab a bit of cherry tomato and lettuce onto it, then just eat it as if she had permission already. It's blatant and wrong of her to assume, but what can I really do? Her hand is beneath my skirt and I can't object to that!

That, and dressing on her lip...very distracting. She licks it off blatantly, no blotting it with her napkin or anything, just running her tongue along the ridge of her lip. I get warm just thinking about that.  
   
So many little things are getting to me with her: when she bends down to push up her sock, or a strand of hair falls out from behind her ear, even her style of debate within a classroom. I had to hold myself back as she argued vehemently about Dostoyevsky's style of prose to Mr. Mercurio in class Wednesday morning. Her eyes bulged out a bit as the teacher tried to shoot her down, and she stood there, arms crossed and tossing her hair back as if she was offended he was fighting back.  
   
"I'm trying to challenge myself, but I fail to see how this author's experience is relevant to my generation, sir," she argued. Heads turned towards her as I watched Connecticut's top debater totally own the school's worst teacher. "I can't stand this damned book! Maybe in the 1860's it would make Oprah's book club quite easily, but seriously, the writer is so earnest and melodramatic that the names of the characters make their roles so transparent that there's no getting out of them. And six different branching parts? Really? If this guy were a writer for _Law & Order _the show would get lower ratings than some fishing show on NESN! I love complicated. I enjoy long, complex plots. But I shouldn't need to consult Mapquest to know where I am in a story." She argued a couple other points, and by the time she sat down you could tell that Mr. Mercurio was put in his place. I watched her from my seat. My heart was thumping hard in my chest, my eyes totally trained on her, and I sucked at my tongue, a sudden need in me to show her how much her commentary was appreciated. I closed my eyes and didn't even need to touch her the rest of the period because she was so dead-on about the book and brought me to a point where I couldn't stand the hard wooden seat against my ass.  
   
I don't know what suddenly has brought her to be so bold and erotic with me. During paper meetings she brushes her leg against mine, while she comes over to my station often and writes little notes in the margins of my articles with her red pencil. Standing over me while her breath drifts across the back of my neck, she quickly scribbles what she needs to quickly while her hair falls down to graze my ear. They're usually just nudging corrections, grammar and prose like she usually touches on.  
   
Today though, on what should be a long and trudging Tuesday, her notes seemed to have nothing to do with the articles. Her knuckles brushed across my fingers as her tall script flowed from the graphite and shielded it from view with her palm.  
   
"Keep an eye on this. I won't tell you again, Gilmore," she purred, and then pulled away to leave me to read her notes.  
   
I never thought I'd use editor and sexy in the same sentence, but I have many times to myself this week. I read her writing and felt flustered by her text.  
   
 _A paler pink next time. Today's was nice, but it didn't blend in like I thought it should. - A  
   
Oh God_. She was talking about my choice of underwear for the day and with her shorthand 'A' to remind me of the ride into Hartford! I thought it looked nice, but I'm learning that her preference is that I contrast my skin with what I wear under the uniform. Something that's innocent is still cute to her, but she seems to enjoy me more in patterns that are interesting and bold. I smiled, and took it in mind.  
   
The notes continued through our work forming the draft layout with everyone else, small things being listed on them, like her mention that she was drawn to the scent of my perfume. The slight highlighting in my hair also got to her, while the tone of my voice is better during an argument when I'm ready to argue my points rather than just going into the fight unplanned. I expected a note once everyone had left except for Ms. Peters and I could unbutton my sweater. Three minutes later, Paris came to my side and scribbled lines across a couple of lines of overwritten prose. Her nose touched the top of my head, while her right hand drifted across my shoulder. She hurriedly let her tall cursive overtake my writing in red, taking a bit more time than usual.  
   
I was surprised by what she told me as she pulled away.  
   
 _Might need a 2nd opinion on hose. Dreamt last night you wore them...took me back to old times. - A  
   
_I stopped her before she could leave, startling her. Moving towards the bottom of the sheet, I quickly scribbled a response.  
   
 _Thigh highs? Full hose? Need to know further._ I give her a look, and she shook her head. Putting her pencil next to my text, she communicated further.  
   
 _Stockings, definitely, love peeling them off. That one hot day last June in DC? Liz Taylor in 'Hot Tin Roof' has nothing on you.  
   
_I stood still, in place. God, that heat wave towards the end of the month was miserable, and I still remembered it. Rather, my legs remember sticking to the leather of a chair in Kennedy Center as we waited to see some sub-Mark Russell political satirist. We had to dress very nice and humor the guy that he was funny, but the auditorium was hot and the AC was on low, so by the time we got back to Howard we were both sticky and sweaty. Paris got the shower first, leaving me to undress...  
   
Which I thought I did in private, until then. My heart skipped a beat, the idea of her perving over me so early spinning me around. I darted a look towards her and responded in kind.  
   
 _Once you got in that shower I got myself off hard. Thinking of you in that damp blouse. You sweated through it and...I wish you were heated up like that more often.  
   
_She turned to the next page, her response written fast.  
   
 _Through my panties too...had to peel them off. Letting that dress slide above the garter, how dare you? - A  
   
_I felt myself tighten up...  
   
 _Sucks that it's winter. I bet you get slick when the temp's above 80°.  
   
_Thank goodness Ms. Peters doesn't monitor the computer screens from afar. The written foreplay was quickly overpowering the article...  
   
 _I naturally moisturize in any condition;, temp doesn't matter.  
   
_I decided to get gutsy and whisper my thought.  
   
"How wet are you now?" I husked softly, shielding my voice so Ms. Peters couldn't hear us across the room. Why I was bringing myself into her game, I have no idea. I closed my eyes, ready for Paris to come to her senses and walk away angry.  
   
Instead, she brought herself closer, letting her nose brush across the back of my head. Her voice was tight and shaky as she tried to dull our progress.  
   
"No kissing at Chilton." She pulled away, and I knew her aversion and non-answer wasn't just a reminder of our self-set rules.  
   
Before she could disengage herself from me, I brought her attention back my way, pulling the keyboard towards me and touch-typing a quick response to the non-answer.  
   
 _I'm gonna ruin the seat in the Jag._ I stare at the words as I heard her breath hitch at the insinuation. I felt her nails dig into my shoulder. She hunched back over me and scribbled another note onto the sheet of paper.  
   
 _I think I can smell it coming from you. Making me aware of that, G-d. We have rules between us!  
   
_I thought for a moment as her fingers scraped across my bra strap. I felt so shaky, going into the unknown. What should be said was instead written and whispered. I crossed my legs over, beginning to warm, sensing her heat. I held down Enter for about ten lines and let the Tahoma text flow onto the screen.  
   
 _Rules were meant to be broken_ , I typed. I feel daring, incredibly bold. Staring straight at the screen, I heard her breath hitch, a hard tap of her shoe against the hardwood. Bending back down, she scribbled a response, the lead of her pencil quickly dwindling as the details of the words softened on the sheet.  
   
 _You're playing w/fire Gilmore._ This round, she didn't pull away, and I could tell I was lighting her up. Down two more lines as my self-censor screamed at me to not hit Option+S...  
   
 _Madame Editor, you're the one who started it. The question is; how are you going to put it out?_ I struck the enter key with force, waiting for her response while feeling my walls close in on themselves. I almost forced out an accidental moan as my slickened lips pushed against my hardened nub.  
   
There was a history behind the Madame Editor name of course; it was what the other paper staff called her behind her back. In their hands, it pissed her off.  
   
In mine though, it was a high compliment that pushed her ego to new heights not even seen by Maureen Dowd. She pushed provocatively against me, heat wafting from her as she used the last of her lead to put in the last word. My eyes totally focused on her handwriting, my cheeks warm and...well, Dean stacking soup cans at an end cap never did as much for me as Paris's proof-flirting.  
   
 _Peters leaves in 15. If you can stand to wait that long, there are a few snaps in the darkroom I have to examine and you have to look at w/me._ Punctuating the finality, she slammed a hard, deep dot atop of the last lower-case I in the sentence, and I saw the lead fracture.  
   
"Damn it, I have to sharpen this," she cursed as she ran the implement up my arm before she slipped it into a pocket. Her voice was commanding and deep, filled with hidden lust veiled by the everyday task of writing a school newspaper. I closed my eyes, letting her have her wicked way with me.  
   
 _Oh God!_ I was stone still in my chair panting heavily as I realized that I had just extended a wanton invitation to her, and she had not only taken it, but dared me to flout our self-governance about our relationship.  
   
"Hopefully you'll take my notes in mind, Gilmore." Moving to hover dead center over me, she slid her right hand onto mine, guiding the mouse and hard-clicking the button as she pushed the cursor up to highlight all the text. "This won't work anymore. You need to redo this all over." After highlighting all that dirty text, she dared to stretch over me one more time and struck the backspace key with her middle finger.  
   
A movement I didn't even notice as her mouth grazed the back of my scalp. The text blanked out and she pulled away as if she just pushed a reset button on me, _Small Wonder_ robot girl-style. I heard her retreat, and whatever the story was, I completely blanked out on the topic and the details.  
   
Fuck, I didn't even know how to do a simple byline at that point. My mind was only on one thing. It completely blanked out, and I spent an inordinate amount of time watching the cursor blink on and off, completely lost to the article I was intending to write. Even if I remembered the darn thing, it would've all come out written in lorem ipsum.  
   
Ten minutes later, I heard the door to the darkroom open and close, and then the red light flipped on. Three minutes later, as I made a feeble attempt to write **something**...  
   
"Have a nice evening, Rory. Don't forget to let Paris know to lock up." I looked up to see Ms. Peters ready to leave.

"She never forgets," I assured, and after some other pleasantries, our faculty supervisor left, as I felt nervous about entering the darkroom. I logged myself out of the network and put the computer in standby, pushing in the chair and wetting my mouth with Diet Coke. Slowly I approached the door and knocked, knowing if I did not I was signing my death warrant.  
   
"Come in," she said, and I opened the metal door, expecting to see her actually working in some form.  
   
Oh, if there were so many ways I was dreaming of the moment 'no kissing in Chilton' was broken, this was the one possibility I thought of the least, but was the hottest version.  
   
There was Paris, bathed in the glowing red light of the room, sweat reflecting off her glistening skin. A foot propped against a cabinet holding photography chemicals as she glared at me, hungry and wanting, her brown eyes reflecting black within the dim room. Her tongue poked in the right side of her mouth; she took me in as I took her in.  
   
The stubborn woman I've always known was relaxed in that setting. Her sweater was draped carelessly over a stool on one side of the room.  
   
Along with, surprisingly, her tie. I darted my eyes towards her, the missing items becoming exactly that after that point. She beckoned me towards her as I stuck the hook and eye lock onto the door to kill any interruptions. I couldn't help but stare at her as I watched the shadows shift with each step.  
   
"I reordered," she said softly, drawing her eyes down. I moved with them, towards her blouse. She shyly smiled, feeling a bit self-conscious about finally finding the seductress within.  
   
The blouse she wore, instead of being ill-fitting and clumsy, was cinched close against her bosom, now fitting tightly against her, putting herself on full display. I could trace the swell of her breast, where formerly it just disappeared into the tuck as she tried to mute herself around Madeline and Louise. She unbuttoned down two places and the effect of her looking like that was overwhelming to me.  
   
I asked her how many new blouses she ordered. "About ten," she responded softly. "I was surprised they had that many, actually, or that they would fit so well. I kept a couple of loose shirts, and the rest I donated to the Uniform Fund." I walked towards her, my gait careful as I felt overheated. "Some fortunate student shouldn't have to pay $45 for something that's nothing on my step of the wealth ladder."  
   
I focused on her, becoming slowly turned on further. I heard my steps echo in the room, the red glow of the light contrasting our clothing in such a way that I felt the lighting of the room take my mood from dead focused on the newspaper to just wanting her.

"I was that girl once," I confessed. "I had to wear a Uniform Fund shirt the first two weeks until Grandma could try to order 25 shirts for me. Somehow I managed to have her pare it down to twelve."  
   
"You can't have too many shirts," she said. "I...I'm just realizing now that there's no longer any need to hide myself." Her lip quivered while she kept her voice soft and hushed. "I was always teased for the way my body was, and rather than doing something like defend myself, or do something drastic like starve, I've ignored it. What use is it to play up things no one notices?"

"Thus, huge shirts." She nodded as I went into my own history. "I used to be the same way. In part looking good for Dean played into it, but it's like, I don't want to play into everything about body image. So I have a bit of a stomach; does it hurt me? Really, does it make any difference to have ten more pounds on me? I look good. I feel good. You're the same way, I assume."  
   
"I think what did it for me was last week." We were close together against the counter in the corner of the room. "It was such a small step, buying me that lingerie. I thought I couldn't carry it off. But because I never tried, I kept that self-opinion that I was meant to be dowdy and dull. Who could give me that self-validation besides myself? Until you came forward, no one." Her warm hands slid against my arms, unbuttoning the cuffs of my blouse. "I never felt comfortable in a loose blouse, really. But I didn't know what else to do."

"We're both coming into our own, together," I surmised, my hands at her waist as she bent me against the edge of the steel counter. "Our self-censors are off around each other. For a long time myself I didn't gussy up, or bother with it. But we're human, beautiful, red-blooded vessels with hormones here. Eventually we have to capitulate to those inner desires we hold in because what would people say if either or both of us were sexual."  
   
"Like your desire to have text sex on Sunday night with me?" The twinkle in her eye was mischievous and I shuddered while I recalled how I turned a boring and compulsory cocktail party she was forced to attend into something which made her a sopping mess. I grinned, seething as I untucked her blouse.  
   
"You weren't complaining," I noted. "Better not, with such responses like _I just bit into the cherry in my Temple...tastes familiar_."

"A delicious cherry too," she recalled. "Nice and juicy."

I had to close my eyes, overwhelmed by her husky voice. I blushed, feeling myself color all the way head-to-toe. "I never thought you'd go for keeping the thread going for hours. I was just planning a hello and a little taste, but you went for the whole pie."  
   
"What can I say? You can't just have a slice." I groaned as she slightly pressed against me, her eyes intense as a leg pressed against me softly. "Seriously, you're my levity now when it comes to these stupid events. Although I still think you timed that one message before Vance tried to lay his game on me to both piss me off and turn me into a dripping mess."

"How was I supposed to know?" I whined. "It was the truth that I still felt so weird about sleeping completely nude, that I had to stretch out. I...I didn't know it was that nice though."  
   
"What did I tell you?" Her eyes roamed across my lips. "Wasn't it nice, waking up slowly from a dream about us in the library? You didn't have to bother with anything stopping you at all. Nothing was in your way."  
   
"Nothing at all." I laid a soft kiss upon her lips. "To describe it while Sharon was describing you as the paragon young woman of Hartford society...a complete virgin, competent, compliant to whoever might marry you, loyal and unwavering..." I nipped her lip. "Which I'm sure is a carbon copy of how my grandmother describes me." I slid against her in a hug, our legs meeting as I tried to get out of my shoes. "But they're so wrong, aren't they?"  
   
"Incredibly." She returned the kiss and soon we were entangled together, our bodies moving onto the cool surface in the middle of the room as she straddled herself against me, her right hand resting upon my thigh. She bit at the bottom of my lip, taking it between her teeth, rolling it back and forth. I breathed in deeply, feeling the innate urge to buck my hips against her when her hand wasn't near my core. "Bet you Summer would never think of doing this."  
   
"Summer thinks?" My breath became heavy as slowly two fingertips slid across my thigh. "Oh, damn, Paris....God." I opened my legs a bit, heating up. "That...that's so good."  
   
"Let me know, hon. I want to make you feel nice right now. Paper work is done for the day, we can finish tomorrow."  
   
"What...about...no...kissing?" As I asked the question, she began to do exactly the negative of that statement, closing her lips around mine and giving me these slow and teasing busses which had just the slightest bit of tongue tease within. I felt her begin to settle against me, her body by far heated from so many close calls over the last four days. The buildup of our teasing was beginning to get to the both of us. Slowly, she pulled away and forced me into a sitting position onto the table. So little to keep me warm surface-wise...  
   
"Fuck no kissing," she commanded. "Ever since you got into the Jag Monday morning I can't help myself, my wanting you. We're truly lovers now, and I'm tired of using self-invented rules to deny each other. My body just hasn't felt right since Saturday night."  
   
"Tell me," I gasped out. "Please." I tasted vanilla on my tongue, the slight scent of spearmint within my nose.  
   
"I...I really don't know how to describe it, to be honest. It's like this heat that radiates from within. I look at you and I develop some kind of blush that colors my face and seems to flow down from there." This was bare honesty she was sharing with me. "I try to brush it off, look serious and all that, but you get to me with those eyes and that smile. It's just...urrrgh." She shook her head. "I'm so besotted with you that I forgot to yell at Myra Canton about the many grammatical errors in her pep band article. I just couldn't do it!"  
   
"Oh, Par," I soothed, "you can still be yourself around me; it's OK. You know I really enjoy when you blow your gasket at someone."  
   
"I know, I just..." she blushed, laughing nervously. "I've gone so long without somebody that I don't know how it is to be in love. I'm still getting used to this, to us. I just don't know how to cope, to keep my edge. To..."  
   
"Baby girl," I interrupted, lowering my voice to a growl. "I'm not going to let you get fully mushy on me just because we love each other. The girl I fell for shows no mercy and always gets her way. And I know that she wants a certain young lady to just fall apart with her right now."  
   
"Rory..."  
   
I began to slide my hands up her shirt, above. "You must feel so hot, overheated. Just being able to browse at me from afar, be content with my slight touches in RN. It must be hard for you to know that I have to hold back doing so much to you from behind, like dipping my fingers below your collar." I let my voice just slide on out, my eyes focused fully on her as I pulled her against me, the building heat between my legs calling for a release. "I can feel it in your back muscles, how tight you are around me, the need for me to be around you. You've had a taste of me and you just want so much more, right?" She nodded as I kicked off my shoes, feeling awkward about pulling off my activities in such uncomfortable footwear. Paris already took the cue when I came in the room, her socks still on. "I want to feel you, how all of this affects you. Tell me...please, tell me."  
   
"Force it out." Paris insisted on not giving out the details straight. I felt her against me, her left hand sliding up my skirt, flirting with the hem. She doesn't want this to go easy...this is going to be slow. Not like my first time, or in the depot. This was going to be sex, our first full time without all this pressure upon us, first stuff, virtues or no sense of our sensual selves, all of that. She wanted to be teased, to be riled up, know what buttons to push.  
   
"What do you want me to ask?" I gave her a look of understanding, communicating that if she doesn't want to talk about something, it's OK.  
   
But unlike everyone else, she isn't who she comes off to be. With me, she's Paris, my girlfriend, open, ready, unwilling to keep her heart closed off. She shook her head, picking at her skirt nervously, shifting her foot on the ground. I pushed my shoes beneath the table, my palms rested against the table. Her eyes seemed so warm and welcoming to me...  
   
"Anything and everything," she responded, the bitter bite of her voice gone.  
   
"Anything?" She nodded once again.  
   
"I don't care. Rules are all off now. We are free to do, say, or ask anything we want to each other within the bounds of this institution."  
   
"You declare that as student body president?" I smiled shyly.  
   
"As long as you orally agree to it." Her eyebrow quirked up and I shook my head towards her.

"Well, when put it that way..." Once again, we both kissed, softly and without a rush to it. Slowly, each button of our blouses was undone, revealing just that much more of the each of us. I feel so warm for her, hungry for her. It felt so odd to undo a top on her that was so cinched against her bosom, but as I looked down, I warmed immediately, my eyes widening like saucers as to the effect I had on her.  
   
"Well, I was going to ask if you physically arouse easily, especially your nipples. But I can see that I don't have to ask." Each one pushed against the material of the blouse and what was beneath it. She looked down, not shy at all about sharing her feelings.  
   
"They...I don't understand it. Around Tristan I'd be aroused a little, but not to the point where I was showing off. But...um, there's probably a good reason for why they're so prominent."  
   
"Why is that?"  
   
"Take it down further." I did what she said, finishing off the last three buttons on the shirt and opening it up for her, sliding it off Paris very carefully, as if she was fragile. I wasn't going to get forceful, no matter what the darkroom setting was doing to me. In the deep and dim light of the room, I couldn't get my mind off from how sexually alluring the color red was, the romance of the hue. I felt less awkward, moonier with her in there as the blouse slid from her arms and onto the ground below.  
   
I looked down once it was off, to be surprised by her also unsnapping her skirt.  
   
For good reason, however. She wasn't rushing things at all, just to take off one layer for the sake of taking off a layer. As the soft sound of stiff school clothing dropped against the cool tile floor, I couldn't keep my eyes off of her at all as I took her in fully once again.

"I...I'm..." I tried to say something, but my train of thought had derailed. What do you say when you're looking at the woman you love in a state you'd usually associate with her Pied Piper friends or heaven forbid, some of the cheerleaders in the school?  
   
Wait though. They would never look like this. Not in this day and age, because they couldn't pull it off in something modern. Paris has a classic and timeless beauty that cannot be duplicated, and only she could do what she did. I felt my heart pound as I took her all in, and my throat seemed to dry out.  
   
"Damn," was all I could say. I was withering in her presence, feeling so much weakness in front of her as I felt numb, my cheeks warm and getting even more of a feeling that I was extremely lucky to have her. She settled her hands against my arms, pushing up the sleeves so we had skin-on-skin contact.  
   
"I admit, it's downright anachronistic to dress like this, but it feels so nice."  
   
"I'm sure it does." I was nervous about touching her. "You in a slip; it seems so weird. I don't know anyone my age who dares to wear one."

"You've just learned another secret thing I keep to myself," she said as I took in the cream-colored slip, no bra beneath, just fitting against her so well. I couldn't believe how alluring she looked in it, the garment smooth against her curves as if a second skin.  
   
"If it's not a gym week, I try to wear a bra to school as little as possible. Ever since I was a little girl, I'd watch these old, vintage movies, all these women in thin undergarments and the like, how beautiful they were, and I yearned to be like them. But with Sharon in control of my wardrobe I have to sneak it through and be careful." I saw her face blank as she reminded me of the controlling nature of the woman, how I could never forget that if she got her way that she'd be stick-thin and sickly. "I just love the feel of the silk, how it doesn't irritate my skin at all. How even though I'm so stubborn and authoritarian, I don't mind being girly in some aspects."

I smirked at her, having at least one question answered. "Now I know why I occasionally find it hard to look for a bra strap."  
   
"The question is," she purred, "you don't happen to mind this, do you?"

"Oh, not at all." I urged her closer, wanting to feel her warm body against me. "You look very hot right now, hon. I have to say, I'm glad you ignore Louise's advice to you, because you seem to do a pretty good job on your own."  
   
"Actually, I may have had a little help," she confessed. "I did call Madeline this morning. It just felt like the kind of day to be a tease, and I asked her advice on whether to have my hair up or down. Having someone in my corner to give me some counsel really is helping. I don't know how she does it."  
   
"Was she the one to tell you to go braless also?" I stared at her cleavage, prominent within the cups of the full slip. "Because if so, she has more than made up her apology to me."  
   
"It's likely she did--"  
   
I cut her off by moving my left index finger towards the dip of the V in the slip and began the slow teasing process that would start the dominoes falling. Four days of tension, all that unsaid want and blatant flirting, was about to come to a head. Using my fingernail I scratched lightly at the skin along the side of each portion of cleavage. I watered at her nipples in front of me, visible through the semi-transparent lace, the deep circles of pink flesh enticing. I felt an innate need to suckle against her, tease her. I always had an odd thing for nipples, even for guys, about how they're the same type of skin as that between our legs.

I wanted to experiment with something that I always wanted to try. As she moaned deeply while I teased her with my nails, I began to slowly plant the idea in her head of how I wanted to turn her on. The hard flesh drew me in, my eyes, magnetic to her as if my sense of feeding at infancy was returning, but instead for sexual fruition.  
   
"Ror...ohh...ahh..."Her eyes tightened and I started to turn her on.  
   
"Baby, what do you want?"  
   
"You," she gasped out weakly. "Come on, please." Her breath shallowed as I eyed her up, tracing dot patterns with her thin freckling and prominent moles. I still am amazed that underneath it all, Par has all of these beautiful marks beneath her that add a character to her that some Neutrogena girl with nothing but clear unmarked skin can never compare to. The lace edging of the slip was beautiful and fragile, just barely edging the outside of each areole.  
   
"Such a tease," I said, directing a stream of breath against her slip as my free hand traced her stomach through the thin fabric. "God, Paris."  
   
"Not teasing," she gasped.  
   
"Oh, but you are." I let my left hand drift down a strap, sliding fingers beneath it. "You have this hard front on you, but beneath it you're just beautiful." My voice softened as I took her in closely. "Your skin feels so warm to the touch."

"I know," she admitted. "I can't believe I'm doing this."  
   
"Killing the 'no kissing at Chilton' rule?"  
   
"Letting you get to me." She took a deep breath in, exhaling slowly as my finger dipped within her belly button. "I did not have anything on my mind coming into seventh hour today, seriously. I was actually going to go home early, hand the paper reins to you and decompress before we see my father tomorrow night."  
   
"So you're saying something I did to you in life-sci got to you?" I couldn't think of anything before she hovered over my desk that was turning her on. "I guess I feel clueless about what."  
   
"You shouldn't, because it was all just in my head," she said. "I've just had this feeling over the last few days, where it's like I can't seem to shake off our date on Saturday night. What we did, what happened, and how it affected me. I don't know if that girl at the shop lined my dress with love potion or what. But I've just feel so off keel since I left you in the bed."  
   
"So pretty much, what you're trying to say in your long and complicated upper crust New Englander kind of way is," I smiled at her widely as she looked down towards me, and began to push the flirt even further. "You're in heat?"  
   
"If you want to compare me to a common housepet, certainly." I laughed a bit at her analogy before she shot a menacing glare towards me. "I'm serious, Gilmore. I shouldn't be at this stage where my mind is filled with sexual thoughts of you in the middle of class, where I should be fully attentive. Instead I'm thinking of you laying kisses all over while you seem to give me limitless orgasms."

Oh, did she know what that was doing to me. Hearing her describe me as a seductress who had turned her on made me feel heartened and extremely useful, and I never thought I'd be able to get anyone to that point. There was a bit of pride floating within me that she was getting this off-track, all from nothing more than a stare. She was the only one who could make me feel this way. Dean never could, not once. My patience was always exhausted when it came to him. But with Paris, it's different. The teasing is there, along with the strong competitiveness that's always going to be a part of us. I know how both of us tick, that as I admitted my voice thing with her, she was hoping for me to feel a come that was out of control, sexual and beautiful. Using that drive on the mats I also did the same thing, trying to push against her and stimulate her in a way she had never felt before from her own hand.  
   
We have give and take, and I was ready to give, and I had hopes she wanted to take of me. We stared each other over as my fingers curled around the slip strap, ready to push this idea of us beyond what we had done so far. I smiled at her, those serious browns wide open, prepared for what we were about to do.

The both of us were enchanted as we began the undressing, her first. I barely grasped the spaghetti strap of her slip as she took down the last few buttons on mine to expose the ribbed tank top, colored a light blue to match school colors.

"Limitless? I don't know if I could handle a girlfriend screaming every four minutes," I joked. I stared her over, rolling the silk material between my fingers. "I feel so daring with you, so naughty."

"I think it's always been there," she suggested as she stretched herself across me to do sort of a pinning move against the table. I released the strap, letting it fall and taking in the view of her above me, looking so intelligently sexy in just that one piece of lingerie. "You've always flirted somewhat to get your way with me."

"Huh?" I didn't understand. "Always? So you're saying even when I came to Chilton I gave off a sexual vibe? In what way? I don't think I have." I was lost on her line of thinking, though that was because the falling material of the slip was teasing me with a peek of pink, a Pavlovian reaction forming within regarding her breasts.  
   
Pinning me down with her hands against the table, she worked the blouse from me by the sleeves as she explained. "You don't even know, because it's subtle. You kept saying that you didn't like me or found me annoying, yet you came back for more. I did everything I could to stop you beyond anything physical, and you still went after me. I just keep thinking that other women wither in my presence." She pushed herself closer against me, pushing out her cleavage just enough to create an allure that kept me in her clutches.  
   
I was warming further as her voice became even more suggestive and breathy; her eyes just trained on me as if I was the prey. Her thumb pushed the sides of my blouse apart from each other, as I felt my undershirt tighten from her attention. "Just think about it, Ror. There you are, your first day, and I just turned you down cold. Never have you been brushed off so fast, as if you didn't exist at all. Even in the Hollow someone would listen to you, but not me, not there, where an F hung over my head like a cloud and I turned you down out of hand." Paris slipped her left hand further to get at the catch of my skirt. "I stared at you, thinking I got my way, that you'd never bother me again. I had no thoughts about you either way, but sitting at that desk, engrossed in a lesson you were lost on from being a month behind, you caught up quickly, your eyes open, taking in every fucking word that teacher said, your notes furious. Internally you're thinking that I'm a pain, that I've just committed scholastic suicide by turning you down. No matter that a week later you topped me in the exam with only seven days of study compared to my seventeen. You sit there, you think."

I brought myself two years back, into that classroom, Paris and I across that aisle, sizing each other up. My face colored red as I recalled my mindset, that this girl was pissing me off. I wanted to help, she didn't want me to, and it was fucking infuriating. Like I was back at Hollow High and about to be ignored all over again.  
   
That entire class flashed before my eyes, the lectures, the notes, those jabs in the back by the guy sitting behind me. Add Tristan to the mix, and you probably would've walked out right in the middle of class if you were me, becoming alienated once again from the high school experience.  
   
But leave it to Paris to bring out the undercurrent of my subconscious, licking her lips slowly, then going in for the kill with her description of my mind state. "The thing is, Madeline made me see things in another view. I have the clarity that's been missing for so long, so now I see that class for what it is. Your first move, unknown to me, was to lay down the gauntlet. To plant subconsciously that I would be thinking of you all the time, no matter how much I wanted to ignore you. The same on your end, as you were drawn to my stubbornness." Her finger dipped within the hem of my undershirt, near the catch of the skirt. "Answering the questions while I became infuriated with you, that was a subtle direction for me to pay attention to you. It was negative on the base level, the one we were at then. Subconsciously, however, the attraction began to build. The latching, our poles attracting, however you want to describe it." She motioned for me to sit up and prepare to take off the skirt. I pulled up, pushing against her as she untucked the shirt and took off my blouse the rest of the way. I found my focus distracted by her breasts, large, beautiful, defined. So natural, beautiful. In the state we were in, making me feel as if we were still in the school during the era before it went co-ed, sneaking a thrill before getting back to our boarding dorms.

Her light scent was intoxicating, drawing me in with subtle notes of perfume along her neck and down the plunge, her Star necklace resting softly against her clavicle. Her words were like honey to me, so beautiful.  
   
"The attraction has always been there between us. We just never thought to do or say anything to acknowledge it." She wrapped her arms around me, taking me into a kiss that teased me, teeth scraping softly against my lower lip as she let herself get lost. Her voice took a softer tone. "I never had true sexual dreams of you before last year, but you figured within them somehow before then." I heard the rustle of fabric as the shirt fell from my arms. More kissing, slow, loving. Our eyes were closed as we got lost within each other. "Your eyes, they haunt me. Have for so long. That determination when you get all pissed at me, holding back words that are meant to hurt. I don't see you as you are, but this passionate girl." Kiss again...untucking my tank top, her hand on my stomach, mine on her arms, small wispy hairs dotting them. "I love your anger, your empathy, how nothing stops you. The determination, never to be stopped. Indulging me in the Puffs no matter how much you didn't want to get involved, but you stayed by my side, trying to keep me out of trouble." She became more frantic, blatant. The top was being pushed up to bare my stomach. "You're a true friend, there for me, kicking and screaming."  
   
"I want to be there for you," I gasped, the bottom hooks of the skirt being pulled apart. "Always for you, the undercurrent to be empathetic."  
   
"You know my pain, I know you do." Her breath was heavy, the words deep and soulful. "I may not have always wanted you, but I've learned that I have to have you."

"Me too, me too." Left hand brushing against the top of my stomach beneath my tank top, the other about to free me from the skirt. "Oh my God, I feel so tight."  
   
"Tighter than usual?" I nodded, saying that I wanted her so much. "You feel a pumping, don't you? A want for something, a need for me. You want this, don't you?"  
   
"Mmm." Another much deeper kiss, one that was involving our tongues. The gentle caressing of hers driving me further, I sensed the taste of her subtle lip gloss, minty and cool. My body became wracked with many more feelings as she let her hand wander inside my shirt, against the bottom of one of my breasts. I groaned within her mouth as the sudden touch went through me like a bolt. I couldn't stand the teasing, the rounding of a nipple with her thumb. A puff of warm breath came through her mouth; she pulled slightly away to take in a reaction that I wasn't in a bra. We were both going free in that moment, and it was like an inevitable destiny that we were internally prepared for this. A drip of saliva went down her mouth from our shared kiss, her eyes closed as she regarded me, afraid to stare.

"No laundry left?"  
   
I replied in the negative. "Plenty of laundry, but I just didn't feel like throwing one on this morning."  
   
Scowling, she gave me a dirty look. "And you failed to notify me of this, why?"

"You didn't ask," I reminded her while she began to push things further along. Her eyes roamed me over, my nipples pebbling within the fabric of the tank top. The room felt so hot, the red light forming an illusion that the room was warmer than it actually was.  
   
Paris's voice deepened as she brought the both of us further in, farther from sanity. "You should've told me then."  
   
Before I could stop myself, I made a quip. "So you don't believe in that whole policy?" She was thrown for a second, but quickly matched up.  
   
"Certainly not. But right now I'm not wanting of a political debate." Paris smiled down at me, and with that closed off the conversation quickly. Her fingers flitted across my nipples, circling each of them and enjoying watching the building stimuli as she riled me up. I couldn't believe how she teased me, her other hand sliding between my skirt and panties, playing with the waistband at the fringe. I felt a rush of air drift in, a lump moving from right to left, her finger lifting both articles up to tease me. The air seemed to hit right where I least expected it as I pushed out a harsh breath.  
   
"Ohhhh...ohhh dear!" I was so unbelievably wet from her teasing and I couldn't find my concentration.  
   
"Rory, please...touch me." She felt a bit of anguish wanting to further things along. "Make me feel good."

I let my finger run against the strap of her slip, dipping slowly within the V just above one of her breasts. We soon began to work each other off in such an erotic and heated manner. I pushed down the slip to expose her breasts and began to kiss at them. At first I felt leery from the thought she might find it demeaning, but her rushed heartbeat and her gasps as I rounded each of them as I played suggested so much otherwise. She began to relax back and I concentrated on them, making up for the time she had been neglected. The material of my skirt bunched between my legs irritated my thighs as I clenched the material between them and felt warm. The skirt wasn't made for having sex by any means, and I wished for it off, but we were just buried into giving each other pleasure.  
   
She cried out my name as I lathed one of her nipples, sucking against it as if trying to draw something out from it. I didn't feel odd and she didn't stop me at all, going so far as to encourage me to explore her further. I heard Paris's deep cries echo within my brain, no words really, more just random syllables. She tried to strip my tank top, but the only thing her feverish pulling was doing was stretching it in unintended directions. This continued on longer than we thought possible, sharing, kissing, passion...I couldn't help but think her hand up my skirt was so sexual and untamed, making me feel like that we were about to become true Chiltonians from going through sex in the school itself.  
   
More clothes came off, our socks kicked off quickly, followed by my skirt, but a little too fast as she took the zipper off-track and separated the teeth. I didn't dwell on it (would you?), and soon I was lying against her in the pink panties which started this all to begin with. As I didn't plan for us to ever be sexual in Chilton and there was no gym, I let myself slip for today. I looked up at Paris, a bit scared as she connected the dots. She stared me down, her deep eyes taking me all in, the shirt bunched up to expose my belly button, my hair all astray, with the underwear just a bit beneath my hipbone. I felt a bit sloppy, freaked I was killing the mood.  
   
Instead, her hand caressed my cheek, and she stared at me lovelorn. Then silently, she made a motion that she wanted me to lose my shirt with a push up at the back near the hem.  
   
Yeah, that's one way to make myself match again. I felt so daring beneath her as she shifted the shirt up, letting her fingers wander up my ribcage. You can't see each rib thankfully (yeah, not a fan of visible ribs here), but she could feel each bone. She let her fingers take in each of the curved bones until she reached my sternum, and then moved back towards the next one. I was soon left only in my underwear, the tank top tossed onto a spare stool. Our shirts were on the table, spread beneath me so I wouldn't have to be cold from the steel surface. She slid off from the table in order to let her slip slide off the rest of the way down her body. I watched, sitting on the table with my knees bent as she let the article fall into a heap at her ankles. I felt the heat of the room build up as I took her in.  
   
I was so turned on at the thought that we both went free for the entire day and I really wanted to touch myself as I looked at my Par-Bear bathed in red. Her skin glistened in the light, her curves standing out as she stepped out from the slip. Shadows falling, defining her small form further. Her nipples had that tiny shadow that cast against her breasts and the moles all over her body really stood out. I could have just stared at her for the rest of the evening, memorizing how her stomach curved as she stretched out, the way her hair fell exactly to shield her breasts and how her brown eyes in that photographic light took on a really dark shade, reminding me of erotic novels I read where the lust was expressed by black eyes.  
   
She pushed herself back onto the table, bending down on her knees as she hovered over me. She was focused on wanting to please me so much. With each shift, her breasts had that small little bounce to them, and I felt the blood in my body pump faster and faster. I watched her hips shift with each move towards me, her movements like an animal. I really had to thank our girl at the Secret one of these days for recommending boyshorts to Par. The light blue underwear flexed perfectly with her body, reminding me why exactly this woman was in my dreams for so long.  
   
I love the reality more though. This was beautiful and loving. The Paris above me was the same girl I knew sophomore year except she wasn't shy about her body.

I closed my eyes as she took me into her arms and kissed at my neck. I encouraged her to just kiss me, on and on, to not get enough of me. I could tell how hungry she was by her zeal. Her teeth, scraping against the hollow of my throat. I felt her hands moving lower and lower, down towards my panties. She cupped her hand against my crotch, and soon it was clear what she wanted. Her other hand was at my back and began to pull the fabric down. Moving her busses along the edge of my chin, I felt my core heating up. She didn't say a word. There were none needed, and soon we were both in that intimate lover's clench, necking and petting. My panties were peeled down and they stayed on near my knees as her fingers circled my clit, engorged and damp. I took in a deep breath, bumping my head against the table as she worked me off. I heard just our breathing, the humming of some appliance, while my eyes were filled with Paris's damp and reddened form above me.  
   
Things went further and further. Skin met skin as we came ever closer. My girlfriend was very warm, the closed in and dark space heightening all of our senses, especially touch and scent. They mixed together and I felt my body become very sensitive to every touch Paris sent through me. She seethed through her teeth when I touched her breasts and let my hands wander her back, my nails scraping against it. Soon, we were reaching that point where we needed each other so badly. I wanted this...wanted this so bad. She slid her fingers in, and I tightened right against them. The same with her, and soon we were establishing this slow rhythm mixed with kissing and necking, the occasional grunt and gasp. Par was in heat, but I was going to cool her down in a slow and tenuous manner...make her beg for it, silently.  
   
It was just wonderful, focusing on each other, all of this going on between us. We knew there was a chance that someone could walk in on us making love, Ms. Peters could come back for something or have the key to unlock the door. But with that pithy little red light bulb stopping anybody, we didn't have anything to fear. Photography was serious to Paris, and if someone ever ruined developed shots, they'd never work at any paper, pro or amateur. We were safe, a cushion between us, along with heavy metal walls keeping our lovemaking to ourselves.  
   
We spent a half-hour in that room, doing nothing more than giving into our passions. My morals were stretched to the limits, my skin heated to the touch from both closeness and friction from my leg against her. Sweat dripped down onto me, her forehead dripping with the energy she was expressing from my want of her. Her voice was high as she rode the peaks and valleys of our sex. I no longer felt like I was before Chilton, like a little girl coming into a situation with the best and brightest of Connecticut. My heart swelled with each kiss, touch, stroke, caress. I was numbed, my body stretched in a thousand different directions. She would go down on me, and this time she stayed there; it wasn't a tease. My hands nested within her beautifully messy blonde locks and I opened up as she let her tongue stroke against my clit. It was slow and laborious, not at all what I was expecting.  
   
But damn, was it awesome. All that tightness within me, through three days of not seeing her, it seemed to dissipate as she went further, tasting me and making me brace the table hard, biting on my lip with each new slide of the tip against my bud. I watched her below me, humming against my flesh, my eyes tightening up. I don't really remember each and every single moment after that, because it was just something where you can't describe it in mere words. It was just...oh God.  
   
I can't find them. All I remember is about twenty minutes later, curled up against her as her fingers ran through my hair, both of us on top of our blouses. She was back in just the slip and the skirt, looking me over as I opened up my eyes to her. She kissed me softly upon my lips, and smiled in that subtle way of hers, going over the situation as she loved to do.  
   
"You know, I keep thinking that I've found my sexual peak with you. But I'm surprising myself." She giggled uncharacteristically as she wrapped around me. She had slid back on my panties and had my tank top in her hand as she handed it over. "I don't know how long I've dreamt of doing it in the darkroom."

I rolled my eyes, smirking. "I knew you had this planned. How long?"  
   
"The day I came onto the _Franklin_ , except it would've been with Tristan and a bit more...dominated by him."

I cringed. "I mean with me, not him."

"Well if you're looking for specifics, since at least last May when you started to strip down during those hot days." I ran a finger across her lips, enjoying her closeness as my other hand took the shirt. "I would actually nod off during my practice editing for Ms. Peters. It turned out tougher than I thought and I stayed until 9 o'clock a few times."

"So you fell asleep on your keyboard and woke up in a cold sweat?" She nodded at me and I laughed. We talked a little more, got dressed, as she went on to explain that she felt fulfilled with the both of us in that darkroom. As she organized the room back into a somewhat non-messed up state and put back on her blouse (and might I add, untucked and without the tie? Yeah, very yum-o...), she explained that it was good luck.  
   
"I heard rumors over the year that the darkroom is required to be sexually initiated by the new editor, sometime before the end of first semester. It doesn't matter with whom, just as long as it occurs." She blushed, trying to explain that indeed, she was hoping I would go for it. "We've had about eight or nine off years during the entire run of the newspaper. Some of those came during the war years, girls worried about the boys over in Europe and too busy to take their minds off. Not to mention we had to fit sixteen pages of news on eight because of rationing. The 80's also were kind of a dry run where the unauthorized pubs nipped at our heels. We had some very weak editors, giving into Headmaster Cameron when he was midway through his twenty year dictatorship as head of Chilton."

"Charleston is a breeze?" I was surprised. "I think he's stern."

"Cameron made everyone recite the Lord's Prayer after the Pledge, and no one, not even the few Muslim students, dared to mess with his authority. It finally took a news crew from Fox 61 shooting b-roll and deciding to expose him to get their news department started with a bang to end the practice. My father absolutely loathed him, very traditional, mean, backwards. If not for the union, he would've kept corporal punishment going past 1982." Paris is almost as deep a historian of the history of Chilton as anyone else you could find. She went on further to describe all of the other anecdotes she learned over the years about the _Franklin._ "The weak editors, you could tell right away from the archives. They don't print the critical letters, they barely delved into any school issues beyond lunch, and their stories never had a punch to them. It read like a small-town paper. Not your _Gazette_ , but something very hollow, meant to fill a paper rack and put money in the owner's pockets. I think we're here because we want to break things, to be a training ground for the journalists of the future. Blogging, yes, that's only going to go up in the future and every Johnny-come-lately with a PC can state their thoughts. But newspapers, they'll still have a place. They need to."

She was passionate describing how much she had fallen hard for journalism, her cancer researching dream seeming to be in the distant past with each new day. "I looked at you and the first thing I thought was that you wouldn't have it, Gilmore." She sat down on top of a table in the newsroom, powerfully arguing how she saw things. "I really did think that. I'm sorry if it hurts, but I looked at you, and you didn't have that jaded view of the world, the one that takes you out of the excitement of a moment and brings you into a dull neutrality. You get excited about everything."

"I do not." I shrugged, throwing back on my blouse lazily and not even bothering to button it up as I put my sweater vest back on. "I didn't get excited for Dean's hockey playoffs."

"Who would? The NHL's been ruined by their ridiculous zone defense rules and it's passed down to the high school game." I watched her legs dangle enticingly as she eventually turned her opinion into a compliment. "But what I'm saying is you're not worn down by anything I throw at you. You look at the work and whatever it is, I can count on you to write a good report, keep it neutral and the writing to be top notch. You made me respect you so much last year by standing up to my stupid third-grade tactics and making it clear you weren't going to tolerate me giving you the lower tier stories." She tapped her fingers against the table as she stared at me, proudly. "I'm not just saying this as your girl, but you're doing me proud, Gilmore. You've built up a good mix of tools and you can pretty much switch-hit between writer, observer, and all of the writing styles and POV's. I might even see a couple of guest editorials in your future."

"Oh, Par." I blushed, because I'm not the type who really wants to be a columnist. A byline is like a comfy blanket to me, and I don't mind hiding under it. "I couldn't...I really don't think it's a good idea. What if I screw up?"

"You wouldn't, I'm sure of it." Sliding off the table, she felt the need to correct my assumptions. "You can be very persuasive and I know your passion. I know you like to underplay your time with Junior Leadership in DC, but you took on all comers in your debates and won them well. You argued the points crisply, your voice was even, and I no longer hear that soft little stutter you had to start out with."

"And I've improved my WPM?" I asked, hopeful. She smirked, nodding with a smile.  
   
"You have indeed improved on that. Although we still need to work on the dairy addiction."  
   
"I have been working on that!" I scoffed. "You told me to cut out milk."

"You ate a la carte cheeseburgers before a couple of debates. That is still dairy, my friend."

"We didn't lose, did we?" I argued, bending down to pick up my backpack, sitting next to my workstation on the floor.

"No, but we have to be prepared, no matter what. You know that." I huffed good-naturedly at her obsession with clean living as I picked up my safety yellow bag, and just smiled back at her. I think it's a pretty good point when my debate prep is the only thing she has to get mad at me about, right?

Little did I know I was about to put our relationship back on the line again. As I hefted a strap onto my shoulder, I didn't realize that the front pocket of my bag was still open from when I took a pencil out earlier. The zip was open, exposing the pocket holding my pens, pencils, diskettes...  
   
Along with one other thing. I heard a slipping sound as I got the bag on my shoulder, one other thing I was afraid to bring up to Paris yet. The object fell out from being upside down for only a moment, but it was still enough time. I couldn't rescue it or do anything with it as both my hands were occupied with putting the bag on, so I had to watch in what seemed to be slow motion as the device slipped from the bag and down towards the floor.  
   
The first words in my mind? _Oh God, no_.  
   
Within my own speech? "Crap!" Paris's eyes darted over to the object immediately and she quickly made her way over the couple steps away from me to catch it. She dove a little bit, down to her knees, not caring that she would scuff her skirt with the dirt of the hardwood floor. All she saw was $50 about to break apart on the floor. I was hoping at that moment she wouldn't catch it, no matter that what was on the device was important in my attempts to undermine Francie.  
   
She caught it just about a foot before it hit the floor and grasped the microcassette recorder in her left hand tightly. I didn't know what she was going to do next, but I knew I was likely caught.  
   
For one thing, I am an organizer. I couldn't label the tape in the player with some fib label like 'fun stuff' or 'lecture notes', could I? No, I'm Rory Gilmore. I have to know what's on the tape. As she got back up, she didn't offer the player right back to me, because I knew her eyes immediately landed on the door of the player, which had a visible window onto the label and the amount of tape left.  
   
Suddenly I was cursing that I was truthful and labeled the tape 'Conversations with Francie, week 10'. I prepared for the torrent of emotions to come, for her to feel a betrayal for me going behind her back in order to make these backroom deals to keep her government somewhat fluid. I knew I couldn't lie as she looked at me, her eyes dead focused on me as the expected words came from her mouth.  
   
"What is this?" She asked the question neutrally, without a bit of anger. Not yet, at least. Any opportunity to lie was quickly extinguished as I felt my girlfriend-honesty side come out instead of the one that should be covering my ass.  
   
"Hit play." I sounded defeated, totally giving up without a thought. She grasped at the player tightly, and I couldn't tell what she was thinking about at all. "I...I'm--"  
   
She stopped me before I could make any excuses. "Fine." Then she hit that play button, after a few seconds of rewinding.

I was scared, frozen in place. I slid back into my chair, ready to cry, but feeling completely numb. I did this. All I could do was admit that fact and hoped to God she would still stay at the very least, my friend. I hated this, not letting her know about my sessions with Francie.  
   
But I only did it to protect her. That's all. I was willing to take Francie's damaging barbs in order to spare her the abuse from the only other Chilton student who has ever bullied her. I know that, because Madeline told me last year after the Puffs debacle. Suffice to say and to keep it short, she was Paris's Sam Petersen, except with increased and hyperbolic gay-bashing, along with bitter loathing for her intelligence and sweeping of school offices.  
   
Paris had never said a word as Francie tried to recruit me. But from that one conversation in April last year, I no longer regret that Charleston busted us in his office. If we had gotten in, our souls would have withered. Paris would have seen herself go from the strong and iron-willed girl she has been to nothing but an underling. Francie would have bullied her in any way she knew how and when I heard her pet name for Par from Madeline, for the only time I ever, I shocked even Mads with my language.  
   
"She calls her...'that uppity blonde'...you know the word. It starts with C, ends with T, and has the United Nations initials in between." She was scared to say the word, going by that mnemonic to sound it out. I seethed and with only my emotions guiding me, I let it rip.  
   
"Funny what she calls Paris, because she certainly isn't. Francie however, is a rotten cunt." I didn't have my self-censor on at all and the look on Madeline's pale face was shocking.  
   
"Rory...my stepmom could've heard that." She shook her head. "Don't you think there's good in every one?"

"Fuck her, Madeline. A good Puff would have taken the blame for the whole group. But when the police came, she didn't speak one word. Not. One. Word." My anger level was high after hearing all the abuse heaped over the years on my girl from Francie. "If it wasn't for Lisa telling about how the group recruited me, her, and eventually Par, along with the other girls, Francie might have been able to keep the Puffs together. However, she found the courage to tell everything, and thank God she did. Once the school opened up the Puffs to scrutiny, they didn't see the group Sandra Day O'Connor joined; they found a hollow shell which used this entire secret crap to further their agendas and install their officers and horrid schemes in the school." My mouth trembled as I recalled the one thing I hated about it all. "If it wasn't for Francie's daddy donating $50,000 to the Hartford Fraternal Order of Poilce branch before the cops would have charged her with the break-in, she wouldn't be in school right now."

Madeline promised to keep the entire story secret, as only Paris and I knew because of privileged information for a _Franklin_ investigation piece that was to be printed in the last issue of the paper last year, and that she worked on personally with a senior photographer and senior researcher that could push out of the way and deny everything when it was published. I was to contribute my own experience, and we were sure to have gotten much more than the Oppenheimer for it. It would have broken the secret sororities of Hartford area schools and UConn wide open, and what we found turned our stomachs, so much that we will not even consider pledging for any sorority when we get to college.  
   
However, it would never be printed and not because of Headmaster Charleston's interference. We were sure he would have approved it without any second thought. Before we went to press, Ms. Peters received a gag order from Francie's attorneys, threatening libel and slander charges and a multi-million dollar lawsuit if we printed it. The language in the order was threatening, even frightening, to both Ms. Peters and Paris. Somehow, the lawyers had let slip in the wording, 'we will own you, ladies. Back off this piece. You won't win in court.'  
   
So we never printed it. Currently the entire story sits on a local drive on Paris's computer, never to see the light of day. Ms. Peters told her to take it off the _Franklin_ network and to keep it unprinted until the day Paris felt that she was strong enough to fight her worst enemy. "Keep a copy," she told the both of us. "I hate to say we can't fight this, but we have to back off. This threatens all of us, and no matter how much it hurts, this is something I will regret until the day I die. She may have wormed her way to senior class president, but I will not see her ruin my brightest pupils. I might be your adviser here and on student government, but I will defend you both. Screw impartiality; you will both win one day. Her threats mean nothing to me. She knew we got her, but one day, she will see that she cannot forever hide behind her lawyers. Her own mouth will get her into trouble."

In case you can't tell, Ms. Peters really loathes Francie, mainly because she never has respected the woman's authority in any way.  
   
So that's the full situation. I've never felt like saying a word until now, but I have to show you why I was scared that Paris would react the wrong way to the tape. As she hit play, I felt my life flashing before my eyes and a humming in my ears. I was freaked as I heard the hateful words of her over the last two weeks come out harshly through the tiny speaker of the recorder.

I remember exactly where I was. Not in the bathroom this time, but in an empty classroom. Francie forced me to sit at a desk as she stood at the lectern in front and spat out what she wanted me to vote on, to approve and deny, and my attempts to return her fire. In this meeting, she wanted me to vote against extra promotion of the foreign exchange program, and tried to convince me of the evils of doing so with an extremely xenophobic and paranoid speech which involved multiple invocations on the theme of "9/11 changed the way we lived our lives. I realized then that I cannot live in a country where people from others are yearning to get in by any means possible." She went on to criticize NAFTA, said that the Border Patrol should begin shooting on sight, that outsourcing should be banned and the poor in this country should be forced to work those demeaning phone jobs. "You know what we get when the Indians take over our health care?" she asked me.  
   
"A good health care system?" Hey, I have no problem with my doctors at all; my OBGYN came to America from Islamabad, for instance.  
   
"You're not serious. You see how horrible their health care system is. They come over here, they'll start by taking our jobs, and twenty years from now our hospitals will look like something you see in a Sally fucking Struthers ad!" I was appalled by her rant, and then she went on to use racist words further, which I will not repeat. Paris and I heard it all, and I felt so nervous that she was going to hate me. The tape continued as Francie goes on to say what a great man Lou Dobbs is, and goes on to an abusive tirade from last Wednesday where she reminded me that my vote to deny funding to the Rainbow Triangles was important to her, no matter what the cost.  
   
"I don't want to see those degenerates helping out anyone," Francie had spat at me, slamming the desk hard and causing a jarring sound against the microphone. "Nora Folsom is willing to do anything, including eating out the faculty to get what she wants. I know it. The way she looks them over with those sicko eyes, the way she kisses Mrs. Jackowski's ass. She is a power hungry tyrant and will not stop until she's not only fucked all the teachers and make them swing dyke, but she has RTS members take over positions of power in every other service club."

"You might be overreacting a bit," I reasoned. "She's actually shy from experience--"

"That's exactly how she strikes. She's a venus flytrap! One moment she's all 'oh, this'll be good for everybody,' and the next she's on her knees--"

"Francie, stop it!" I remember my jaw squared as I tried to make her see reason. "This is not helping to change my mind at all."

"Then how about this?" Her voice darkened as she laid in a threat to me and held my wrists over the surface of the desk. "You vote to extend their funding, I **will** make sure an anti-homo group is protesting in your town square on Christmas Eve day, night, and all the way into Mr. Christ's birthday." The glint in her eyes was evil, and I actually cringed. "I know the stats, six happy and gay couples in your little storybook bumfuck town, living in obscurity. Well, if you say yes to funding the RTS, we'll have them protesting in the town square. And you know what? You won't be able to do one single thing about it. Freedom of assembly, remember?"

"So you'd be willing to humiliate me based on one vote for what? An extra grand a year?"

She nodded. "That thousand has better uses. You will vote no on RTS or instead of _Jingle Bells_ , the town will be hearing 'hey there, Hollow, these sicko homos have gotta go.' Repeat many, many times."

"What if I were to tell Taylor to deny your permit?" I asserted. "And all the churches downtown would never accept your protest, you hateful bitch."

"Well I guess that's your problem now, isn't it...Rory?" She spat my name hatefully. "I have my ways. My daddy has the money and influence. I mean...I could get James Dobson to drop everything and get the next flight to Windsor Locks for the right price. Wouldn't that be fun? The head of Focus on the Family blaming your pale little visage for making being gay OK in Chilton?" My blood boiled from her threats; she was playing far from hardball. She was aiming for the cranium at a batting helmet-smashing speed. "I don't care what good they do, it's wrong. The Bible says so. Everyone else thinks so. You might think your world is all happy, but the reality is, by voting yes on extending the funding, your ticket to Hell is assured."

And then she took a sickening pause to get in one last shot.  
   
"You vote no, or Paris will find herself nowhere near Boston. I hear Montana State-Bozeman is beautiful around January, especially when those vicious Alberta Clippers swoop in and freeze everything in sight, including her as she walks to yet another class that will keep her a trophy wife forever. How would you like that on your hands?" She came close to me. "I will make sure she never sees Harvard. Guaranteed."  
   
"We'll see," I said, turning away from her as I was finally escaping from her grasp. "If you're willing to carry out this vendetta for so long, you're pathetic. I'm over it. Paris is long over it. I hate what you're doing to us, and it's going to bite you in the ass one day, Francie."

"Yeah, when? While I'm laughing my way to election as governor of Connecticut?" The thought of her running our entire state chills my blood. "Get over it, Gilmore. You will lose. Moreover, if Paris ever learns about this, she'll hate you forever. You're fucked either way."

That's when the tape ran out, and I looked up at who was likely soon to be my ex-girlfriend with tears in my eyes, feeling like I betrayed her in the worst way possible. I wanted to run far away, to avoid the upcoming unfocused rant that was sure to come. The player clicked and began to rewind and the silence was unbearable as I heard the pumping of my heart in my ears. I wanted to say that I was sorry for going behind her back, that I hated that I was doing this to her. I began to collapse and slide down in my chair, looking down at the floor, as everything seemed to turn to black.  
   
There was no doubt she hated me now. She would never touch me again...  
   
And then she took my by the arms. Oh God, she was going to push me against the wall and try to shake some sense into me. What was Paris going to do? Tell me what I bitch I was, that I wasn't good enough for her? That maybe I should see if Francie wanted me and she was hiding her real sexuality under all this ranting...

I heard her inhale, slowly. She was about to speak. I was sure, with certainty, what the next words from her mouth were going to be.  
   
"I learned about it, and she's wrong. I love you, Rory Gilmore." Instead of anger, her words came out in a soft, determined tone of voice that did not waver. "I love you, forever."

And she did push me against the wall, but instead of taking a punch, I took a hard, hot kiss where she slid her hands beneath my blouse and grasped at my waist for dear life as she went in for it. I felt suction upon my lips, grasped at tightly, our body heat shared while she made it clear that what I did wasn't wrong.  
   
It wasn't wrong. It was, but in her eyes, it wasn't. I can't wrap my mind around that, but the way she kissed me, letting her lips slide across my jawline in small little flutters, it was jarring, but it gave me hope. I also felt wetness sliding down her cheeks; and she was crying.  
   
It took us a bit to break apart, and we just stayed like that, still, stoic. Still together. Slowly, I broke apart from her, though she refused to let go of me, so I stayed with her. I knew I had to apologize, but I didn't know how to go about it. But soon she made it clear that the only thing I had to be sorry about was that Francie's lame blowjob took her competitor out of the race and threw me into her machinations in the first place. She settled herself down, the moment getting to her, that initial anger melting into indignation that her girlfriend would be stuck in this situation.  
   
"You have absolutely no reason to apologize to me, Rory," she clarified before I said a word. "This is not your fault. I understand what you had to do, that you had to play the politics as usual game and undercut me in order to keep me protected from that flame-haired whore." The slur was said with all of the bitterness she could ever muster. "I...if this was last year and all of this would have gone on, I would have been pissed off at you, no doubt. Angered and hate-filled that you would stab me in the back like this." She pushed away and continued to voice out how she felt about the situation. "But you had no choice. No goddamned choice in the matter because you have this protective side for me that built up over the summer. You're tired of seeing me hurt, of me coming last, and I know every day you had to meet her, you were thinking that when I found out I would kill you. But if you hadn't done this...if you hadn't..." She had to clear her throat, squinting her eyes, trying to stop the tears. "I would've been pushed out by now. She would have attacked me at every possibility, and Ms. Peters couldn't stop it because of the rules of order. Everyone has to speak their piece, no matter how puerile, hate-filled, and furiously wrong-headed their words could be." I watched her come apart, trying to make sense of my having to meet her. "That she is willing to take me down over $1,000...not even a big deal to the treasury, but $1,000. That shows me that she will stop at nothing to bring me down. Nothing." Her eyes searched the room, then moved back towards the tape player, the one that was bringing out all of her anger.  
   
"Please tell me that's not the only tape you have of her."

I took in a breath, still feeling a struggle to use my voice. "Everything since October. It's...at home...the other tapes."

She began to get into her blood and guts Patton mode as she felt enlivened from the discovery that her mortal enemy could be brought down. "I will drop you at home tonight. You bring out all of those tapes. Over the weekend, I will convert them to MP3 format and personally drive a disc with all of the recordings over to Ms. Peters's apartment. None of this 'put it in her mailbox' crap. Francie cannot know what you're doing, what we're doing." Her voice sneered as she felt her resolve to take her down start anew. "I personally made a promise to the Rainbows that their funding would be assured, and doubled, and there would be no opposition to it if they managed to strengthen the amount of good projects they've done for the community. They have done that, and more."

"You know that Francie is trying to relaunch the Puffs in her own making, right?" I thought it was new news to her, but she shrugged.  
   
"I knew. Trust me, Madeline let me in on that fact months ago. I know that she intended last year's bell-ringing ceremony to be the dissolution of the Puffs as they were." I was shocked as she told me that I was an important cog in her plans, unknowingly. "They planted someone in the guidance office to suggest you needed to be more social, they told that to the counselor, and they knew I would be roped into wanting to be in the Puffs with you. It was an attempt to bring down the top students, and plant Francie and her cronies in positions of power in the school. We would have been forced to take the blame. But without Lisa, that little mouse of a girl, who was unafraid of them, Francie's plan fell apart." She sighed. "It's just too bad she had to go to Hillside when the ex-Puffs threatened her with violence."

"I know. I was looking forward to being her friend." I frowned, knowing that even if she was with our rival school now, that girl had the guts that both of us wish we could have sometimes. She had absolutely nothing to lose speaking out to Charleston about everything, and we both appreciated that she defended us both and stopped us from receiving any kind of suspension or record black mark. I looked at Paris, so determined now, ready for the fight that would surely be coming  
   
"We won't say a word about this after Ms. Peters gets the disc. This is over for now. You are not in trouble with me, or the student government, in any way possible. You were just being lobbied, that's all." Her official wording was definitely getting to me in so many ways. "But I do want you to do one thing."

"What's that?"

"Please, stay away from her." For the first time, Paris sounded scared. "I am dead serious that you need to keep a wide distance. Walk in the middle of the hall. Get everything from your locker before life-sci so a yank into a room will be caught by a witness. If I have to, I will ask Madeline to go with you to the bathroom from now on. The way she sounded on that tape, she was not politicking at all. She was threatening, and there is no reason for you to have to tolerate that." Her cheeks were red, her eyes dimmed as she tried to keep me safe. "I'm not speaking as your girlfriend, but as your president. I know that you're trying to protect me, but I don't want to see you hurt from her."

"I know." I looked down, into her hands. They were shaking in fear, and I could tell that she hated to see me anywhere near Francie ever again. "I...I never knew how much she hated you. I actually thought you did like her when you were trying to get into the Puffs."

"I suppose I should have been a bit clearer." She brought herself close to me and we backed towards the edge of a table holding spare copies of the paper. "I loved the organization, what it stood for in the past. They pulled the levers to expand the dull curriculum away from what it had been in the '30s, and they supported the drive to go co-ed and fund women's athletics more once Title IX went through and also pushed early to bring in a Headmistress. The Puffs, when they were under the control of sane people, were wonderful. They were secret, but only because they had no cause to come out of hiding, they could do everything behind the scenes. Once other interests got control in the late '80s though..." She sighed, holding fingers to her temples, saddened at how others were trampling on the history of the school. "They became no different from the cheerleaders. The group became a mean girls clique, and the big reason I was hoping to get in was to take control, and maybe in the year I could be in there I could've turned them back towards service and community, instead of a funnel for the Life & Death Brigade at Yale. That's all were at the end, the Brownies version of that idiotic organization, nothing but a faction which gives the guys in that group their future trophy wives." I couldn't believe what I was hearing from her, that I would have joined such an asinine group and she would have too. No matter that I know she would have changed things. I was pale, hearing all this from her, this sadness that the group she lived for was one from the past, not of the current.  
   
"That, and...RTS was an outgrowth of the Puffs. It was actually a sub-group that began in the mid-80's, because it was a barely veiled fact that the Puffs were supportive of the lesbians here, with the guy equivalent, the Fawkes Society, known for shielding the gay boys. Fawkes broke up in '88, and the conservative interests gained control of the Puffs the next year, pushing out those they thought didn't agree with their policies. Which meant the old-line thinkers. Many of them moved to new organizations and then slowly the pushed out Puffs and Fawkes merged together in the RTS, staying secret until the gays in the military controversy flared up. Then they came out. Cameron was against them, fought to prevent funding, while the teacher's union and ACLU fought for them. Two years later, they were a full school organization and Cameron had been pushed into what the press release called 'early retirement' by the Regents for how he dealt with the situation and his fight against the women's athletic department to cut their funding at the expense of lacrosse and other stupid guy sports only rich boys care about. That's when Hanlan came in, and since then, RTS receives full funding."

"Until now." I bit on my lip, the history lesson so engrossing to me. "Francie had no reason to go after them until she forced the disbandment and Lisa exposed them. Now we're in office, she has a vendetta, and we have to fight her."

"We do." I couldn't believe it. "And she made it personal to me by going after you."

"Par, please don't take it out on her because of me," I implored. "I'm sure if we fight--"

"Hon, we will fight. Next Monday we will talk to Nora Folsom, explain what's going on, and get them ready to defend them from Francie and her coalition."

"But...but what about..." I didn't want to say it, because I know even if she's coming out to her father tomorrow night, she doesn't want anyone to know about us yet.

"I know. We're in a complicated situation." She understood what she was looking at. "This started before we got together, and before November 10, you had absolutely no stake in the future of that club. But once you told me you liked me, it became different. I know it. I thought about the funding more too, the conflict to come. But I think we can do this. I trust Nora, and everyone else in that club, to keep us hidden as long as we need to. We will have to tell them that we are together, but that we've always been pro-RTS. Love or not, we would have both voted to fund them, and we will fight to keep their funding."

"I will too." I was determined to see this through although I still expected for her to be a bit disappointed that I gave in and supported some efforts of Francie's. "I'm sorry if I voted nay on things I supported, by the way."

"Only a couple of small things didn't get through." She smiled. "Francie thinks she got her way by getting to you, but she's horribly mistaken. Besides..." She backed her hand towards the hem of my skirt and hitched it up a bit in the back. "I do have to thank her for her small moment of sanity with the hemline issue." Paris grinned madly, letting her fingers wander a particularly ticklish spot on the back of my thigh.  
   
"I remember how excited you were," I husked, and then imitated her animated voice at the moment she declared the 10-3 vote. "The ayes have it, you said, and then your eyes seemed to dart right towards me."

"They did not!" She scoffed, tossing back her hair and denying my claim. "I was not more enthused than I usually was about a vote."

"Sure, and that wasn't you calling Fran and having her rush your skirts to the tailor for re-hemming about ten minutes after." Paris gave me an evil look and let her fingers get frantic to tickle me a bit more. "I know...a bit...of Portuguese...don't you dare...hahaha...deny it...hee-hee...stop it, Par!" She was flitting her fingernails up my skirt and it was really getting me all riled up again.  
   
"I did not call her to rush-hem my skirts." She shook her head, just giving me an evil little smirk that told me that yeah, she did. "I needed energy drinks." She continued to tickle me a bit more and I continued to shoot down her points.  
   
"So _hem meu saias até duas e meia polegadas_ actually translates...to...'I want some Red Bull'?" I then let her in a little secret that I knew. "You fudged the number on purpose. You're actually a quarter inch in violation of the rules. If the Headmaster found out, you'd be in so much trouble." I then swooped my hand down to cup at her knee. "I suppose I could tell him..." She stopped tickling me as I lingered the pad of my index finger along the fabric and her leg. "But then I'd have to mention all of the times in the last month that your extra quarter inch of leg has driven me crazy, made me wet in the middle of class as I took it in or daydreamed about it. I mean it's not that much, really. 6.35 millimeters if we're up North, not even a full centimeter. But it's just enough when you're dealing with a girl that, until now, I couldn't even see one millimeter of her naked neck within the walls of this school outside of gym class." Oh, I was about to get her all riled up again. My other hand was upon her bared pulse point and I could swear she was trembling against me. "Only a quarter of an inch out of your 63, but your little creative accounting really helped in the end."

"Rory..." her voice strained. "We just came off me finding about Francie. You should be scared, paranoid."  
   
It made me take a bit of a pause. Was I really that ravenous that we would have a conversation like this, and within only a few moments, begin to flirt again? _I have to step back from this, what am I doing?_ I thought, trying to get a bit of gravity into the situation.  
   
"Umm...I'm sorry." I blushed. "Geeze, what is it about us and anger?"

"I have no idea," she answered, trying to recompose herself. "I should not be feeling this way after what we did in the darkroom. But," she took a pause to rewet her throat with a nearby Diet Dr Pepper, not her usual brand, but it was the only thing in the fridge. "I could have never dreamed three years ago that you, the girl I would never expected to say so much, have made a fierce enemy in Francine Jarvis. And crushed her so badly."

"I didn't crush her," I tried to argue. I knew the score because I hadn't won any argument. "If anything, we've just been yelling back and forth like cable talking heads."

"Rory," she said softly, moving her hands to my sides, along the top of my skirt. "If your tape sessions were a formal debate and we had a rubric to guide the discussions, you'd win, no doubt. She used lowball tactics to try to get her way and influence you, but you know well that arguments like that usually result in heavy deductions if you take the bait. So you guided it back your way, muted her harassment, and you won. You did well. I know when we get to the vote, you'll make your points well and keep the funding."

"And if we don't?" I would feel like a failure if I wasn't able to stop her.  
   
"Then we think. If we have to, there are private donors that would be willing to help. We cut the funding and find creative accounting through small votes to get to the thousand. But we have a good government and we will both figure it out." She hugged me close, soothing me with fingers through my hair. "Francie cannot win."

"She said she would make you so pathetic you could only lead the Pledge of Allegiance. That's why I didn't want you to find out, because...because, you don't deserve that." I sniffled as I let my emotions guide me. "You've worked too damned hard to be reduced to so little. You give a fuck, and you care. Sure, you're a little power hungry at times, but who isn't?" I laughed as she gave me the death glare. "But you use that power for good, I mean."

"I am not power hungry," she disclaimed, smirking at me as we broke apart one more time to gather our things. "Sure, I might have asked for a few favors based on my position, maybe some better water than tap or a more comfortable chair to sit in at the table. Oh, and an easier locker combination."

"Wait, you can do that?" I was surprised. "I thought you were stuck with the one that came with the locker. Mine is pretty hard."

"I know, 7-39-28?" OK, I was just a little bit freaked out. I knew I had never divulged the digits to anyone at all. She shrugged. "As I said, Gilmore, I know everything about you. I've examined you closely through the years, and I can tell just by the spin of your hand what is the magic number to get in your locker."

"Of course you'd know my combo." I rolled my eyes towards her. "So I could get it changed as part of my privileges? Because now that you know it, I shouldn't exactly trust you?"

"Why's that?" She smirked as she guided her hand along my waist. "Afraid to move in with me?"  
   
"I'd love to share a locker with you," I said, smiling. "But since we're right next to each other, it wouldn't make any sense, especially with all the textbooks we carry."

"Yeah, sometimes I wish I'd take that third floor locker just to find an excuse to locker share. But it's frowned upon, and I hate the third floor." Throwing her messenger bag on her shoulder after putting on her trenchcoat, I did the same with my backpack and we began to lock things up for the night. "I think we both have it perfect where we are though."

"Oh, definitely." Both of us took in each other as we headed out the door and into the hallway, continuing to talk about the situation I was in, and how I would avoid Francie for the next couple weeks. I probably have to meet her at least once alone, so I'm going to have to be careful and continue with the taping. I was surprised in the first place that she never caught on that I'm recording our conversations, but then again, she's not really very sharp. She knows how to run a group and keep me in line, but I've known girls like her in the past. They like to project power, to show that they're the alpha girls of the school. However, they have weaknesses, and that redhead's xenophobia might be just the one thing to dig her into a hole she won't get out of.  
   
The drive home was quiet, as Paris didn't want to really go back over Francie. Not that I blamed her, as she had to concentrate on the 2"-3" of snow falling on the roads between Hartford and the Hollow. It was a perilous drive at times, a real test of her driving skills as she had to really slow down to take a couple of curves. Not helping was the traffic on the expressway, which seemed to range from snail-slow to racecar speeds, depending on how shy or cavalier the drivers around were. It was a good thing that I had my hand on her leg most of the time to keep her calm, as she had to deal with some slowpoke in a Kia for about five miles through the Cheshire area. By the time we got home, it was about 7:45pm, and Paris was sure to have just as long a drive home on the way back. I considered an invitation for her to stay overnight as I went in the house, but I didn't know if Mom trusted me enough with Paris yet. That, and I'm sure Sharon would have the National Guard over to town to retrieve Paris if she dared not to come home.  
   
Mom wasn't home, which was a surprise to me. I checked the answering machine and heard her harried voice that a large bus group from a place in the South where the mere presence of snowflakes freak them out suddenly checked in and she wouldn't be home until midnight. "Sometimes I want to just be Supergirl and push these tourists all the way back to Mobile!" she said in the message as a couple of elderly gentlemen demanded that they receive a room in the next moment or so. "So Mommy's stuck in hell right now, and we've got leftover pizza in the fridge. I guess that means I've done my motherly duties. Hopefully--Michel, will you tell these people to back up a little? I can't breathe." And from there, you can just imagine Lorelai grimacing as our favorite desk clerk told someone to stick an object up someplace in French and my mom ended the message with an 'I love you, kiddo.'  
   
I hesitated, a bit down that I wouldn't be able to talk to Mom tonight. But as Paris came back from using the bathroom and washing her hands, I guess I was ready to spend the rest of the night alone with my homework to...  
   
... _Damn, I don't have homework_ , I thought. One thing that Par passed down to me in our relationship was a fervor to do my work as quickly as possible, and that left me with nothing to do.  
   
 _Great_ , I thought. Looks like it was going to be old movies or idle web surfing to keep me occupied. I went into the kitchen to throw my bag onto the table and drape my jacket across a chair, not feeling organizational. My stomach rumbled a bit as I reached into the fridge...  
   
Then I felt two hands wrap around said stomach. That soft lavender fragrance so familiar from earlier moved up into my nostrils and I felt warmed as freshly washed fingers slid into the blouse and across the ribbed fabric of my undershirt.  
   
"Ror, let me order something," she said in a whisper. "I haven't been able to treat you to dinner for a month."

"I'm fine, hon." In the food sense I was, but my hormones were another story. Her fingernails scraped across my belly.  
   
"Please?"  
   
"But you have to get home," I argued. "If you're not home by nine, Sharon's going to send out a multi-state search team to track you down."

"We just need to relax a bit before tomorrow night," she reminded me. "I can't go to my father being all stressed out and worried about Francie. So if my mom does get all snippy, I'll just argue that I was at the library. No harm to her."

"I know, I just worry." She smiled as I turned around. "You come all this way to pick me up and drop me off every day. After a while it must wear you out that I live so far away from you."

"Oh, God, do we have to go over this again?" She rolled her eyes with a small laugh. "Rory, you are not a burden just because you're not within Hartford's inner core. I figure the drives give me practice for after college when I get a regular job and have to commute in every day from an hour out. It's better to learn now when you can be looked at as a 'punk teenager' to get verbal road rage out than when you're a forty-five year old in middle management and mouth off to a cop." She brought me close to her. "I'm fine with giving you a ride every day. That is not going to change, and especially after I found out you've risked your very being to satisfy Francie's power lust tonight, you need all the protection that you can have."

"I'm so sorry again that I didn't tell you. I couldn't stand to see that pain when you found out I was going behind your back." Grimacing, I still felt like I hurt her. "I tried to get out of it. I hurt personally when she said the things that she says about gays and lesbians, and all her other targets. I...I just heard her words, she wanted to make you ineffective, and I--"  
   
"She forgets though, there are checks and balances." She soothed me with her lovely assertiveness as we make our way back to the living room. "Every system, be it parliamentary, dictatorial, constitutional, even anarchy, there has to be at least the barest sense of control by someone. Sometimes it's ineffective, but most of the time, those tools usually hold disorder back. She may be second in line behind you, but you have several other people in that room that will stop her from taking the reins. Now I think I've been a little more hands-on, I know. I might seem like I'm controlling too much. But there are reasons for that. Ms. Peters and I see Francie as entitled, as too strong, and the big reason we have a faculty advisor is to keep us in line. She stops me from going too far and I appreciate that. And Francie will be kept in line."

"What if she catches on?"

"Then she does, and if Charleston catches on, she can't go further. But we will get this to a vote. She will debate us--cordially."

There were misgivings on my part that Francie wouldn't blow up like Bill O'Reilly though. "I hope she does."  
   
"She **will**." Paris was very firm about how she saw things. "If she wants to stay in student government, she's gotta learn to govern."

With that note of finality, we then finally determined that we were both hungry. I threw on my pajamas as she ordered the food for the both of us, and after that she used the shower and changed into the spare clothes she had in her car, a pair of track pants and an old Harvard t-shirt from her father. We decided it would be best not to risk Sharon knowing we got close in the darkroom and were very close that afternoon, so much that I could still smell myself on her. I brought out the tapes while she was in the shower and crossed my fingers that she could get back home in time.

After the pizza came, I had about three slices of mine, and Paris had her cheeseless personal pizza, the both of us watching _Larry King Live_ and wondering why this guy still has a television show after so many years. He was talking to some celebrity from years and years ago that only Mom would know about, and both of us were bored with the show. We flipped by the broadcast channels, and somehow we ended up on one of those horrible UPN sitcoms. That's pretty much it, since Paris refuses to watch _Smallville_ because "Lana Lang's lack of intelligence about anything hurts my head". Thus, we're stuck on that visual noise known as The Weather Channel.  
   
I'm just glad that we're still friendly, and that we're still in love, and that we didn't have a big fight about Francie. I thought we would, but I ended up having nothing to fear, so now we can move onto tomorrow night, where I really, really hope that Harold Gellar doesn't mind that I'm romancing his daughter.  
   
His beautiful, lovely daughter, looking so attractive in his former shirt, with no bra beneath it. Her hair was loose and she was relaxed just watching TV with me. I didn't want her to leave but I knew that she had to pretty soon. I felt an urge for her to just wrap around me and she welcomed me into her lap as I curled against her, resting my head against the arm of the couch while she moved up the dial to _Hannity & Colmes. _They debated something, but we were both zoned out, too lovestruck to care about whatever they were going on about. She ran her fingers through my hair, curling her fingers around the strands.  
   
"Your pajamas are extremely cute." The words from her mouth sounded extremely odd as she took in my clothing, blue with a smiling snowflake pattern. She took a deep inhale, the smell of the fabric softener comforting in her mind. "I think I understand a bit why you wear them; they must be so comfy."

"They are," I say, taking my voice down to a purr. "Of course it's a bit interesting if I'm sleeping and my psychosis decides to insert a dream within my REM state."

"A dream?" I smiled.  
   
"Yeah, a dream." I felt slightly heated as I let myself relax against her body. "I really enjoy having dreams."

She's definitely curious about what goes on in my mind as I sleep. "What kind of dreams are we talking about?" Her chin was against the back of my shoulde, and her voice rumbled through my back. _Oh yeah, that's so wonderful...  
_    
"Dreams of you with me," I confessed lightly. "Sleeping over, being focused on learning at first, but slowly, it evolved. We start out serious, but through the night we end up out of our uniforms and in our pajamas."

"We could also be in the Howard dorm." Hmm, that sounds a little bit better. More relaxed, less stuffy. "I remember we took on that team from the DFW Metroplex that thought they were the hottest thing to hit debate since Lincoln/Douglas. God, they were insufferable."

"But we were backstage beforehand, psyching ourselves up. Picturing them as the Cowboys while we were the Patriots. I was the Teddy Bruschke to your Tom Brady, defending you while you went on offense."

"They never stood a chance," she remembered, laughing. "When they slunk out of that room without so much as a handshake, we knew we had just assured them a year of being barked at by their insane coach while we were free to relax."

"Oh yeah." I let myself go back in time, recalling the fun memories of that hot July night. "I remember we did take out at that awesome chicken place just off campus. Good ol' southern fried chicken, biscuits, gravy, potatoes. What did we order again?"

"I think I would have ordered just a three piece, but we ended up with a twenty-piece meant for a family of six!" She shook her head, rolling her eyes at me good-naturedly. "It was well worth it though, despite all the grease. It was fun to just let go and relax, not worry about how my debate prep would be thrown off because that next team would be weak for sure after we beat DFW."

"Mmm, and you certainly dressed the relax part." I was in heaven as I recalled what she wore out loud. "So close to laundry day, so you were, as you called it, 'stuck' in some flimsy little black nightgown that Madeline bought for your birthday, but you never ever wore. And you hated her because she packed it in your bag in secret, along with a little note saying 'hope you get lucky this summer.' There you were, so mortified, and stuck in it for the night."

"I didn't feel comfortable in it, and there you were in a simple little blue tank top and pink sleep shorts. I felt like a fool. An idiot. Because really, you should've been in the nightgown and I should've been in your clothes." She groaned, pushing out a kink of pain caused by the couch of pain.  
   
"Why? I thought you looked hot." I turned to face her and helped her work out the kink myself by massaging her back.  
   
"I did not look hot. I looked like I got into Mommy's clothes drawer and came out with that playing dressup."

"You say that, but Par." I paused, letting my nose touch the tip of hers. "I did some staring. And by some, I mean a lot. All night." I saw her eyes wander down to stare down my shirt. "My control was a thin tether because I was horny most of that week." It of course happened to be the day I wrote that sex letter to Dean, and tried to expend the stress through it. But I struggled to get myself off, even in the shower.  
   
That is, until I saw Paris in that slinky number of sleepwear. Suddenly, all thoughts of a boy helping me with my frustration were out the window.  
   
As we recounted our summer experiences, I found myself flustered. I was confident Par felt the same way. The darkroom hardly sated us and I was sure she was still all hot from hearing me go off on Francie.  
   
I wanted to take control, the rules be damned.  
   
"Rory?" Stunned by my silence, she visibly shuddered at my intense gaze. I felt what I dreamt that night come back to me hard, the images, how heated I felt after writing the letter and then seeing her take down that Texas team. The barely-there nightgown, the sticky humidity of the Potomac matching that of the Chilton darkroom...  
   
I couldn't believe what I was about to do. I feel her leg against my core, her body perfect against mine. Months ago with Dean, this would have been dangerous territory, and an act that would have only happened in 2017 if Mom had anything to do with it.  
   
Somehow, I must be insane for having such an insatiable sex drive. For almost eighteen years, I've been able to keep myself in line, neutral, and when it came to Dean, almost compliant to him. My fingers sufficed just fine, so why would I need to flirt with him to get something I could do just as well manually?  
   
Paris, though...she was below me, dressed like she is when she's building a house, and still I was thinking of her in that naughty nightgown that she would **never** usually wear. I looked down at her and took her right hand into my left, giving her that smile I only directed in her direction. My breath was shallow, and everything I shared with her in the last two weeks is coming to a head.  
   
"I need to call my mom," I said, measured. I awaited her reaction and she seemed disappointed.  
   
"Oh. Well, if you have to." She tried to get up but I wouldn't budge. "I don't want to stand in her way." I twined my fingers with hers, and with my other hand, took down my pajama shirt a couple of buttons. I straddled her and then suckled the tip of her nose with my lips, then left a little lick on it.  
   
"I just have to check if she has the house key with her." I lowered my voice to a Bardotish purr. "See, I'm a little paranoid this evening. I have a girl in my house that is willing to get home very, very late, just enough sleep to charge her batteries, and the last thing I want to do is have her be caught while she's in my bed..." I kissed her lips. "As she lets me live out..." Another kiss. "What I want done to me." I began to slide off of her as she looked at me in shock. "And if I recall, she does have an extra change of uniform still in her car, panties, bra, and all." Grinning, I finish detailing what I want to happen. "I mean, you're gonna have to sleep on the couch. There's no way around that, and Lorelai will paste you to it with force. But I suppose that you could tell your mother that you've caught some odd cold and need to sleep the night off at Madeline's. Y'know, just a smidge of a little white lie?"

"Oh my God," she exclaimed. "Hon...um..." She got up from the couch and I took her into my arms. "I'll be fine--"

"I still want you." My entire body was warmed as I slid my hands beneath her sweatpants. "You're still turned on and I'm thinking of you in that nightgown right now, barely covering almost anything." I began to slide the pants down, to insulate her into the fantasy. "The way you dressed that night, it got me through at least about twenty days of fantasizing in the shower. Before then, I saw you nude at school in the shower, but I didn't have a second picture to go with it, like a naked paper doll getting the clothes with the tabs on the end. In that little thing though, I found the Par-Bear I dream about, the one who is stiff upper lip, all business in public, but in private..." I was pleased as the pants dipped down around her ankles, leaving her in those light blue boyshorts once again. "I will admit it now, baby girl. I stretched out to peek at all of you, all night."

She almost choked on her own throat. I love a girl who thinks that her intelligence far outshines her beauty, and it's always going to be a fight to tell her both aspects are equal. Her hands rested neutrally on my hips as she attempted to come off as unflummoxed. Her hair reflected the light from the infamous monkey lamp, her eyes taking that intense gaze that only I can seem to push out from her.  
   
Her voice was incredibly shaky as I moved to guide her towards the kitchen, stopped to grab the phone, and let her go while I tried to that call I need to make. Her lips pursed as she tried to get herself together.  
   
"So you did catch my cue." She looked me over, admitting that the nightgown wasn't exactly an error involving a lack of laundry. "My eyes caught your letter to Dean. Page four, as a matter of fact."

I was stunned in place. She...she...oh my God.  
   
"You...you read?" I remember that I left out the letter on the desk, never expecting Paris to bother reading it. She made her way into the kitchen, reaching into her bag to pull out her cell phone.  
   
"I did. Not more than that one page, but I had to figure any kind of experimentation to feel you out was good. See, the thing is, Gilmore..." Her eyes scanned my form. "I knew your showers weren't from the Washington heat. I heard you behind the spray. You never mentioned a name at all, and I could understand that. But within that cursive, it was clear that your words weren't meant for Dean to shoot ropes of cum onto his sheets. Not at all." I pushed my legs together, hot from the revelation that my fingering was known. "I did also notice you started the letter two days earlier than the day of the debate. So when I was out of the room that gave me a clue into one thing." Oh Lord, her words, that know it all smile, even the way she was stroking the curve of her phone near the speaker.  
   
Paris knew I had a less-than friendly interest in me that long ago. Oh fuck.  
   
"Your love letter wasn't to Dean. You didn't give a fuck what he wrote in response. Whatever he did, he was already dead to you, even with your conscience trying to guide your thoughts back towards him. It was done from the moment you learned we were going to Washington." I couldn't believe it. She was completely seeing things from the point of view of my inner vixen. "You wrote those words on those pages because like my voice, writing is erotic to you. You put something on the page and it gavs you that push." She dropped the phone onto the table after rushing out what I learned later was a cover text to Madeline so Sharon wouldn't get suspicious. "I remember what you wore before I left for breakfast. A softball jersey from your failed attempt to play organized sports locally two years ago, and a pair of 80's style soccer shorts that barely covered your upper thighs." Oh God, I had to figure something out quick. I felt my thighs pumping and my mouth drying. "Your right hand, writing on that page your darkest desires allegedly for Dean, while in your head, you saw my name instead. And with your left hand?"

In my left hand no longer, was the landline phone. Grabbed away from me, she hit redial, confident the last number saved was the Inn.  
   
It was. And Paris, who I'm quickly learning is as much a vocal chameleon as Meryl Streep, succinctly explained to my mother that she was looking outside and the roads were horrible, so could she sleep on our couch this evening?  
   
"I have clothes." She nodded. "No, my alarm clock is in my phone, I'll just set that if your usual 'Grrrrr, I need coffee!' doesn't rouse me awake right away." A pause. "No...no, that's how your daughter says you wake up. No, really, it is." She shields the mic. "Lorelai says she's not that dramatic about waking up."

"But it's the truth," I shot back, laughing. I tune out more conversation, and Paris redirected my way once again. "She says she's wounded and her feelings are hurt. You're also reduced to Taster's Choice for punishment."  
   
"I'd rather drink yak blood." Paris cringed, and talked some more with Mom. And talked. And talked.  
   
OK, she was into 'seriously annoying the horny girl' territory. _Come on, blondie, let's go, I'm getting very impatient here. No, you are not allowed to talk about property tax assessments with my mom_...wait, wasn't she busy about an hour ago? What could they have been really talking about? My feet hurt, so I sat in a chair while I waited for Paris to end her Leno-length dialogue with Lorelai.

Finally, a minute later, she hung up, setting the phone on the table and picking up her cell phone to go through the two minute call of death with Sharon, which of course was like Hillary Clinton trying to talk to Rush Limbaugh cordially. No need to recap beyond Paris gritting her teeth throughout like she was about to get a smallpox shot and trying to dodge her mother's veiled insults to her. Finally, it was on to Madeline for the excuse, and she reminded our friend of what she has to do. "If Sharon asks to talk to me, my throat is sore. Got it? You're sure. Definitely not. Do not give her a clue I'm coherent enough to talk." She walked around the room, and I enjoyed looking at her backside, disappearing into the bottom of her shirt. Just a smidge of her panties were exposed and I was drooling in anticipation of being able to touch her all over again.  
   
Her mouth turned into a frown as Madeline went on to ask what she was doing at my house. "The snow...it's not as bad there? Well trust me, it's...no, I do not need Brad to look up the New Haven conditions on Weather Underground. Madeline...Mads...I have no idea what that means. What is a 'booty call'? I'm making a phone call to you!"

Oh dear; somehow I don't think Paris has ventured anywhere near UrbanDictionary.com. Or reality television. I struggled to keep myself in control from a hard laughing fit as Paris tried to learn about more slang she had no idea about. "Madeline, booty is pirate's treasure. No, it's true. It does not mean that...Oh my God! I...I...you mean that was what Burke Lightfoot meant at that party two years ago?" I shook my head, amused at how my learned girlfriend can name the states of both the American **and** Mexican unions by their exact admission date, but sexual euphemisms are quite beyond her expertise. I approached her slowly, giving her a intense stare as I slid another couple buttons out from my shirt. She looked at me a bit distracted, biting at the tip of her finger as she tried to understand the concept.

"Um...Madeline. I have to go." She dropped the call without any ceremony and shut her phone, setting it on the table and just hoping it hit the tabletop in the first place. She directed a stern look my way.  
   
Oh boy, was I ever in trouble. Yet I giggled as if watching a clown seltzer himself in the face.  
   
Oops, and there went that last button on my shirt, fully open and though each half is covering my breasts, my stomach was on full display for her to take in. She sucked on her lip, her eyes slitting with a stare I wasn't able to get a read on before. Across her mouth, a little smirk slid across her lips.  
   
"So apparently," she said tightly, "I'm on a booty call." She shook her head, a small and bitter giggle emanating from her throat. "I was shocked to hear what it consisted of. Pretty much according to Mads's definition, it's too late in the evening for a romantic date of any kind, so we're in a situation where all we want is sex." I looked at her, focused on me intensely, reaching back behind her head while undoing a cloth band holding a hastily done ponytail.  
   
She scoffed lightly as she shook the hair out from the knot. "Now I'm not sure this night meets those requirements. I think that we actually dated tonight. There was pizza, talking, a ride and a change of clothes involved. Now going by this 'booty call' decorum, if I would not have paused to eat, talk, or get the tapes and we just had sex, that's a booty call." A groan. "And I can't believe I just used that term twice in a sentence. It sounds so wrong, and a bit dirty, unclean, if you will." She kept backing me towards my bedroom door, and I was beginning to find the point of her little monologue about the certain term.  
   
"She also said that...well, if I were to tell her that we did, it was also how I went about getting you in the darkroom today. We flirted through the notes and that meets that definition. But at the same time, I think it's just a bit too..." She paused for a moment to think. "Let's clear the air. We are two consenting adults, correct?"

I don't know why, but I felt the need to correct her. "Well, I am. You're fifteen days away from that state."

"Don't interrupt me with common reasoning or the semantics of the General Statutes of Connecticut, Gilmore." The bedroom door was closed and she pushed me against it, surrounding me with her arms around the frame. "Let's just say we are and be done with it. And we also love each other, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

"As far as I remember, I came here only to drop you off and acquire the tapes, right?"

"Yes, of course." Yeah, let's see Dean attempt to seduce Beth with the most obvious of conclusions, because Paris was there, pushing near me...W _ow, she smells so good_.  
   
"I did not come in this house or ask before we came in if we could partake in each other, did I?" Lord, her voice. What was wrong with me? Why was I getting so hot over her rationalizing the difference between casual sex and normal girlfriendy duties? Is girlfriendy even a word, or should I use relationshipinal? No, that's not a word, I know that for sure.  
   
But I shook my head, knowing that yeah, she was not intending to make a call for my booty, as it were. She smiled and slid her hands down towards...well, you know.  
   
"It's not that you don't have a nice booty. It's far from nice. Divine, immaculate, incredibly curvaceous and very, very lovely." She was still in her serious Murrow mode, only she felt me up at the same time. "You have a wonderful ass, Gilmore. That is so not the issue here."

"No, it..." I coughed. "...certainly isn't." Not when her hands were moving into my pants, taking in my behind, while I feel her body very close against me. "Paris..."

"I think we need to voice this out," she rationalized. "Just to make sure. We're both insane in our own ways so we have to also allow that Madeline is also the same. She's dating Brad."

"She is."

"Not in her right mind." She cupped my right cheek as she moved her right hand out find leverage. "She knows we're dating. But not how hot and heavy we can get."  
   
"The windows fogged my first time, right?"

"They would have if the defroster wasn't on. I'm very confident of that. Thanksgiving Sunday, you wouldn't call that a booty call, would you?"

Smiling, I was confident. "You didn't know. It's protocol that both in the coupling must know their booties are being called. You were unprepared, so it was just a casual meeting of the minds."

"And of our bodies." She began to slide my pajama top off, my nipples immediately constricting from the cool air exposed against them. "Our hot, incredibly needy bodies who missed each other for four days and would have gone insane had it not been for Thanksgiving night phone sex." The top falls to the floor and despite the boiler not kicking in, I was hardly chilly. "So we must agree there is not enough to merit this being a booty call?"

"At best it's a second wind," I rationalized, guiding myself towards the bed backwards. Rule number one of having Par in my house was broken with her violating click of the door lock.  
   
Rule number two was sullied as I sucked in my stomach and let her pull the bottoms of my pajamas down. The pants fell to my ankles quickly, leaving me only in my...well, I'm leaving my Victoria's Secret spree for school and everyday use, but at night...  
   
"A second wind in panties patterned with little Woodstocks?" She arched her eyebrows up, amused at my choice of cotton underwear with the cartoon bird in a random pattern. "See, if this was what Madeline said this was, we both would've probably been in our weekend best, but we're in our Wednesday worst instead." I stepped out of the pants, looking both ways to double check that my shades are fully drawn (yes they are!). The only light on is the lamp next to my bed, casting a dim glow as the back of my legs met the front of my footboard.  
   
I was nervous, a little freaked out as my girlfriend continues this cutely aggressive and incredibly vocal seduction of me. I stuttered out my embarrassment at wearing the underwear I was in, but her attention was elsewhere, more on my breasts than anywhere else..  
   
Then I tumbled onto the bed, and she came down with me. We were face-to-face, and nose-to-nose as she got between my legs and let her cold hand touch along my side. I sucked in a breath as I reacted, and things were coming to a head for sure. Her mouth was centimeters from mine, using every new word forming in her throat to get me wet.  
   
"I'm finally in your bed," she identified, as I scooted myself up to rest my head on the pillow. "This time though, I'm fully coherent." She laid a soft buss upon my lips as I relaxed into the mattress. She released for another note on her part. "I'm not taking a boob compliment as an insult." A smile as she kissed me again, and slid her hands beneath my back. "Nor are my feet like concrete from dancing for almost a full day."

"Mine either," I answered back, nervously. My lip trembled as I took her in above me. This was more relaxed, less stiff than the darkroom. Certainly, more comfortable. She tucked some hair behind her ear, and she pulled herself up so that her hips are even to mine. My lips trembled as I tried to make sense out of how we got to this point. I took a deep breath while Paris cuddled closer to me. "I should've gone about the field hockey thing differently."

"What do you mean?" She was confused. "I look back on it fondly."

"I mean the shower. I fumbled the conversation a little."

"You did. But it worked out." Her fingers scraped just below my breasts as she kissed at my neck. I feel pressure on my shoulder, on my throat, and it is undeniably sexy. My hands are above her ass as I feel her up. "Worked wonders, I'd like to think." She moved her kisses lower and lower.  
   
"Certainly," I forced out. She buttered me up by kissing along my neck and then eventually down to my breasts, as she teased me and played with my nipples with her hands and her mouth. She wound me up by applying pressure, suckling against them sensually as I pushed my legs together to build up the pressure building between them. There was no use staying calm as I got wet almost immediately from her flattery about my raw scent, my body, even about what shape my darker pimples could be traced in a dot puzzle. "Below your left breast, I can make out a candle, I think." Yeah, her shape descriptions needed work, but it was still cute, especially when she thought a birthmark beneath my right underarm underarm resembles some odd Chinese province's outline.  
   
This is Paris Gellar, after all. I wouldn't be surprised if she would describe the arch of my foot as shaped like Delaware. Soon, I had her shirt off and all that was between us was air and those cute undies I'm glad she chose to wear. Her body was incredibly warm against mine, her curves seeming to melt into mine. I can't imagine why she would ever take anyone's advice to lose weight, because as she is, I don't want to lose one bit of her. Even her respiration sounded sexy, deep, throaty, lustful. She put everything she had into letting me know that my little taping of Francie wasn't at all a relationship breaker.  
   
It only made it stronger. Especially when her nose played against my belly and she told me what her first true thought was of my comebacks with Francie.

"You know what I wanted to do after I heard you call Francie a bitch?" she asked, looking up at me. It was an odd position with her below my breasts, certainly one we've never had a conversation in. Pretty amusing way to talk.  
   
I thought she was mad at me for cursing out Francie though. "Slap some sense into me for even thinking that was a good idea? I know, it was stupid, and--"

Instead, I felt her tongue slide around the ridge of my belly button to shut me up. _Oh God, so not helping down there!_ I was getting damp again, and I couldn't stand it when she was being so naughty. She looked back up at me and shook her head, smiling,  
   
"I wanted to do what I'm about to do. Do you realize that when you get pissed off, Gilmore, how fucking hot I get?" Her hands were upon my ass and she was in that position, legs bent, looking towards me.

"Uhh, no." I spread out for her unconsciously, getting ahead of her.  
   
"No one has ever called Francie a bitch and lived to tell about it," she explained, divesting me of my panties in slow rolls. "Even Summer got slammed into a locker for just off-handing the word in everyday conversation as part of some poll. But to face off to her and call her that, it takes courage. Either that, or you have ovaries made of steel."

"Isn't...that balls?"

She shooks her head. "Nope. Ovaries. I don't know any boy in that entire school that would call her that name. I certainly wouldn't. But you did." Moving lower she licked her lips while her eyes traced the trail. "How did it feel, Gilmore? Did you like it? Were you thinking like I'd be in that situation?"

"I thought nothing of it. There were girls here in town that treated me worse." That's the truth: Francie might think of herself as the queen of Chilton, but she's really nothing. "I didn't even remember I said it until I played the tape. She left the room more flustered than I did." Her breath...oh, Lord. "Uhhhh..."  
   
"Somehow I think she's learning not to fuck with you," she concluded. "I bet when I listen to those tapes, you start out weak and complacent. But by the end, you're laying into her, the stronger one, knowing you're holding her tubes in a vise." _Fuck, I love it when she gets so aggressive with her words._ "She thought she was getting a little chore girl in you, that would bow at her feet and worship the ground she walked on." She forced my legs further apart as she pulled the panties away from me. "She sees you as I did in tenth grade, dependent on others, solitary, meek and afraid." Closer...closer...  
   
A small testing lathe against the top of my slit. God, I felt so damned tight and held in a tight whinny. "After two years, I can't think that anymore. The way you threw yourself at me, and into my heart, to prove that you wanted to be my friend, kicking and screaming, I opened up to you in a very, very small way. You jumped through that hole, and now, I can't imagine not having you by my side, Rory. I came onto your good side, ended up in your soul circle..." She kissed along each of my lips, and I vise-gripped the edge of the mattress for dear life.  
   
I couldn't speak. God, I wish I could, but all I could do was massage her scalp in my hands. Her hands stroked my thighs, the ardor for her building.

"I love you. And I just want to make you feel good." Her nose grazed against me. "I guess I was wrong when I said you were going down that one time, wasn't I?"

And then...she's going down. On me. Right now. On her knees, her tongue is inside of me and giving me all this pleasure that makes my dreams truly pale in comparison. She's getting me off, her tongue on my clit, in a bed I've had since I was five and never had one dream about Dean sharing that didn't end up with my mother peeking in and/or mortification.  
   
She's going down on me. And all I can think right now is that if there's one picture I was to send that smug redhead, it's this one. Of my girlfriend, the one that actually runs the fucking student government, so emboldened, so strong from hearing about what I did in those empty rooms, facing those lackeys, taking in all of those hateful words, expecting me to capitulate to her because she thought I would buckle to her.  
   
That bitch expected me to cave, just to save a friendship she thought was only there because Paris was driven nuts and I was the filter taking in all of her anger. That she was nothing except a girl with an eagle eye towards Harvard and anyone who got in her way was to be pushed aside. Francie thinks Paris is heartless, unfeeling, without emotion.  
   
I'm quickly learning with this woman, that the only reason she was that way was because she was stuck listening to heartless whores like Francie. Like Sharon. They only see her as a means to an end. Competition. A second chance to grasp at past glory, something to control through insults and hateful demands that would make anyone cower.  
   
But I feel her. The heat seeping from me. The screams echoing through my bedroom. The sweat pooling against my brow, within the folds of my bent stomach. The wrinkles forced into my sheets. Everything that I have it is being focused in one place. My love for this woman, this force of nature, a girl who never thought happiness was for her.  
   
She's going down on me. Two years ago, we would've barely said a word to each other. Two years ago, I was Farm Girl, she was the Cold Bitch. Two years ago, she swore to make my life a 'living hell'.  
   
Right now, I'm in heaven from her instead. Her name is forced hard from my throat, and she is thanking me, in my bed, in my bedroom, for being her protector, her savior, someone who actually cares, who listens...  
   
Who loves her, and not as the 85-pound waif with a low IQ Mommy Dearest wishes she was. She is 130 pounds, the smartest woman I know, and has feminine curves that I didn't even know existed.  
   
She's going down on me. And damned if this day didn't turn out to be something to define us. Paris is done finding excuses to end our friendship. She is beyond a doubt in this for keeps, for better or worse, for the long run.  
   
And she's doing things to my body I could never imagine. Because I think my brain just went numb from Ms. 180 WPM twisting that frisky lil' tongue within me in so many ways, even Mom would blush.  
   
Fuck, Par. Fuck me harder, fuck me. Make love to me. Show me how you can't get enough, how our lives are twisted together. Oh God, thank you for this girl. Thank you for making her love me, and guiding her towards me. It was hard, I didn't like it, but she's a jewel. A beautiful jewel.  
   
Fire and ice, that's Paris. My girlfriend. My love. My partner.  
   
 _Mia bambina_...  


* * *

 ** Paris's POV, 12:35am  
   
**Well. This has been a night.

A night. The time between dusk and dawn. Yes, that's what it is. A night.  
   
Sorry if I seem aloof. I know usually I have everything together and my mind is where it should be. It's here, I know it. I'm just so, what's the word? There's one that defines going through a roller coaster in so many hours.  
   
A whirlwind? That might be it. I remember having to spell that at the third grade spelling bee. Pathetic teachers, trying to throw a curve at me. Sometimes I still think I should've been just bumped right up to ninth grade when I was ten. I would've been ready, I know it.  
   
Daddy kept me sane though. He explained that if I jumped so fast, I would be isolated and scared, being with the big girls. That I would be intimidated or worse, made fun of. I kicked and screamed when he told the Headmaster to just bump me up the usual grade, saying he wanted me to be as normal as I could be. Against Mother's advice (and ruining of her plans to globetrot after I graduated at fourteen), I stayed in my own grade. I never said it to him but I always resented being left back. Even up until 11th grade I wanted to jump right into Harvard.  
   
No more. I forgive him, fully and completely. Because had I been at Harvard Med already, the only place I'd likely meet Rory Gilmore in that alternate universe would be an operating table after an accident in Kenmore Square.  
   
Wait, too morbid. Horseplay at Fenway? Some dick make her smash her elbow into Pesky's Pole while he went for a foul ball? Much better. She wouldn't die from that.  
   
Not thinking about it anymore, because she's safely in my arms. This beautiful young woman, a happy accident. I am in her small space of a bed, wrapping around her against her back, my hands stroking her stomach. She only wears the top of her pajama shirt for modesty. Nothing below. She feels so warm, is so beautiful, and within her, a fighter. Someone who, according to the vernacular, has 'got my back'.  
   
And she actually did get my back. There are scratch marks on it. Along with hickeys on my breasts, between my legs and on my right shoulder blade, one pretty deep bite. Don't know how to explain that one, but I know I'm so glad I don't do sports, because my poor physician would be chagrined to learn this girl loves to get rough with me in bed.  
   
Who would have even thought that my little fantasy in the darkroom would lead to so much ensuing in the space of so few hours? I'm looking up at the ceiling of this warm and inviting bedroom, my father's poor shirt stretched out in different directions and sweat-soaked, and I compare myself to how I would have reacted to hearing about Francie forcing Rory to meet her two months before.  
   
For one thing, I would've blown a gasket. Screw how I would have reacted to Francie, because Rory would get all of it. I wouldn't look at things subjectively from her view, and would've jumped to extreme conclusions. I probably would have even thought her and Francie would be having an affair.  
   
The thought of my lover and that bitch being intimate is enough to make me cower, possibly vomit. Let's get away from that thought and just say that Rory would no longer have been my VP, or my friend. I'm sorry to state it that way, but remember, that was me two months ago.  
   
But as I listened to that tape, not one moment was I thinking that I hated Rory for going behind my back. I had my suspicions, feelings that she was voting with less than her heart on some resolutions. But I wasn't going to dwell on it. She was at my side, and that's all that mattered.

When I listened to that tape however, that was the first time I have seen Rory as more than just the girl keeping me sane in student government. I finally saw her as a worthy vice president, one who took the title seriously and was not going to let Francie get to her without a fight. I heard her in that tape, she wasn't going to give up. She was strong. Francie doled out so much abuse, and she let it slide off her like it was Teflon. In her voice, I heard a young woman who was in control of her own destiny, and only satisfying Francie to keep her happy.  
   
I can't wait to dig into the rest of these tapes. To hear Francie dig her own grave will definitely be entertainment for a nice weekend. But more than that I cannot wait to listen to Rory get more defiant with each meeting. She told me that by the last meeting, she was actually giggling at Francie's 'big girl' lackey being all 'don't mess with me' serious, arms crossed and firm, not even threatened anymore by the presence of two other girls in the room while the redhead acted like she was an insane version of Fidel Castro who has no idea how to run a fucking thing.

I'm turned on by Rory being assertive, sure of herself. She seemed that way tonight as I ate her out, taking everything I dished out, enjoying it all, letting it was over her. Then when we made love together, I don't know if I imagined it, but her grasp felt stronger, while her eyes seemed to be an iridescent shade of blue that I just can't find a Pantone shade to compare to.  
   
What I really enjoy about being with her though is how much she lets me go. She makes it known to me that her birth year compared to her mother's means nothing to her, that it doesn't define her in any way. It's just a number. She doesn't care if I mar her, bruise her from riding a hard orgasm out, that I get all tight-throated and dusky with my voice when I'm all wound up. Nothing matters, except that we connect at that very basic level, that we love each other. My wealth means nothing, just as long as she can be near to me.  
   
To my surprise, what comes out of her mouth when she's in the throes would make her mother blush. I'm trying to adjust to her, because after knowing her for so long, I don't think of profanity as regularly in her innocent vocabulary. Tell me you can't imagine Rory screaming out "Fuck, ride my cunt, Par...ohh, ohh, ride my tight hole...oh, oh yeah, shit!" at all. I know you couldn't (and you're probably making sure your inner dialogue isn't replacing Rory's voice with Louise's), but she did when grinding each other, and it was incredibly hot to me to hear her talk this way to me. I'm getting off on her anger and her passion...I'm getting so wet thinking about it all over again.  
   
I guess I can understand now why puberty never happens at a hard thirteen. I don't mean the physical changes, but mentally, how you learn to grow into your body and begin to feel love and a want of a relationship. I never thought of the concept as complicated, really. Looking at those that develop on the _Guiding Light_ and within the hallways of Chilton, I thought it was easy. Just kiss, do the things couples do, give some gifts and talk occasionally. It seemed easy when I was thirteen. But by sixteen, off the date with Tristan being a flop and still acting like some Disney sitcom reject around someone of the opposite sex, I complicated it in my own mind. The divorce was of no help, and I learned to hate marriage because of it.  
   
But then, there was the lifeline. The one Rory offered me in the dining hall after I spread the Medina item, the one that I never deserved. It should have been something to fracture us forever, to keep us in this conflict that would always rage.  
   
 _If you want to talk_. Those five little words, a peace offering on her part, something I claimed I'd never need. I didn't need friends and I was fine on my own. Rory was my rival. Rivals don't help other rivals. You never see Tim Duncan dropping a hint to Kobe Bryant about how he'll charge down the floor, do you? It's a simple fact of life.  
   
Except when you have nothing to wear. Or you get into a panic about a 92. Maybe you just need a story idea to spice up the paper, or you need someone who looks great in a period dress and is able to tolerate kissing a menthol-smelling Tristan for five seconds. Maybe you need someone who can make you look less Nurse Rachet and more of a Rachel Green while you run for a student office position.  
   
Not that I could ever pull off that character's hairstyle. I wish I was more of a Phoebe myself, a free spirit who doesn't care about anything but making people happy. But really, I'm a Monica. High-strung, stressed out all the time, a perfectionist.  
   
OK, back to the point before somehow I end up trailing off-thought and comparing myself to Archie Bunker. Eugggh!  
   
I've talked to Rory since that day. So many times. I took that lifeline and even as I threw it back a few times, it came back in my direction. I could swim on my own, but Rory saw in me that lost little girl who still struggles with being so intelligent but ignored and chastised because I do not want to be some kind of triple threat actor/singer/dancer girl. The dancing I can do, but I can't sing. Period. Don't even ask me! It's mortifying enough that I have to do it at temple when I'm forced to lead everyone in song.  
   
Somehow, Rory understands me on that deep level, and we have this connection. She loves me for who I am and just that. I took her help, and as I lay here I can't deny that any longer. Whatever the issues we had in the past, they've somehow been all worked through. I knew as I listened to those tapes that if I reacted in the wrong way, that it would be regression. It wouldn't be progress, and not much different from how she reacted to Jamie a few nights ago. I admit the disappointment that she got roped in, but I'm not angry at her. Lobbying happens; it's a way of life. What she was lobbied for, that makes my blood run cold. All through it though, the first emotions I ran through, there was never that raw thought that she was going behind my back. I couldn't think that at all. Not after I had to beg her to listen to me in the town car and she felt like a low form of life for not listening to me as I tried to explain why Jamie was there.  
   
I look at her, and just stare at the back of her head. I hear her soft snoring (very soft, like a pindrop, something I will never admit to anyone because it's too beautiful to divulge), her stomach against my hands. God, what have I done to deserve this woman?

I don't know. I don't think I really need to know, as long as...  
   
As long as...  
   
My eyes dart towards the bedroom door being opened, the knob twisting as look at the clock bedside. I was sleeping for about an hour, and I swore I'd make my way to the couch until Rory's warmth enveloped me and I felt like I couldn't move.

Crap, I'm doomed. That is no doubt Lorelai behind the door and she just realized that no, Rory does not own those grey sweatpants on the floor, or that cellphone sitting on her kitchen table.  
   
Great, there goes my happiness, I'm dead now. Like shallow grave just outside of Haddam dead...  
   
"Paris? Are you in here?" I hear the familiar kind whisper of Lorelai Gilmore, and I'm frozen in place, pulling away from my girlfriend, hoping that I can come off somewhat innocent. The light from the kitchen shines in my eyes as I dart up in the bed.

There's her mother, looking at me within the doorway, looking all worn out in her work clothes, shoes off, her hair frazzled and those blue eyes she shares with her daughter dimmed from having to work a sixteen hour day. I gulp, scared to say anything to her, lest she begin shouting at me. I prepare myself by trying to downsize the situation.  
   
"Ms. Gilmore," I say calmly. "Hi." I laugh nervously. She's giving me a funny look, and I wonder when my time of death will be. Or if she'll be waking up Rory.  
   
However, I'm surprised to see her smiling, and then whispering. "Are you decent?" she asks me. All I can do is nod carefully. "Good." I take that as her sign as I need to get out of bed and begin the rest of the night sleeping on the couch. I slide out carefully, giving Rory a good night kiss, hoping that Lorelai wouldn't be mad at me.  
   
Thankfully, it turns out that I'm not in fear at all. I get out of the bed and walk towards Lorelai, before she ushers me out the door and then shuts it behind me. Then she turns her attention my way, and when I expect her to yell at me, instead she's cool and composed. Still whispering, she points to my sweatpants on the chair.  
   
"I...I'm sorry." I begin to apologize, but she won't stand for it.  
   
"If your next words are 'it isn't what it looks like', I'm afraid I know that it is." I grab the pants and we both head into the living room, where she has the couch all ready to go for me to lay down on. Guiding me towards it, she sat down next to me, and I was pleased to see plump pillows and a nice comforter draped over the couch to make me feel less like lying on a picnic table. She has on _Conan_ and she let me get comfortable before beginning what I thought was another lecture from her.  
   
I guess for once, I can be glad I was wrong.

"So how are things going for you two? You looked pretty comfy in that bed."

"They're going fine." I'm nervous. "I...I didn't mean to stay in bed, but I wasn't exactly up to switching places, or leaving." I have to be honest, no matter if I was digging my own grave. "It's just been a long day and she asked me to stay in bed with her until just before I got tired enough to move out here. But I didn't feel like it, and here we are." My hands shake nervously, while my eyes scan the room to look at anything other than Ms. Gilmore. I don't feel proud of myself in this moment, playing the role of the new guy in the leather jacket out to court Mallory Keaton or something. I'm out of it and uncomfortable with even grudging acceptance. I want to impress, and I hate that I still have this reputation as being a pain in the ass to everyone. I close my eyes, hoping for yelling.  
   
"So you feel bad for being with Rory?" Lorelai asks seriously. "You shouldn't feel guilty about it, Paris."  
   
"Why not? You told me I shouldn't do anything, and I broke the rules. I apologize for that. Next time I'll take more consideration into controlling my hormones." There's silence for a moment and I expect her to agree with me. After all, this woman spent so long making sure her daughter didn't repeat the errors of her past. I wish I could stop feeling like this, having this uncomfortable thought that I'm the 'silly little thing' between romances, like Ms. Gilmore was with Mr. Medina.  
   
"Oh, Paris." I open my eyes to see her shaking her head, and directing towards me a wry smile. "I don't understand why you have to be so stuck to rules and regulations."

"Because you gave them out," I reason. She pats me on the shoulder, and sighs.  
   
"That's when I thought you were just being experimental with each other and this would die down pretty quickly." She explains herself rationally. "The rules are there more for my own protection than they are for yours. It's just never been this way with Rory. I could count on her being reasonable and rational, able to consider my reaction to spite her happiness. But that was because Dean was such a crushing bore and he never felt the need to push further."

"I just don't want to be in trouble."

"You aren't." Lorelai gives me that parental look of understanding. "I'm trying to be open to this, to give you both the consideration and space that you need to work this out. I mean, it used to be when I came home, Rory would be ranting about how annoyed you were with her about something or another, and she just goes on and on about you. It was exhausting, and a bit overwhelming. But I guess I should've figured out then that you were more than just her personal Cordelia."

"Huh?" I'm a little bit lost on that reference.  
   
"Oh my God. You poor thing." She shakes her head, her voice exaggeratingly dramatic. "How a teenager like you can get through life without watching _Buffy_ , it's incredibly depressing."

"Um...sorry?"

"Don't be, actually. You'll catch up. It takes time to go from having to keep everything inside and not let yourself take in life beyond the walls of Chilton or your home." She gets up, stretching out as she explains further, how she sees me. "The thing is, I do trust you, Paris. You have not pissed me off yet, and if you do, you're not going to be like Dean and act like such a wuss. He took me extremely seriously when I disagreed about how he pursued Rory, and after awhile, it got more than a bit aggravating to see him let that paranoia sneak into the relationship. I mean, if Rory wanted to do something, fine. I trust her. If he wanted to bump things up a bit, I just wanted to know. Nothing more than that. Instead, he was chivalrous, and Rory suffered for it."

I want to tell Lorelai that there was more to it than that, but I was trusted by my girlfriend to not explain why. So I agree, and we talk a little more about how things are going. She vents with me about the annoying party that came into the Inn tonight and I try to listen, sympathetic to the problems that she has as an innkeeper. We talk a bit more about what she expects from me, and of how she doesn't find it wrong that the both of us are in love. I decide not to tell her about Francie, only ecause I don't want to worry her without Rory's permission, but also I'm just so tired and over it. It's at the back of my mind for now and I'd love to deal with it when I can breathe and face her down, when I'm at my best. I can plan and conspire all I want, but to face her down, to know that she was trying to get Rory to side with her, that anger and hate will build. I can get comfortable in my _Le Pitbull_ guise and before that bitch knows it, she's going down.  
   
For now though, I feel sleepy and thankful. As I cuddle into the blankets over me and realize that I haven't even thrown my sweatpants back on, I feel that sense of comfort with Ms. Gilmore I never though I'd have. I would have thought she hated me, but as she comes back into the living room with a glass of water, I know that there's no place I'd rather be than here right now.  
   
"I don't know if I'll see you in the morning," she says. "I'm going right back in at six because the group is very demanding, but I do want to say that I hope everything between you and your father turns out well." She smiles, trying to hold back a yawn. "Whatever you might think of me, I'm in your corner, dear. My daughter loves you, and whatever things annoy me about you, compared to Dean, I think very obscure references, a _Wizard of Oz_ fear and being combative vocally pale in comparison to how he tried to compromise with me at the expense of my daughter."

"Even if we...we, you know?" I feel uncomfortable bringing up the topic, but well, it has to be voiced out somehow.  
   
"Yeah, even that." I can tell she wants to bite down on her lip, still a bit uncomfortable about the subject of us being here, doing more than kissing. "Just as long as you're not doing it in front of me."

"No plans of that, at all. We can't, we wouldn't." I feel like a fool. "I think Rory wouldn't want that to happen herself."  
   
"You're right about that." Lorelai laughed. "When she was younger she'd get so dramatic when I kissed another man. Around Max, it was sooo awkward too. She tried to get into the habit of calling him Max, but it never stuck. I don't blame her for finding romance awkward. Now I just have to learn that with you, I guess."

"I can promise you right now that we'll be discreet," I proclaim. "There's a reason I picked that park--"

She stopped me before I could even elaborate. "I'm sure there is. I just don't need to hear about it." She headed towards the staircase as I cuddled up to the pillow. "Seriously, I'm fine. We're fine. Whatever you two did tonight, it doesn't need elaboration, and I'm fine with the both of you. Just don't let me see you get too hot and heavy, that's all."

"Promised." I shake my head, laughing. "Goodnight, Ms. Gilmore."

"Ms. Gilmore?" She rolls her eyes at me as she grasps the railing. "We've talked about this. I'm not Ms. Gilmore--"  
   
Shoot. I always seem to forget that. "I know, sorry." I suck up my pride and redo the greeting. "Goodnight, Lorelai." I still feel so alien saying a first name to an adult.  
   
"Goodnight, Ms. Gellar." She winks and turns it around on me and I groan as she laughs her way up the stairs. Damned woman knows how to make everyone crazy.  
   
Yet, she's probably the sanest parent in all of Chilton. Laying down, I have to admit, Lorelai has to be one of the best mothers I've ever met, although Madeline's mother comes a close second, even though I've only heard about her since she passed away before Mads moved to Connecticut. She makes everything so fun and brings a calming influence to any event Rory takes part in, and the Chilton organizations Lorelai participates in have been much more lively with her in them than they ever have. I just enjoy knowing that when I have to make a presentation as student body president to the adults and Lorelai is there, I can count on her to argue exactly why it might be good or bad for the being of that group, rather than the flat or emotionless votes that had come before them.  
   
I also enjoy that she accepts me, just as I am. Sure, the both of us probably would drive each other nuts alone (I could go on for hours about historic inaccuracies in the fixtures of the Inn), but we both love Rory. That unites us. We might have different forms of love, but in a way, having Lorelai on my side, and not only that, able to use her home as a refuge from Sharon calms me down. One of the main reasons I decided not to go after Rory was Lorelai and her reaction to a relationship. I didn't to tear Rory and her mom apart based on my own needs, and I would hate to see them apart. I'm thankful for her small acceptance of us, though I do worry that one day, I'll mess it up.  
   
I think about myself messing many things up. My relationship with Daddy, for instance. I hope he accepts us. I hope that he likes Rory.  
   
I hope that most of all, he doesn't hate me. I've spent so long thinking of my parents, not enough time thinking of myself. But for once I have to be selfish and show my father that Rory is who I want. Not anyone else, except her. If there's anything that would make me stop this, it would be him disapproving of me as a lesbian. No matter if he supports gay rights in his workplace or anything else he has done for the LGBT community in Hartford. Those are distant contributions. But this...this is personal. It affects his life.  
   
I see him in my dreams rejecting me. Of him angered because his little girl can't walk down an aisle in an official ceremony, or sad because his daughter has gone on a different path in life. I've thought of his reaction in my mind many times over, of good and bad reactions. Seeing me as different or damaged because I fell for a woman.  
   
Those negative thoughts have to stay in the back of my mind, though. Tomorrow has to go well. I cannot let myself get negative about the first family member I come out to.  
   
I should just think about tonight. That I had Rory in the darkroom and the bed. Something I could have never considered as coming true only a few months ago.  
   
See, I can think of things that way. We're making progress. We're doing OK. I have yet to screw up anything about it, and I've salvaged tense moments and somehow turned them into either sex or unexpected public masturbation from a girl I couldn't even picture doing anything less than touching her breast carnally a year ago.  
   
Yeah, that's accentuating the positive. In my presence, Rory Gilmore has done more to make herself a sexual being than two years with boring ol' Dean could ever do.  
   
And I didn't even need the help of Tristan at all. Oh, if I knew where he was and could tell him all this, he'd probably have a painful erection that would never be cured. Just imagining it now...  
   
 _Dear Tristan,  
   
So how's military school treating you? Probably bad, right? Well, I just wanted to write to tell you that boy, you should've never robbed that safe and got stuck in North Carolina. Why, you might ask? Because I'm living out all the dirty things you wanted to do to Rory all by my 'dateless loser' self. And boy, is she really getting into it. All those thoughts of her being a Mary in bed? Put them aside, because she's certainly not virginal in my arms. I've made her tremor...I've gone down on her...made her cum a mess on the seat of my town car just by the sound of my voice. Pretty much did the same to me in turn and got me to realize that I'm sexy, well endowed, and damned proud of my body, Mr. 'You could lose ten pounds.' So yeah, what I'm trying to say here is, thanks for fucking up, Tris. It might be the best thing you've ever done in your life.  
   
Sincerely,  
   
Paris E. Gellar  
   
P.S. - And she told me she loved me too, by the way. While we were nude. On the mats of Miss Patty's. Yeah, I know you're thinking about the both of us like that. Stand down, soldier.  
   
P.P.S. - Oh dear, you've made a mess in your boxers. The drill sergeant's gonna have your head for ruining your pants, I'm sure.  
   
P.P.P.S. - Nope, can't have her back. Once you go Gilmore, you always want more. And I'm feeling pretty gluttonous for her.  
   
_Yeah, I would totally write that letter to him. Thankfully I don't believe in karmic destiny. I can go to bed thinking about him thinking about us in bed, and it's putting a smile on my face.  
   
Although if he's suffering some lower body pain from losing Rory to me, I certainly would be pleased...  


* * *

 **_ To be continued... _ **  



	20. Out of the Asylum, Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paris and Rory slowly edge themselves out of the closet with caution, first to Mr. Gellar, and then through a tense Friday night dinner with Emily and Richard.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty | Out of the Asylum, Into the Fire  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, alternating POV's and tenses, including Emily.  
 **Spoilers:** No spoilers, as this is within the famous WB December hiatuses where we had to wait until January to see how everyone was doing.  
 **Rating:** R (sexual situations, profanity, clothes tearing, female ejaculation, and a self-sexual scene where Paris is of minor age, but the description is vague)  
 **Disclaimer:** You know by now if I could've, I would have the rights to the show from Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television. But thus all I have to show for it is a healthy respect for lovely blonde Method actresses hailing from the Garden State, an urge to see incredibly passionate women make love to each other in multiple fandoms, annoyance at certain programs for making existing romances hard to follow (ahem, Otalia), and a need to be an antidote to the fics which bring down the IQ's of smart characters around near 100 IQ points when anything with a penis is nearby.

At this time note that the _Gossip Girl_ TV series didn't exist, but it's the property of Cecily von Ziegesar and Alloy Entertainment, Porsche a brand of Porsche AG, and Kiss 95.7 is a Clear Channel station, and the branding is their registered trademark. All other colleges and products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Paris and Rory slowly edge themselves out of the closet with caution, first to Mr. Gellar, and then through a tense Friday night dinner with Emily and Richard.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** You never thought I'd update this again, I'm sure. Let's just say that I have gone a few times over this chapter and found it not to my liking, so I've re-written a few parts here and there until I thought it was just right. I also had to correct some of the errors in the story on my own since betaing with me is a long process that isn't conducive to a long wait. She has reassured me though that I should be fine, and I'm going to try putting this out. Please notify me of any errors within the text, whatever they are.

My thanks to Danielle for her ever unwavering support and being there for me in my darkest days when I thought fics of quantity were winning out over quality work. As I write this she was in the hospital after her appendix came out and she had a birthday where she was pretty much ill from appendicitis that was beyond awful. I don't know if this will make it up at all, but it's a small step in making her smile, I hope. All of my other readers who have stuck with me over the years and jumped in since then, thank you.

I actually have two recommendations this time. Piccolo999's _Eternal Flame_ , which I have not reviewed but have been following very closely, offers a very different view on Paris/Rory and has been an amazing read. Words fail to express how much he has the characters down, and how he has created an original character in Alison that for once has me rooting to get Paris just a little longer rather than Rory. It's an amazing and emotional story I do recommend you read, and I really appreciate when other writers express their views of the character.

I must also recommend Danielle's newest for _The Devil Wears Prada_ , _The Art of Seeing_ , which as in the words of the Raisin Bran Crunch guy in that one commercial said, is "a mouthful of awesome!" She always manages to take a simple prompt and turn it into a masterpiece which goes way beyond the prompt and goes into the emotions of Andy and Miranda in a way that not only sparkles and titillates, but also has pure twists of emotion and heart that make it an amazing, thoughtful, and incredibly moving read that shows why long-form fics still offer the best reading experience in fanfiction.

I do have 3/4 of Chapter 21 completed as of now, however it seems to be blocked, so I'm going to take my time on it. Know that the way I'm tackling Emily in this chapter is a reflection of her honesty, and I do not intend for you to hate her, but to understand her point of view. Only in a few cases do I want you to loathe a character, and I hope that you understand by the end of this chapter why she reacts in the way she does.

If you're on FF.net and you're just now wondering why the girls are kissing after twenty-one reminders...it's femslash. Girls in loving relationships. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. But if you do, a review that is helpful is always much appreciated in the end :).  


* * *

Well, this is a new feeling for me that I've never had before.

It's just this, this emptiness inside that doesn't feel like it's in your stomach, or your heart. Instead, like my lungs have lost all their air and I've just had the wind knocked out of me. I wish there was something in my past that I could tell you about to compare this to, but I'm lost. There's no way I can describe it compared to my past. I can't even cry or feel any emotion at what happened, I just feel...blank. I'm not even petrified.

The way I imagined the situation, I thought it would go better or worse, either way where I would know fully where the situation stood. But I don't have that. It's all neutral, but in that form where it's more unsure than in a serene Swiss sense. I don't even know how to really feel. Am I angry? Betrayed? Sad or disappointed?

But am I also relieved or thankful? How can I express how I feel in a word about what happened tonight?

I think that it's impossible, and that word is still elusive or in some odd tongue in southeastern Papua New Guinea that 308 people speak. Whatever it is, the word's not here.

Staring out the window as Mom and I drive home, I can't help but think that this Friday night, where I should have had the clarity I needed to proceed with my life, was just...I don't know. I wish I had a clear answer for you as to how this night turned out, but I can't just state to you the bare facts and go from there. Hell, a pro and con list is too little to even categorize what was said, what happened, ensued.

I guess I can be thankful that not once, did any of the three of us, Mom, Par, or I, lose our cool. We were composed and put up a united front that didn't crumble under pressure. And for now, the love I have for my friend is still a relative secret, only known to six people in total.

But I don't know. I'm so unsure, so shaken. Anything my girlfriend could tell me, or Mom to reassure me, those words may not work.

The last thing I ever wanted to do was disappoint Emily Gilmore, my grandmother, a regal woman who I use as a role model. But with my confession tonight to her, I may have lost the one family member I really wanted to be in my corner.

I don't know if I've actually lost her. God, I wish I knew for sure if she accepts us or not, because...

Maybe if I go over tonight, that clarity can be found and I can know for sure how she felt. I shake my head here as I bring my thoughts back to Wednesday night, holding Paris's hand in the small dining room of Harold Gellar's downtown loft overlooking the Statehouse, waiting for his reaction after she says the words...  


* * *

 **Paris's POV  
** "I'm in love with Rory, Daddy."

I felt unsteady as I looked into the eyes of the man who first held me and delivered me after 41 hours of labor, a hellish process that brought me into the world alive and kicking hard. Staring at the same brown eyes I share with him, I clasped Rory's hand tightly as I finally came out to him. His concentration had previously been on scrubbing a dish with stubborn ziti stains that weren't coming out very easily.

The fear I had, that he would reject me was full force. It was the first time in a decade I was scared of him. Only the third time ever, with the first being my Dalmatian art canvas on his desk and the other when I kicked a soccer ball through his study's windows.

Both times he was calm and didn't even bring his hand up one inch. I expected him to this time, for his jaw to clench and that he would think I just ruined the entire family legacy.

What I expected of course, was much different from the reality. After a couple minutes of babbling on my end and watching him nod his head like he was lost as I explained why Rory was more than a best friend to me, I summed it up by confessing my love for her. Not by saying I was gay, or a lesbian. There was no need. The three of us combined in that room made up .6% of the state membership in MENSA. Of course he knew who I was.

Rory stared at me, enchanted. I thought anything would ruin that moment, just about anything. I thought this was it, that I would screw up the only parental relationship I really wanted.

Instead, I watched my father place the dish into the rack, drape the towel against the side of the sink, and smile at me, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Thank God I thought of looking nice tonight. I was going to be very disappointed if your introduced your girlfriend to me while I looked like an idiot in my Tom Brady jersey and jeans." Laughing out loud, my father came close. "So you're the little lady that's been keeping my Sweet Pea all aflutter. I knew it!"

"Daddy!" I was totally flustered and in shock. "You couldn't have known, you've never really met her before. How did you know?" I felt so very odd. "You couldn't have known."

"I heard from that Jamie boy you went out with a couple months back, said he wanted to take you out on a date back in September." He encouraged us towards the living room. "Wanted my permission and everything. Seriously, who does that anymore? I always felt so awkward about that part, giving someone permission to date you. I mean you're my daughter; it's not like you're going to bring home some odd sailor guy or one of the guys you know from the racetrack. Of course I don't feel like I need to control your life."

"Dad," I reminded him. "I just told you I'm in love with a girl. Really, you're not going to tell me I'm wrong, I'm an idiot. That I can do better with my life?"

"What do you want me to say, Paris? You're a lesbian and I don't love you anymore?"

I shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised."

"Honey," he went on. "I accept you for whoever you are. Except if you become a drug runner; then we're going to have to have a long talk about how you have fun crossing the border." I was utterly shocked at how casual he was reacting to this. I came out of the closet and he's joking around with me. Well, he usually does the joking, but hello, I'm doing naughty things with a girl! Where's the outrage?

"Surely, you have an objection." I couldn't leave knowing that his acceptance was only a front. "I need to know." He brought me close and into a loving hug as he had me look up to him as Rory watched.

"Paris, I can't help but want you happy. I'm your father, and I love you as my flesh and blood." His stern voice stirred with the emotion of a man who had stood by my side for many years. "Yes, I can admit that I'm a bit down that my side of the fence wasn't for you at all, and our sex was nothing but constant disappointment that drew you towards your friend over there. But how can I be mad at you? There's nothing you've done wrong."

"But I feel wrong, somehow." I did take in his point about being disappointed with guys and felt the need to explain further. "It's not that I hate guys though. Trust me, I'm not frustrated by them, but I just never felt that connection to them. They're not to blame."

"Oh." He felt a little stunned at how I responded. "I...I didn't mean to say that you felt for her based on guys letting you down."

"No, I understand." I sighed, letting my defenses down a bit. "Trust me, the issues isn't that they're idiots, not at all. I just don't feel an attraction to them."

"But you still hate Vance Beardsley III, right?" I laughed as we once again shared how much we loathed that boy.

"I will always hate that boy, guaranteed." I smiled a little, but I was still feeling in my Morrow mode, wanting to squeeze every bit of information out of my father.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, but I have to know." Looking down at the floor, I felt happy, but still very confused. "I mean, Dad, I just told you that I'm into girls. How can you be so blasé about this? Where's the surprise, the shock, the disappointment?"

"Sweetie," he said, reassuring me. "I'd rather you be happy with your friend than going out with some guy because it looks good on the surface. I don't want you to have to live your life thinking that by putting your mother and I first, that's the only way to get ahead." He kissed me on the forehead softly. "I know how you are, that you crave that closeness and validation. I've seen it more with Rory than I ever did with Tristan. Watching you at school events or the few times she was at the same social event as you are, there's a bond there that in the back of my mind, I couldn't place until you told me. In the end, I want you happy, not disappointed in yourself."

"But...but..." I breathed in deeply, still prepared for some kind of argument which wouldn't ever ensue. Looking at the two most important people in my life in that room, I just felt so overwhelmed by my father's instant acceptance. At the very least he should've been worried or wondering if he should still send me to Birnbaum, but there was none of that. He was more casual about my outing than Madeline. That in itself, was shocking. "You should be ranting about why I'm not going to give you grandchildren right away or they'll have to be through a test tube, or that I'm seriously screwing up my Harvard chances by dating Rory."

I felt a bit out of control trying to get some kind of reaction from him. "Please, get angry at me in some form." I don't know what was driving me to this, a need to be told I was wrong. He looked down at me, and I'm sure Rory was curious as to why I was trying to self-sabotage myself.

No matter what I said though, I was reminded of his incredible patience and concern that never wavered. I could annoy any of the booster mothers at three paces, but my father was invincible to my arguments. Sitting me down on the sofa as Rory sat to my right in a recliner, Daddy made me see that he still loved me for who I was, and who I will be.

"I can't be mad at you. There's no need to. You fell in love, and that's all that matters. Who you're in love with and why aren't for me to figure out, because only you know the real reasons. But after what you went through, first with Tristan, and then your mother, I can't blame you for trying to find a confidant in anyone, even another girl. I just want you to be happy."

"Even with Rory?" I shook my head. "You know her family history, it's not the best. Even she could admit that herself."

"Par," he demanded. "Stop this, now. Stop trying to make me hate you, hate your friend, because I can't." He wrinkled his forehead and put his fingers to his temples. "What has that _meshungina_ done to you, seriously?"

"I just...I'm, um, I don't know." My voice was unsteady as I looked towards my girlfriend, still feeling so unsure of myself. "I'm not looking for an opportunity to get out of this, not at all. I just want this to be true."

"Sweetie, when she was born and what her mother's age is are of no concern to me at all. She's smart, driven, beautiful and kind, and nothing that the society mavens could say about this fine young lady should ever concern you two." His firm tone was kind with praise for the both of us as he tried to obliterate all negative thoughts from my psyche. "I highly approve of your girlfriend. I was actually saddened when I heard of her mother fleeing to Stars Hollow away from the corrupting influences of high society, because in a time where we all could have helped Lorelai out, we all failed. I still can't forgive some of my former friends for blacking her out when she needed that help the most."

Rory tried to reason with him that what happened was inevitable. "Mr. Gellar, it's OK. What happened with my mother and I, it probably would have happened sooner or later. You don't have to take the bullet for us."

"I know. But if there's one thing I regret, it's that you and Paris didn't meet sooner. You were both born within two months of each other and that should've been enough to start an early friendship. I even thought before she left that you and Paris would be friends in the sandbox. But I guess it wasn't meant to be at that time." He shook his head as I looked up at him, awed at his optimism that if Rory had stayed in Hartford we'd have been best friends way back in '85.

"Does it matter though? If I met her in 1990, 1995, whenever, Dad, I don't care. We made up for lost time and...I can't be without her anymore." I sighed lovingly, feeling so overwhelmed by what I felt for her in my heart, going on to explain the attraction further and how we came together. He was attentive, enjoying the story of how we came together, seeing the parallels between Rory and the loves of his life and explaining that my romantic side was always there, but it was hidden behind a shield due to how boys treated me, along with my mother, and how great it was that Rory was the one pushing me out of my shell. Recounting the building of our love, I felt less shy as time went on, and finally getting over that he wasn't going to condemn us, it turned out that Rory found my father to be just as loving and wonderful to me as she had expected. We both drew from his experiences and war stories of failed relationships, hoping that our bond would survive all.

By the end of the evening, coming out to my first parent ended up being...fun. Yes, I know usually a term like that wouldn't be used, but with my father, it was. Though the whole 'yes, we had sex, and I was safe' talk? Something I do not want to share again for a very, very long time! Thankfully, certain terms never entered into the vernacular of the conversation. There is one thing I never want to picture, and that is Harold Gellar talking to me, his daughter, about dental dams. No need for that!

Despite my father's acceptance, all three of us know that Sharon is going to be the linchpin in everything as far as a reaction. No matter what Rory's grandparents might say about us, we have to hold hope that my mother accepts us in some way. Talking to my father, I didn't get the sense that acceptance was coming.

"I would just go in with a clear mind, sweetie. Don't confront her, don't be stern, and don't let her get to you. She wants you to not be focused so she'll try to get you mad. Don't let that happen, and just stay cool." I'm thankful for that advice, and hopefully it goes well. I was happy for my dad's simple and wholehearted acceptance, and that both of us have one parent we can trust to keep this a secret for now. He loves me, he likes Rory, and that's all that matters to me for now.

Of course, if I could have Richard and Emily also enjoy me as Rory's romantic partner, I'd love that too. But that had to be a little more carefully thought out and planned...  


* * *

** Rory's POV **

****You know that regret you feel the moment you walk in the door into a situation you didn't think would get to you so much?

That was me at about 4:30 this afternoon as Grandma's maid opened the door for us, while Paris held onto the strap of her bag tightly, nervous.

"I hope we both know what we're doing," she said forcefully, and I could tell the stress was getting to her.

 _Great_ , I thought to myself. _Throw some doubts into my mind before we see Grandma._

 __Going into Wednesday, I was petrified to say anything about our relationship to anyone but Paris's father. We were both scared of him and a bit fearful that he would think of me as on par with my mother, a chip off the old block as far as scandal.

The surprise that he was completely accepting of me took me out of my element, though. Something like this, I'd usually pro and con an entire composition book on until I was sure everything in my being knew I was making the right decision. I would decide with a clear and sound mind, and the both of us would go in fully prepared for anything.

Damn you, Howard Gellar. Seriously, why do you have to be so Daddy Warbucks to your offspring and spoil her with such a positive reaction to her falling in love with me? Really, putting in all these fluffy thoughts...

So a long story short, Paris drove me home, and I thought through the ride about how I didn't want to hide from my grandparents any longer. Over the last week or so, I had these thoughts that I owed it to them that they should know, that they had to. In my dreams I replayed a situation where someone eavesdropped on Madeline and found out about us, and let Grandma know as soon as they could. A speech of shame and embarrassment from her followed, along with me being called a disappointment.

I didn't want them to find out from someone else. I didn't even want a **rumor** that we were a couple to reach them. I sighed as I looked down at my lap, and Paris touched my arm.

"Something the matter?" Her voice, soft and full of concern. I thought of lying and brushing it off as if it was nothing, but how could I? I promised transparency to her the moment I spilled about Dean and his cheating heart. How could I lie about this?

"I'm...uh." I felt the words form slowly. "Would you hate me if...if I, um, invited you to dinner on Friday night? With my grandparents?" I gulped, ready for the rejection and for her to yell at me for being rash.

She didn't. Instead, she slowed her speed and slid into the far right lane of traffic, doing what she could to focus on both me and the road.

"You want to come out to them?" I thought I heard a hint of apprehension in her voice. Nodding, I felt my heart heavy as I explained why.

"I can't look into my grandpa's eyes and lie to him. Just the last two weeks, I haven't had to say anything. But I know I will soon. Ever since we were able to become close since Chilton came into play, I just can't see being dishonest with him. After all, without him, Harvard Is just a distant dream, and you and I would have been in our solitary beings, closed in and walled up." I felt ready to cry, hating to have to admit that the reaction of my grandfather meant so much more to me than anyone else.

Paris didn't want to leave one stone unturned, however.

"What about Emily?"

I nodded. "Frankly, I'm petrified of coming out to her, honest to God. I know she's so conservative and closed-minded, very traditional. But I don't want to lie to her either, because she loves me as her granddaughter. She has hopes and dreams for me, and if I don't say anything..." I was silent. I knew the one place I didn't want her to find out my sexual orientation, and that was the minute before she sprung one of Hartford's infamous meet market parties on me. Who wants to tell that woman before she shoves you out to the lions you're not even close to thinking about sharing a bed with anything in a tuxedo?

"You're saying then, that you really would rather not have her find out you like me when she's trying to hook you up with Vance Beardsley IV?"

"Hey, that's your stalker!" I rolled my eyes at her. "Don't you dare try to push that guy on me!"

"What if I pushed him towards you and you pushed him onto the Metro-North tracks?"

Groaning, I felt like whapping her on the head. "Oh, Paris. What would I do without your Wednesday Addams-like cracks in my life?"

"It'd be a lot less interesting, for sure." She brought herself back towards the topic at hand. "But about Emily and Richard. You're right, we have to say something to them, and I'm ready to be at your side. We're going to have to do this together, and the sooner, the better. I don't know how they're going to react, but if we make it clear how solid we are, there's a chance."

She clarified how we needed to go into that house on Friday night. "We don't joke about it, and we don't joke about guys at their expense. It has to be clear that we've had eyes only for each other for the last few months and that we've been considering this since at least July to ourselves. If we go in there and make them think on any aspect that we're not serious about being a same-sex couple, the support won't be there."

"Does this mean my mom should be on her best behavior?" I asked.

"Best is putting it lightly, dear." Her voice was steady and firm. "As much as she's joked about us publicizing our relationship, this isn't _The Birdcage_. She cracks wise and you know our credibility is shot. I know she seriously is rooting for us, and we need to make it clear to her that she needs to be supportive, not glib. Just one aside and I'm afraid that Emily will not be amused."

"She won't even crack a smile. I'm less afraid of Grandpa, I think he'll accept. But Grandma..." I sighed, looking up at the roof of the car. "Oh my God. She thought she was done with this." I felt Paris's hand wrap around mine to show her support. "This is...I don't know."

"Rory, it has to work out. Just don't stress about it, and walk on tenterhooks around her. You have to believe that what you're doing is right."

"I hope so." I still felt the courage to reveal myself to them, but deep inside my mind I felt like I was about to enter a minefield. Looking out the window, I felt Paris keep her hand on mine for the rest of the drive down to the Hollow, a sign of the bond we've begun to build outside of romance. Nothing had to be said or done, just her next to me enough to sweep away my doubts.

The next evening, we talked to Mom about everything, what we wanted to do. At first she was ready to joke about it, until the both of us made it clear that for tonight she should stay serious and be ready to fight for us. There was some debate from her, thoughts that I was moving faster than we originally planned, that I might not be ready to inch away from the safety of my wardrobe. But if Paris could do so with her father, I had to with those that meant just as much to me as that man does to my girlfriend. I didn't abandon her in my time of need, and I needed all that strength and firm will she exuded to guide me to make Emily see that I was the same little girl she always knew, except she fell for someone unexpected.

Mom's words to me as I went to bed last night seem as apt now as they did when they were said.

"Kiddo?"

"Yeah, Mom?"

Her eyes shining proudly, she took in a breath. "You're going through a trial by fire with what you're doing. If you can go up to your grandmother, look her in the eye and just be strong about how close you are with Paris and that her disapproval won't stop you, you're braver than I ever was when I told her I was having you."

I felt a bit overwhelmed by that declaration, and shrugged at exactly the impact of what I was doing. "Mom, I'm telling her I'm a lesbian. Nothing compares to telling her you're pregnant at sixteen."

"You're sure about that?" She shook her head. "What you're going to tell them tomorrow night is far and away something that won't be easy at all. There were options I had when I told them the news. This...this is huge. Saying you love Paris, a woman, to them. I mean, Christopher, we had that history and all that going on. But I just..." She watched me as I felt the impact hit that not only was I saying something, but I may be about to shut plenty of doors with my romance. No way is some religious organization going to offer me a scholarship, for instance. And I can forget any offers of money from places that prefer the 'girl next door' image.

Yet, even with all these doubts, my heart and my morals would always win out over what everyone else thought. Ignoring everyone who snickered at me at Stars Hollow schools and those at Chilton who keep calling me Mary, I got off to them. I let it drive me further, push it farther. Whoever was in fourth place in the academic standings, I don't give a fuck about.

Sorry to be so cold, but I don't. It's Brad, Paris, and I. Everyone else is background noise to me when it comes to the books, and I only compete with those two. It's a spirited rivalry, and if someone happens to bump in, I can count on those other two to push themselves farther to keep me in the race.

"Mom. It's decided. I don't care what they say, but I have to do this for my own good. I can't look them in the eye and lie to them. Especially not Grandpa. If Paris is the thing that pushes me out of their lives...I'll have to cope. But first, I focus on spitting it out." I voiced exactly why I needed to say something. "I don't want them to find out from somebody else. I also get this feeling that if Mrs. Gellar finds out before them, it's not going to be pretty. I want to be the one to tell them, with Paris's hand in mine, expressing how committed I am to see this through."

With finality, I faced her down from trying to talk me out of it. "It's going to be done, and if she tries to blame you for my behavior, I promise you that you will be defended. This was my will and desire and even if you've accepted it, I can't lay the burden on you, Mom. I knew what I was getting into before I confessed, so it's up to me to learn from my decisions."

I felt spirited last night and through most of today with the confidence that I've seemed to find out of nowhere. I don't know what it was that made me assertive, whether it was Sharon's mind games with us Saturday night or my change from timid around Francie to be feisty around her. She hasn't gotten through anything lately and I can tell she's getting ready for a fight on the gay/straight alliance. I know her thoughts right now are drifting towards thinking she'll expose me, but the evidence I've built up of her hate of groups that steal the thunder from traditional sororities like hers might be enough to knock her off from her pedestal.

There's something I'll admit though. It's very weird seeing Brad and Madeline flirt subtlety in front of us, the knowledge that they're doing the same secret romance dance at school like us strangely odd. That Madeline is the one keeping mum takes it to a different level. She not only has to hide us, but herself from scrutiny. I could never imagine the stress she's going through to keep her life secret after being outspoken and open for so long.

Not to mention that biology class? The most awkward time of day. Watching Louise burn into us across the room as the four of us partner up on a project, we're making her feel sort of like an outsider, through no fault of her own. Madeline seems to be giving her a cold shoulder that she doesn't deserve, and though I understand her sudden streak of independence, she shouldn't be leaving Louise in the cold like that. Not that we're doing too much better ourselves, but it's different with Madeline as far as Louise.

I watched her a few times this week, and she seemed a bit isolated, afraid. As if her sexuality can no longer cover over the other issues she buries under the popular image she maintains. She's becoming withdrawn from us, and though I want to say something, in part Louise is the one who needs to ask for help from us. When I tried to approach her one afternoon to ask her for an article about trends, her voice was not at all like the deep purr I've gotten used to over the last two years, and she seemed angry at me.

"I really don't give a damn, Gilmore, to be honest," she seethed out. "Pass it on to somebody else."

"Louise, you haven't written an article in about a month, you need to do something." I sighed, trying to explain I was trying to have her back. "Adding in small notes to syndicated articles is not developing your writing skills."

"So what? The article's half-done already. All I have to do is add a few local mall names and there you go, instant article."

"Ms. Peters isn't pleased though," I explained. "Honestly, if Paris and I weren't running the paper, you'd have been off months ago. Please, Louise, do something, write something."

"Why should I?" Louise scoffed, tossing back her hair, seeming to hiss at me. "I write for shit and my ideas are junk in student gov, right?" She pushed towards me and I felt intimidated while she tried to push me away from prying.

"Louise, we've never said that!"

"I know, because you can't swear; you're a good little girl." She began to throw her bag over her shoulder, deciding to leave early. "Stop butting in on the way I live my life, because it's none of your business. I'm fine."

"Louise--"

"I said, shut up. I'm getting tired of this." Staring me down, I felt her anger and annoyance for being told what to do. It was like she didn't care anymore or was giving up, ready to live as a trophy wife. God, I didn't want that. I could see how lost she was, that she was covering for something. She left the newsroom and I decided not to tell Paris about the confrontation because she had enough on her mind. Madeline felt the same way, and though we discussed Louise's sour mood throughout the week, we never probed beyond the top layer. We couldn't interfere, and I don't know that we want to. Whatever has Louise in a dark mood, I hope it doesn't take her long to deal with it.

I tried to tune out all of those negative vibes going around throughout the rest of the week, thankful for the times Paris and I could be alone and be affectionate. Brad felt a little less leery around us too, actually joining us at the table when Louise went off-campus for her lunch, which was always convoluted as there are no restaurants or fast food places within a 1/2 mile of the campus. Things were going well between the four of us, and though we couldn't talk about our relationships at all, nothing else could be stopped. Though Paris still directed a few good-spirited jibes in Brad's direction, the support he was showing for us was changing her opinion of him and she even laughed at a few of his jokes and was glad to see him so calm and less shaky in front of her. So school was going pretty much well, except for Louise.

Still, that big picture, dinner with the grandparents, weighted down on the both of us both yesterday and today. We talked about it on the rides to and from school and at my house, the both of us nervous and trying to figure out how to break the news to them in a casual and calm sense. We discussed everything, down to how we would dress and come in, and we even intentionally held back on doing some schoolwork in order to set up the premise of inviting her for dinner. We were planning on making it as comfortable for everyone as it could possibly be, something where they could see us together and hopefully agree that we did make a good couple. We had work ahead of us to further everything, including finding a way for Paris to sneak away from her mother for the night. Which Madeline volunteered to do for us before she left the _Franklin_ Thursday afternoon.

"You're going to help me choose clothes," she cheerfully came up with. "I mean, without Louise I have nothing but a mirror or some paid clerk to help me out. Although, you're not really going to be there, so I'll still have to go with the mirror so it's a moot point and you're just using me for an excuse to attend dinner with Rory, but you know--"

"Madeline, I get it. Trust me," Paris said calmly, shaking her head. "Thanks for covering for the both of us."

"Hey, you're my best buddies, my gals, my ladies. What would I do without you both?" She giggled, hugging Paris and wishing us both luck with everything.

But not before Paris decided to bring out the claws and get just a bit of revenge on Brad for having to hear about his sexual exploits.

"By the way, Mads, is Brad doing anything tomorrow night?"

"Um, I'm not sure? Why?"

"Have him tag along," she said non-chalantly. She knew it was something Brad would do, just because he was young and didn't know that helping his girlfriend shop would pretty much consist of him carrying fifteen bags down the atrium from one end to the other. I told her she was evil when Madeline left, but in her own unique way, she just shrugged it off.

"Hey, the guy needs to learn sooner or later."

"What, he needs to take andro to carry Madeline's stuff?"

"Well, I can't tease him anymore, so I might as well outsource it in any way possible." She got back to work after giving me a hand touch, and I could only just shrug and remember that the Paris I knew still had that awesome mean streak inside of her. I shook my head in her direction as she went to talk to one of our photographers.

Everything was going well as we came up to the door. We had a free study project from Dr. Eure to finish by next Wednesday, giving us the excuse we needed to study. Paris had a change of clothes and shoes in her bag, and I had those things in my bedroom at the mansion. With Paris covered, Lorelai appraised and everything taken care of, the maid greeted us as we came into the house, as Paris for the first time felt at ill ease wearing her traditional blazer instead of the sweater for that day of school. Our saddle shoes clacked against the ground, the both of us feeling suddenly nervous about what we were doing. We both kept our heads up and looked straight ahead, trying to show this united front we hoped would convince Grandma and Grandpa that nothing was going to stop us.

We were brought into the living room, where Grandma sat looking over lists for a holiday event to take place over the next couple weeks. The maid, hoping not to get fired tried to softly get her attention.

"Mrs. Gilmore, your granddaughter and her friend are here to study before dinner together." Emily looked up from her paperwork, and smiled towards the both of us. My stomach felt in knots facing up to the woman with my girlfriend for the first time in a non-scholastic sense.

"Girls, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"We have some work to go over in life sciences and Paris decided to get a jump on the work," I responded. "I hope that you don't mind, but it seemed not prudent to drive home to study and then come back here after only a couple hours."

Paris rationalized her reasoning further. "I have to keep an eye on my gas usage. Up to $1.75, you know? I don't know what I'm going to do when it bumps over $2.10." She laughed nervously.

"Perfectly understandable, I like your thinking, Paris." She got up to take us both in. "I assume you'd like to use Rory's room to have full concentration on the topic?"

I nodded my head, and then lead into the trigger point for the evening. "If you wouldn't mind setting another place, Paris wouldn't mind staying over to eat with us tonight. I know how you are about guests, and--"

"Nonsense, young lady! Of course you can invite Paris, anytime. She's a wonderful young woman and it would be rude to not allow her to share in dinner." The regal woman smiled at my girlfriend. "I don't know why you haven't invited her here before to begin with."

"Actually, to be honest we haven't exactly been on the best of terms," Paris explained. "But we're becoming closer, so Rory felt comfortable enough to invite me."

"I'm glad. You're from one of Hartford's finest families and I enjoy that you two are becoming such close friends." She brought her attention to the maid. "Set another place for Ms. Gellar, next to Rory, Doreen." Grandma then asked if there was anything that we needed to snack or drink while we studied.

"Do you have Ty Nant?" Paris asked, while I was confused a bit since I didn't know what she was asking.

"Of course. Poured into a glass?"

"Bottle's fine." She noticed my confusion. "It's a spring water from Wales."

"Oh, right. I knew that." OK, I didn't. "Me too, I guess, and a banana."

"I'll have her bring it up to you while we go up." Grandma then asked Paris if she needed something to eat, and she responded by asking for some vanilla wafers. It wasn't really much of a conversation, but I held out hope that since they were talking warmly, that everything would end up well in the end. I still felt a bit stupid about not knowing what that water brand was, though. I couldn't understand the conversation since they were talking about the DAR and the country club, and all I could do was smile and nod. I felt a bit uncomfortable being lost to something with my own girlfriend, but I had to understand. My life was different from hers. She enjoyed things like that, and talking to Emily about it. I just read a book quietly, waiting to go upstairs so we could study. My mind was completely empty, and I felt uncomfortable.

But I had to go through with this. No matter what, I had to. There wasn't going to be any way that I was going to have my grandfather be just as leery about Paris as he was about Dean. I think that was the biggest sign of all that he and I would never work out, that Dean was some idiot gearhead who laughed at his idea of 'tinkering', and that he knew better.

At least I know if I drove a car my grandpa built, I'd be safe in it.

Eventually, we were able to get upstairs, and into my bedroom, which I really would have rather not been in at first, what with all of the boy band posters mixed with a sterile feel. The maid and Emily went up with us, and I could only hope Paris was going to be ready to mock me for my so-called taste in music.

When I opened up the door though, I was surprised to see all of the signs _Tiger Beat_ had invaded my room had disappeared.

"What the--"

The posters were completely gone, replaced with framed neutral nature art instead. The room was still extremely pink and so not me, but any sign that my grandparents assumed my radio dial was permanently pasted to Kiss 95.7 had disappeared. I breathed a sigh of relief looking at the striped wallpaper that finally, in some sort of way, the family interior decorator got me and what I liked.

"Do you like it?" Grandma questioned. "I figured that you're eighteen and you've probably outgrown those bands now. I hear that they're singing suggestive lyrics anyways, so it was probably best to take them down before you went down a road to ruin."

I rolled my eyes (thankfully not towards her) as she explained it was time for a change and I said that I really did love how the room looked now. No longer would Joey Fatone haunt me when I had to sleep here, and Paris and I walked in the room as Grandma looked proud at her well-planned handiwork. I relaxed as I sat down on the bed, while Paris tossed her bag next to the door as she thanked Emily for her hospitality.

"You need to eat something kosher, right?" Paris looked at her, a bit puzzled. "I can make whatever you want. I was planning a chicken casserole, but if you want me to have the chef make something different--"

"No need, chicken is fine," Paris said, shrugging. "I don't want to be an inconvenience to anyone."

"If you're sure."

"I am," she stated firmly. "We need to study, Mrs. Gilmore, so if you won't mind can you please tell the staff not to disturb us for the next two hours?"

"Certainly," she replied as she began to back out of the room. "I'll see you both at seven o'clock, dressed and ready."

"Of course, Grandma," I replied.

"Later, ladies." She closed the door behind her, and Paris moved towards it to slide the lock closed after about 45 seconds. She let out a long and calming breath, grabbing the blue glass bottle of Welsh water and taking a lengthy sip from it. She swallowed it slowly and let the carbonation of the liquid go through her. I watched as she looked at me and shook her head, feeling a bit stressed out from the many questions from Grandma.

"I'm so sorry you had to sit through that," she said, surprising me.

I tried to show it wasn't that big of a hassle. "It's OK, Paris. You and my grandmother have things to talk about beyond pumpkin festivals, and if you have to, I understand." She sat down on the bed next to me, pushing her shoes off and unbuttoning her blazer.

"I know, but that stuff doesn't interest **you**." She took my hand and smiled. "I saw how uncomfortable you were when she said 'oh, I wish Rory would do this', 'Rory would do that', 'I'm disappointed that she's so singular', and those kinds of things. You're so insulated and solitary, and here we are talking about how she wishes you were playing tennis or participating in a Christmas fundraiser."

"I'm used to it though," I argued. "It's a part of the compact we have. I get the money for schooling, and then I get the third degree on Friday nights. I get my time with Grandpa and all is well." I knew my place in the world, that I couldn't help some things, like my tuition. I hated the whole agreement from the beginning, but I wasn't going to tell anyone because compared to many others, I have it light. I'm very lucky to be going to school the way I am, with the arrangement I have, and I didn't want anything to change. I never understood why Paris could be so commanding about some things, but intimate about others, and this conversation was one of them.

"I hate seeing you left out, though." She pushed herself closer to me, giving me an intense look and taking me in. "I know I didn't treat you well for a long time, and I don't blame you for showing disinterest in me talking about tablecloth patterns that really, I could care less about."

"I'm not mad. Really. I know how you have to talk to adults here, so I understand." I began to feel a bit aggravated, like the feeling that I had when Dean would get in my way. "Paris, stop worrying about me. I'm a big girl and I can live with the things you have to do to get by in this world." I felt ready to get up and change in the private bathroom, a little annoyed by having to think about all of this stuff when I didn't want to.

But I was surprised that instead of switching on her anger, she moved closer, to caress my cheek and let her fingers linger along my jawline. She saw the anger lines forming across my forehead, the stress I felt every time I entered this house. Of all these achievements that were supposed to be those of my mother's weighing down on me instead. I was supposed to carry on the legacy, to have all this glory on my shoulders. I couldn't say anything though, because I was nice, and it was wrong to question things as they were.

I couldn't help but think about how caring of a girlfriend Paris was in that moment. She let me vent and didn't say a word, just letting her hand brush across my skin and trying to calm me down through just her touch. I wanted to say more, to rant about how I knew Yale would be brought up again, but all that tension melted away as her other hand slid to the top of my sweater to unbutton it. She whispered softly, as if trying to keep things intimate between us within the largeness of the bedroom.

"This doesn't feel like your bed," she commented. "It's too soft, too plump, and not right. I feel like I'm going to slide off it." I didn't know where she was leading, but I went along with her, totally infatuated. "I really don't like this room."

"It's good enough," I said. I didn't want to insult my grandmother for her decorating taste. Finishing with my sweater, she moved her free hand down.

"It isn't you," she said. "You're all organized, yet a little bit messy. A desk filled with checklists, a bulletin board packed with notes and Harvard pennants, newspaper clippings, an awkwardly strung home network where the Ethernet cable comes up from the floor instead of an outlet because Luke is no IT guy." She overtook me. "Loads and loads of books, hardcovers mixed with softies picked up from all over the place, on shelves salvaged or bought on the cheap. A bed, not the best, not the worst, but just right in the middle, with a couple blankets created from your mother's own hand. Colonel Clucker, other various stuffed animals, clutter all over the place." I warmed, feeling her words weigh down on me heavily. "The creaky old window which I just got barely open but still has many years of use in it, along with the pockets of clutter all over the place. That's your room. Not this...this sterile set piece from some hospital drama."

"Not everything can be like my room," I said, trying to brush off her complaints. "What does it matter?"

"It matters to me because you love familiarity. The path to Luke's, interacting with people, the way you study or plan a route from locker to classroom. I don't mean to offend, but you're not the girl who's supposed to be in this room. Right now, you look uncomfortable and wary, even scared."

"I...I'm not." There I was trying to avert her from seeing into the nervousness I was feeling, the fears building up inside of me. Of the way Grandma looked at me, and how impressed she seemed to be that I was inviting not Paris, my girlfriend and lover, but Paris, my peer, a step into the world of society. I was internally feeling unsure of myself, the lessons of Wednesday night at Mr. Gellar's seeming not to apply in this setting.

She brushed her hand across my leg, letting her open hand take in the unfamiliar texture. "It took you so long to feel comfortable in the uniform, finally. That you didn't have to be a bluehose in the literal sense of the word, and you could be yourself within it. I saw you today at Luke's, and it was a stark contrast." Her nails scratched across the nylon. "I mean, I don't know how many times a dream that I had would have me somehow peeling these off, or making love to you while you wore them. But I see you in the full uniform today and all I can think is, I want the real Rory again. I don't want this shell, this girl who wears these things in order to suffice her grandparents."

"Paris..." I struggled to make sense of her words as I took them in. They were so overpowering, the tightness of the week since our last encounter in Chilton's darkroom coming to a head. The unease that I felt coming out to her father clouding out the thought on Wednesday that the sight of her wearing the early Hanukah gift from her father of a green Celtics clover baseball cap made her look so cute, and that she didn't take it off. Or last night, when she came to the house and her first words whispered to me were 'I got a touch-up back In Hartford before I came back here. I really wish you could join me once.' The touch-up being a new tan that brought out her freckles and made her golden hair shine even more in my eyes.

I held back, because I was scared. Of myself. How I wanted to show I was serious about this relationship, but instead of showing warmth I wanted to show off only companionship. I had blocked out all sexual thoughts of her over the last two days, not wanting Harold to think we were just experimenting, that we were truly together for much more than the carnal aspect of things. That we both understood each other intellectually and in a friendly manner, and that we built up our love through passionate debate.

I just stripped it down to the bareness for the sake of trying to be a couple, but in just that base sense.

She brushed a finger across my lips, and I felt her weight push me onto the bed, while her other hand slid up into my skirt. "You're not the future Gilmore or Hayden heiress to me; you're just Rory, from Stars Hollow. That's the girl I love, the one who really wanted to ditch on debutante night or have those lame birthday parties Emily throws held at Chuck E. Cheese instead. The one who can't hit a fucking golf ball to save her life and pretty much insulated the Blue Demons into last place in the 2000-01 season." She brought her hand down to unbutton my blouse, and I felt a lump form in my throat. "I know you must think I need to be impressed or shown that the great Emily and Richard Gilmore's approval must be needed to move things along, to feel accepted, but it shouldn't. Just be yourself for me, please." Oh God, I was starting to feel tight and hemmed in.

"Hon...studying, free topic." I looked towards our bags containing our materials trying to bring things back on track. But I don't think it was going to happen. "We need to get to work."

Fingers moving up my legs, closer inside. "It was a convenient excuse. That's all it served. I can spit out free topics like that in my sleep. Though I really haven't lately." She kissed me, slowly, the heat radiating from her as this seductive side of her came out of such a long embargo. "Sleep has been more dreaming about you using those lips of yours to mark every bit of my body, inside and out." Another kiss, and buttons come apart on my blouse. "I want you so badly, Gilmore."

"Not here..." I argued, trying to make her see the light, but her dark side was in full force. The other fingers pushed closer to my core...

"Come apart for me," she beckoned. "Forget everything, focus on me. Why we're here. What we want to show them."

"I...I..." I felt warm and damp, my eyes dilating as she overwhelmed me. I tried to resist, not give in to her. The husky tone of her voice, the one that got me off in the towncar, ringing through my ears. My blouse undone, tossed carelessly onto the ground below, and then the skirt quickly pushed off, deftly undone in haste.

Then, my bra. She kissed hard against my neck, renewing the hidden marks that would have been gone by next Monday and pushing them off even further from fading. She raked her hands across my breasts, her fingers caressing around my nipples, making them erect and hard, my breath quickening as the thoughts of not doing anything in this forbidden room begin to dissipate.

"Wha--what are you doing to me?!" I can't say much, as I'm overwhelmed by her giving me so much attention. I'm in complete shock, feeling her push her leg against me, and then one of her hands against my pussy.

Two layers between her and I. Oh God. "Paris...baby..."

"If I can help it, you'll never wear blue hose to school ever again. Every time I dream of you now, it's of them off. Either by a quick stripping, being torn right off of you," she pushes two fingers against my cleft. "Or of them being ruined."

 _Oh fuck._ I knew what she was talking about, exactly. The thing I find so odd about myself, how wet I get. She kinks on it like I do about her voice.

Or mine. There's no need to admit she loves to hear innocent ol' me drop an f-bomb in the middle of something. It's like...damn. There's no Disney heroine that has a female antagonist that wants her sexually or anything. Damned fairy tales!

She wanted me to ruin my hose. And she went into detail about why.

"I love taking you bare without anything on, but I especially enjoyed it that first night in my bed." The pink floral cover below, seeming to bathe the room in innocence, was instead the surface for us to push along. "Your leg pushing between my legs, up and down, a slow movement, then furious, you brought me off in a way I can't forget, that friction against me, just transferring that sexual energy coursing through my body. When you finished, I was so fucking exhausted, like I couldn't move from that spot. I was so taken by you, the way you swept in and took that horrible weekend with those people and made me completely forget about it."

She seemed to undo her clothes in a speed that I never associated with her. She usually carefully took everything off, but she went on talking as her shirt came off, then her skirt. Undoing her tightly braided hair, she soothed me further, going on about how she feels like I'm in her corner now, that even the smallest touch turns her on, and even how she talked to Madeline and how she used that to get Brad off. "I know I don't want to think about the effect, but...I got a guy hard. Just from the fact that I was talking about us, making out, to a friend and he heard us having that conversation and had the guts to tell her that he was ready for a second round. I never knew how hot I am. I didn't think I was hot."

"You are hot," I confirmed, watching her above me in her underwear. Damn, she looked so delicious in a pink bra and boyshorts. "Paris, you've always been sexy, but you just kept so shielded."

"I know I am, but I just never knew how to bring it out." She kissed me, letting herself linger in my taste as she let her fingers drift down to the band of the hose. "Just think about it though, Brad, in that room, listening to Madeline's conversation and stroking his cock hard so he can make her happy. First thought, I want to burn my eyes. Second thought, this is worth it. We have chemistry to other people, we're perfect. People think about us and wish they could be us." I tightened at the image of our two friends in that bedroom, talking about us, and Paris being extremely dirty talking to Maddy. She shared with her, on her own level, knowing she would understand.

The ache built on, her eyes weighing down on me as she took me in, brushing stray hair away from my face. Her hand moved to stoke my fire, and my cheeks burned as she let her fingers make a small indent right where my clit was.

She didn't need to look to find it. One swipe and my teeth clenched as I held out a swear word and reduced it to 'fudge'.

Even though I was involuntary, it was a bad idea. She growled at me.

"Lose control, Ror." I breathed in, feeling stressed.

"Grandma, downstairs," I reminded.

Her nail made a tiny little tear in the hosiery, just enough to let the sliver on top in to brush the soft cotton of the panties against me. The slight sound startled me, my heart hammering hard against my chest as I clenched from her movements.

"Me, here." She pushed in her leg, moving her hand to cup my ass. "Stop thinking about her. I'm here. Your Par-Bear is in heat for you." Her leg slid up along my slit. She let her hands wander my rear, pushing me into the right position for her to get me off. I wanted this, but Grandma, oh God.

"I understand, but we're one floor down from her...Par..." I was in that limbo between trying to follow my morals and wanting to make love to my girlfriend, and my stomach clenched as I tried to argue the consequences. I slowly pushed her off, explaining why it wasn't time. "I'd love to, but we'd need a shower after we made love."

"Your point being?" Paris didn't understand. "As far as I remember, I'm not wearing Old Spice." She moved her hands up, starting to realize that she might not be able to fulfill one of her fantasies. I could tell from the tone of her voice that she wasn't happy with me. "No one is going to notice." She began to pull away from me and turn away, and I could sense that I said the wrong thing.

"My mom couldn't get a guy past Emily though," I argued, remembering the stories in the past of her teenage exploits. "She noticed one wrinkle in her Hillside skirt, one wrinkle! She tried to argue that she had gym class that day, but Emily just had this laser-focused way of knowing that Lorelai somehow ended up in a broom closet because of the smell of Spic and Span!" I covered up with the blanket, trying to hide from her. I expected her to feel angered and disappointed that I wasn't in the mood I'd usually be in. I wanted to have sex with her, but I was paranoid enough about Grandma.

Her back was turned to me. I wanted to just wrap around her and say that it was OK to get me all riled up, but I couldn't say a word. I was scared, freaking out, and I was letting paranoia get to me.

The thing about me is that before Paris came along, I always felt so unattractive, and there was something about being wooed that got to me much more than organic romance, things that just happened. Dean of course was horrible about that, and more often than not I always was more about his planned overtures than I was about just making out for no reason at all.

That was what Paris was trying to spark with me, and I was ruining it. I knew she was a bit inexperienced in the proper way to bring us into a mood, but this was perfect. We had two hours in a room alone to ourselves, and I was letting just one little fact get in our way.

The difference in our perfumes. Something that usually wasn't brought to the forefront at all, but in a situation like this, would be noticed. I was hung up on a stupid thing like perfume. Comparing my $10 lilac body spray to Par's $100 per ounce vanilla scent, you can't hide the fact that they're mixing together, along with our bare scents. Paris's is strong because of her active glands, and she does occasionally soak through a shirt.

Yes, this is how much my brain stunts my want of sex; it reminds me of all the factors that could be discovered later on. I was letting it kill the sensual atmosphere Par had unexpectedly built up, and for what? Studying?

I had reduced her monologue about the coldness of the space we were in to show that I was just as icy because of the fear of outside appearances. I took what was a very heartfelt and beautiful thing and took all the sails away from it.

 _What am I doing?_ I thought to myself. I felt guilt and sadness, and though I couldn't see it, I knew Paris was probably frowning and feeling guilt for using an opportunity to be alone to show how much she loved me.

 _I'm doing exactly what Dean used to do to me; I'm leaving her cold_ , I thought, hopeful that I hadn't done anything hurtful.

Then I heard her choke back a sob, something I didn't even hear her do in the bathroom last week because she went right into trying to convince me Jamie wasn't there on her invitation.

Oh God, that broke my heart. I couldn't stand what I was doing to her, so I moved towards her, placing my left hand on her arm, hoping she wouldn't push me away. I had a lot of making up to do, obviously.

"Hey, you OK?" She stayed silent and stern, trying to keep her mood. "Baby girl, I'm so sorry." Hopefully the nickname would warm her back up.

But it didn't. Not right away. She truly felt brushed off to the side, hurt that I wouldn't want to do anything with her. She kept her back to me, feeling as if she was to blame.

"I knew I shouldn't have pushed," she said. "All I want to do is build things with you, but maybe we are going too fast. I wasn't thinking, and..." Another sob. "You're right. What if Emily does walk in?"

"Paris--"

"I mean God forbid you have to stay the paragon of asexuality, having nary a thought about love. This is why I hope to God you never have a huge blow-up with your mom and have to live your life in Hartford." Paris's voice was shaky, and I knew I had hurt her badly without expecting it. "Why should you have to continually pay penance for being born, for fucking existing? I can understand why you're brushing me off here, because this room, this way of being...it sucks the very life out of you." I knew now why she was in such an amorous mood. "I know you're like your mother in so many respects, but you don't deserve this, Rory. You should not have to continually pay the penalty, to take a code of celibacy when it comes to Emily. I feel like..."

I nudged her to turn around, hoping to see her eye to eye. When she shifted to face me, I felt ashamed in that moment, downcast that I made her not angry, but disappointed in herself. I couldn't stand what I was doing to her, so I did the next best thing I could to reassure her.

I took her hand upon my breast and let her know that I was sorry for what I did. Her glazed eyes took on a heated light brown shade and I brushed the tears from her eyes.

"I didn't want to hurt you," I told her, as I released her hand. "I love you, so much, and I know how brash you are. I just...I'm learning with you. I thought this wasn't a moment, but you were leading up to something nice, and I stopped you." She took the comforter and wrapped it around herself. "Are you mad at me, Paris?"

"No. I just wanted...all I've wanted to do was make you feel good before we went under the third degree." She bit her lip. "I just want to get into some sense of normalcy. Not in a car, or another place we don't live." I moved close to her, my heart beating fast as she confessed. "I...I know you probably, in the normal sense, don't consider when you came to the Manor after Thanksgiving to be making love, but I did. You were in my bed, making me feel wonderful, and I want that again, like what happened in yours at home on Tuesday night. I want to share covers, body heat, emotions, everything with you. I know this isn't your true room, not where you live, but I thought, if I came with you today, I could be that close to you again. Obviously, I was wrong, and--"

I took her at the back and brought her close to me, ready to cut her off as the words went through me. That all she wanted was to feel that special moment again, one she hadn't had. Being in the same bed, making out, necking. Doing interesting things that in normalcy we wouldn't think of.

I shuddered as I recalled my touchless cum in her bed, her below me, caressing my breasts, how hot I was as we let our filters down. I knew I wanted that feeling back...the thrill of doing something new, never before discovered. I stared at her, and felt how much she wanted us to be physical again. Her voice was so strained, and I could see even in her sadness, she was so turned on.

I kissed her open mouthed to quiet her, and then I pressed her body to mine, taking her against me tightly. I moved to reassure her and relight the spark, not wanting to waste one more minute on this dark place. I couldn't deny her, the girl I love, any further. All of the sudden, I felt my imagination come out, ready to play again. I shifted in place, and began to rock back and forth against her, slowly at first.

"You are so right," I said deeply, pushing up the waistband of my hosiery so that it was tight against me. "Paris, I'm your lover, and what you wish is my command." I slowly kissed her again, letting her push her tongue in while we warmed ourselves back up to the point we were at. "I'm tired of being quiet. I want to be a wildflower, I want you to love me..." I slid my hands into her panties through the legs. "I want you to ruin me."

"Rory..." Her voice was inching up in deepness. "You want me to get you all wet?"

"Yess..."

Her hands were at the waistband of my hose, fingers playing inside. "I thought of this all day. Touching you like this, getting you off. You haven't fingered yourself in a while, have you?"

"Haven't...needed to." Slowly she thrusted to build me up. "You always wanted me in the hose?"

"Yes. Even before I learned how you cum, I have had fantasies. I hate the hose, but damn, I love seeing you not all clean and innocent." One of her fingers slid into the hole she made earlier from the back. "Even when you said you had them on at Thanksgiving, I wondered if I could bring it up."

"Maybe not that time." She found my clit through the panties and circled it through the cotton. "I needed to be warmed...up first." I took in a deep breath as she found a hot spot, and kissed at my neck.

"It's so worth it to see you like this. Nothing on but these two things..." Her other hand pinched a nipple as I was focused on her deep cleavage. "When I fuck myself in the shirt you wore, I imagine you in these...bare beneath, fucking yourself after a long day at school."

"Yesss..." I was getting very heated feeling her stroke me.  "You love me wet...ohhh....ohhh."

"My girlfriend loves to get so slick...her body loves and craves fingers..." Paris sucked on my lip, letting just a bit of suction upon it. "You never got this wet for anyone else, did you?"

"No, just you...ugggh....God, ruin me please, Par." Her thigh's strokes became deeper and deeper as she inched her finger along my pantyline and kept the teasing up, kissing my sternum, nipping it softly. I bucked against her, and let my own fingers move towards her front. I wanted to bring her off slowly myself, but let flitting touches along her pussy suffice.

"You know what I want? I want you to have to go in that dining room with nothing on but a dress and two heels." She pushed the material away from my mound. I heard a tear, and felt the cotton tear against me. "I wanna get you used to this, being well-fucked before a big event. I'm going in there and I know that I'm leaving marks."

"Fuck!" A finger and a thigh against me, spreading me out. The hose tore below from the tension of being pushed up where it shouldn't go.

She pushed my panties off further to the side. "I want to feel you hard...make you really come, I know you can do it, baby." Harder thrusts...a second finger. I was being filled with her beautiful fingers in a mesh, and it felt so naughty.

"I thought of you here...remember?"

"You came, right?"

"I spilled over...this comforter...not the same at all..."

"Probably thought it was a leak in the roof."

"Not that wet," I confessed. "I saved that for your towncar." Hard against me now, her strokes were closer and closer. The hose was in very deep against my clit, and a third finger was joining in...

"Love getting you wet...making you that way...." I spread out a little bit more, wanting of a fourth. My head was against the headboard, my hands circling her lips as I saw her bra slip down a little...her breasts bouncing so much in the perfectly tight cups. God, I love this woman with all I have. "So fucking tight, you're going to...I don't know..."

"What will I do?"

"Have you ever..." She stopped herself, a bit nervous about bringing it up. "I've heard this theory that, well, if I hit the right spot, you can, um, force an orgasm hard. To the point that you kind of, well, project." You have to really give it to a girl who wants to avoid saying something she found a bit odd but she wanted to do. "I don't know if you've heard of it..."

"Like a guy, right?" I knew exactly what she was taking about; trust me, when you've read so many Savage Love columns in your lesbian research, **you know**! "Fuck!" I said the word hard, intending it to echo. "Deeper...deeper."

"You wanna cum hard, I see it in your eyes." More tearing, this time the panties, out of the way, and multiple runs in the hose. My feet were flat, knees bent, my womanhood so heated and hot. The hole in the crotch, wide open...finger four entering the picture. "Love you."

"Love you too...love you so much. I can be nasty with you...no behaving."

"Clench...clench hard." I bounced up and down to meet her strokes, and smelled the coming arousal mixing with the artificial fiber. "Rory...come on, fuck my fingers. Fuck them...they feel perfect inside of you...they fit...."

"Oh...yes..."

"Tell me...you put them on, how did you feel all day?" She brought out my darkest desires, ones I don't even think my subconscious was on to. "Looking at me every minute today, you felt your cunt tighten...you knew they'd piss me off, but you know I want you no matter what you wear. You played it up for me."

"Oh shit, yes Par...every step, every rub...been so hot all day." I bit hard on my lip. "Never again with these...they just got me too hot."

"During debate, I want you in them," she suggested. "They'll make you think, make you want to get through it, make you want to win." Fuck, I get so hot when she brings out the bitch voice. "You want to win, you're going to win, and when we celebrate, no Fuddruckers for us. No dinners, no high fives. I'm gonna give you a good fuck, one you're going to want every time we win this year."

I felt my muscles seem to harden as I bought into her further. "Will you be bare? For me?"

"Nothing on but the skirt," she promised. More kissing, my breasts vibrating in place as she pushed things further. Another finger, four inside. "I want to leave a big imprint on you, Gilmore. Make you want me every time you look at me...juices flow down your leg..."

"They're running...now..."

"I feel it..." Deeper...deeper, circling and just taking me into a plane I never knew before. This was utterly beautiful and erotic. My muscles were pumping hard, in and out, in and out, I couldn't help but focus all my energy lower. The pressure was building up, my legs were stick-still and eyes tightly shut as I felt beyond heated. "Closer, Ror. Push in your legs, tighten against me."

"Yeahh...oh yeah..." Pushing me hard, those fingers curling inside of me, hitting the right spot. I was in that bent position, feeling the key twist tightly. "Par...I wanna come." I begged for her to go faster, as she elongated a bit with slowing down that didn't take me down any further. She knows just where to hit, where I want it. I couldn't stop her from being so aggressive. Her fingers felt so tight, perfect against me. I wanted this so bad.

She pushed in as close as she could, her index circling my clit in such a hot way. I was so wet, so damp, I felt drips against the back of the crotch. I seethed her name, wanting her to consume me, to spoil me for anyone else. I had all of these dreams before then, of allowing my sexual side to come out in such a frenzied and powerful way. She wrapped around me as she pushed in so deep that the crotch of the panties began to come apart. Her fingers, stretching it to the limits. She began to tear at it, opening the crotch up, fully exposing me to her. My dampness, oh Lord...

And I felt a hard push as I heard them open up. Her dirty talk within these walls made what Mom and Dad did on that balcony seem like innocent making out, for sure.

"So slick, come on, for your baby girl," she demanded. "Make me proud of you for loving me...keep yourself closed in." No more resistance, three fingers inside, the other...playing just a smidge below, exploratively. I heard the sounds of the thrusts, deep, loud, powerful. "Man, Gilmore, you're ready for almost anything!"

"Par..." If I had ever been embarrassed about my...output, it was ending here. I was proud of myself. I took in her hand past the knuckle, having this need of getting a bit open, in and out, in and out...oh God. "You getting out of the way?"

"No, right here," she promised. "Not going to let you do anything without me here." Her pinky slid, out, inching upon that small patch of skin below... _oh dear_..."I have to feel you in every way possible. I want to watch you...come for me...come on..."

"Yesss, yesss, yesss..." I repeated the one word, grasping at her arm tightly for any kind of leverage. I felt the heat build down further from my belly. "I'm so sorry, I was an idiot earlier."

"You're not...forget it...think about me, look at me, feel me inside of you." Faster, faster...the rhythm was like an air pump now. "Rory...do it...cum...ruin us both..."

There's where her voice hits a nerve, that mix between the dark and the light. The one that she knows really turns me on.

"Wanna come," I screamed. "Damn it!"

"Getting there, feel you wetter...wetter."

"Yess, yess, yes..." My body was violent, joints feeling painful as I clenched her hand in me as hard as I could. I felt that pinky move lower and lower..."Oh God, Paris." I knew what she wanted to do, but I was nervous. I had thought about it in dreams I haven't even voiced out in my own mind because they seemed so perverted. I expected her to move in towards the back, but she just barely teased, knowing I would freak out if she went for it. I was nothing but incomprehensible moans and screams from then on as my eyes tightened shut, I compressed around her and felt her stroke me deeper and deeper. I gripped at her arm for dear life, the mattress edge in my right hand. I opened up, bent a little bit more, causing an even deeper rip in the hose. There was no longer any crotch to be found with both articles of clothing. I bit my lower lip, trying to hold back a hard moan, afraid of Emily.

Fear of my grandmother finding us...her walking in to find her granddaughter being taken by her fellow classmate. I felt the illicit buzz go through me, comparing myself to Mom twenty years ago. Looking into my girl's eyes, her above me, hyperfocused on my pleasure.

No damned way Mom looked at Dad the way I was Par. I know they created me on the balcony, but I knew I was making that child's play. I thought about all I hadn't ever done in a relationship in that moment as her strokes became two-a-second. I bounced on the bed, arching my back, concentrating all of my energy on the release. I tightened hard against her, and despite all of the moisture, she could barely push inside. I felt so focused, taken into another world. Her kissing me, holding me, doing all of this stuff to drive me up a wall. I felt the thrill, the want and desire for Paris ebbing, overflowing. My throat was raw, my hair damp, and I felt so overwhelmed I dug my nails hard into Paris's back harder than ever. I scraped them up her skin as I felt the final pushes go through me. She yelped in pain, hissing, cursing my name.

Oh, so worth it. She pushed her strokes further, three-a-second. The fourth finger came back in. _Fuck...fuck...oh Lord, Par!_ I felt a bubbling down there, a building...

I knew the feeling, something the first time I masturbated and it happened, I felt like I broke myself so many years ago. My reading taught me otherwise, but still, I was fearful of doing it, stopping it with a hand usually.

"I...I...I'm coming, oh dear, coming hard..."

"Are you going to do it?"

"Mm-hmm...I feel it." Faster strokes.

"Make me feel it, come on," she encouraged. "Love to see you like this..."

"I'm not a Mary," I cried. "Not with you. I'm not a Mary...oh...oh...oh..." Rising...rising.

"Rory, cum for me. Make it a damp one...one that goes beyond now, that we'll remember."

"Pa...Pa...Parrrrrrrr..." Oh fuck, it was certainly coming for sure. As I felt the last contractions go through, she slid her hand out just enough, and helped me as I finished myself off with my hand in the way I was used to, to show her, teach her, for the future. Rubbing my clit in deep circles, I was wide open, her hand, my hand, fucking me, together. She straddled above me, my eyes closed, I could feel her heated gaze. Oh God, oh God...

"Oh my God!!!!" Three more quick strokes, some quick clit circles. I felt my muscles contract inward, my body sore as hell...

The orgasm came mere moments later, in a plane I thought never possible in my world. Dear God!

At first, I thought it was only me, as I felt my body clench and react in so many ways, my legs widening, breasts hardened hard, my throat basically beyond repair then. Every single muscle in my body felt my come, head to toe. My feet curled hard, and the hand against Paris's back inserted a new track of scratch marks upon it.

But the thing I felt most? The physical reaction, the one Par thought she could push out of me. She slid her hand out at the right time, I pushed my legs together, and I couldn't stop myself as I felt the push of fluid force from my body. It came out so hard, so fast, the small jets of my arousal forced from my body, I felt them force from me, three or four of them. Just a small amount, nothing odd or weird. But I felt it flow, coming out as if from a water gun. I hit my hilt very hard, and I seemed to come apart rather fast, more than the other times we were intimate. This wasn't like her in the car at all, this was different, radical. Paris even had to kiss me in an attempt to muffle my mouth, because I was very loud as I came. I hyperventilated as I pushed my head against the pillow, trying to relax.

I was so overwhelmed that I was crying a bit from how deep I was for Paris. This was so overwhelming to me as I clenched one last time, finally collapsing myself onto the bed fully as I felt the plush mattress settle beneath me. I couldn't open my eyes; I was so exhausted as my body felt like it had just gone through a decathlon with a full-length marathon. I was hot, the clothing that remained was in tatters, and I couldn't think straight at all.

There was silence for a few minutes as both Paris and I took in what we had both just done with each other. What I had done, mostly. Something that I never threw in the pro-con list, but I had always pictured myself as doing, yet scared to because I would be looked at as weird. Nylon dug against my thighs, as my mind wandered towards the fact that my girlfriend had just fucked me in my own bedroom at my grandparent's house. She had appealed to my darkest desires and gotten me to...to...

I found my hand taken from me, and then as she lay next to me, my fingers were trailing along damp lines along her belly. I heard her deep voice murmur as she stated what I couldn't say, in any capacity.

"You gushed." She couldn't believe it. "I saw it with my very own eyes. You are among the few who can do that."

"Are...are you sure?" I felt it, but it could've been just a phantom thing. I couldn't think of myself as...this. "I came, that hard."

"You can feel it, right?" I traced the outline of where I touched, and it felt like a drop. "Did you know you could do that?"

I nodded. "I did, but I just had a hand nearby to block the flow. I didn't think I could project. Oh God." I slowly opened my eyes, facing Paris laying on my bed, to my right. She had taken off her bra and was cuddling up to me, moving her hand down, hooking her finger in the waistline to take off what remained of my pantyhose. She kissed my neck as I still felt a little odd about what we had just done. Not the setting, but that my body could do that. I shook my head, and sucked in my stomach so she could work everything off. "I mean I know I get wet, more than usual, but I just thought I'm a bit abnormal."

"Very normal," she husked, her hand cupping the lower part of my butt. "I actually think it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed." Another kiss, and then she tugged on her lip with my teeth. "It's so erotic, Gilmore, how your body is so enticing to me. You have all these spots..." Her other hand palmed my right breast, and I moan at the content. "Nice, large nipples to stimulate, an incredibly kissable mouth, and you can contort your body in a serpentine fashion."

"Par..." I felt a bit too complimented. "You should be freaked out just a little. How can you think any of this is beautiful?" Enveloping me into her arms as I kicked off everything else, I fell into her arms, feeling so safe and protected by this small woman, a force of nature who waited so long to show passion.

"Remember how you said you get off on my voice?" She rested her forehead on mine. "I think we're both finding that we might be these innocent little mice who don't let anything get to us in the classroom or during any kind of work. But when we're together, just the two of us alone, we both come out to play. A month ago, when we went into this, I thought it would be normal, like yeah, we'd get passionate, but it would be limited."

"And now you love me getting wet," I said. She shook her head and shared further what exactly she loved about my...viscosity.

"No, it's more than that, much more. The scent, that's what gets to me, how you smell during sex. Your hair takes on this fragrance that is just divine, and you know, you have those Italian and Argentine genes within you that have drawn many a male to find them the most passionate women in the world for centuries. And women...it's that forbidden fruit. Knowing that your ancestry comes from where the Roman Catholics influence everything and the feminine touch is highly discouraged." Her nostrils opened and she took in my heady fragrance, her mouth upon my neck as she trailed soft kisses down. "I would touch myself in Rome often in my hotel room when I went there for vacation with my parents when I was fourteen, looking at all of these beautiful Italian women. My defenses were battered." I felt the heat between us rising again, and in my mind, a want to give Paris some pleasure. I slid my thigh against her, possessively taking her at her waist.

"They have strong scents, don't they?" I planted that aromatic memory in her mind, in hopes of bringing her back to those younger days. "It's very hot there in July, the sun blazing, all of them out there walking around in a market or a square, speaking luscious Italian as you look them up and down." My hands played at her waistband. "Their tempers, boiling over as some sleazy man tries to lay a line on them, and you see that passion. You imagine them in the bedroom with you, wearing little to nothing at all beneath their dresses as they tell you how better you are because you have that passion, that desire for them. They're so hot, curls cascading down to rest on your chest as they take off your clothes."

"Yeah...that's how I thought of them." She closed her eyes as her imagination took over. "I dreamed of this one woman who would talk to me in Italian, a concierge at our hotel. Dark red hair, full body, a voice that was ravaged by her pack-a-day habit in the right way. She spoke the language raggedly, and she would flirt with me sometimes when my parents weren't looking."

"Did you think about her when you touched yourself?" I loved bringing her past out of hiding.

"She would call me _bella ragazza_ , beautiful young girl, touch me while I was in concentration, brush her hand on top of mine at the front desk. I thought she was lying, but one day...we found ourselves alone in my room as my father was dragged to the Vatican by my mother. I was reading a book at the desk, she came up behind me, and then she, she..."

"She what?" I didn't know where this was leading, but I found everything heating up.

"I could smell her deeply. A light peppering of fragrance, but otherwise, everything else was all her. She wore a loose sundress, and I turned around...." Her hand drifted down her stomach. "Her eyes had that look, that concentration within them. Deep and hazel, her skin glistened, and she asked if I wanted to go anywhere. I said I didn't want to, that I was fine. And then things..."

"Where did things go?" I was hearing her realization for the first time, the moment like I had in the pond with that girl. I moved closer to her.

"I remember it..." Her heart hammered hard, the anxiety spinning in her stomach. "She was out of work for the day, in that dress. It drooped down on one side. She moved close to me...I could see her nipples clearly in the bodice of the dress. And she was looking at me, in khaki shorts and a t-shirt. _Bella ragazza, mi perdoni_."

"Forgive her?"

"She brought me into her arms and told me " _Vorrei poter toccare voi._ " That beautiful ragged voice-woman then complimented me on my budding beauty, and then...it feels like it just happened only a few hours ago. Her voice, her eyes..." I was beginning to realize what she was doing with me in that moment. I felt myself fall into her imagery, that hotel room, her young self in front of me as I vividly saw this woman regard Paris as I always have. I pulled her panties down, feeling a scene coming on.

"She had a husband, and he was coming to pick her up in an hour or so. This would be the last time we would ever meet. But she didn't care. She wanted to do this, to show how such a little time with me influenced her. Her dress fell to the floor at her feet...she was fully nude. Unshaven below, she took me against her and we kissed, deeply as she loosened my shirt from my waist. She was beautiful, raw, and I could smell her all over the room." She began to touch herself. "I was in awe, watching her. She pushed me away slowly, taking in the swell of my breast with her hand, running it down my stomach, taking me in. She never touched my skin beyond a few things and the kissing. She only cupped me, just enough to memorize me." I felt her push herself against my thigh, grinding slowly, her voice tightening. "This beautiful woman masturbated on my bed, beckoning me to watch, to take it in, and to learn. I tried to say something, to stop her. But she pushed her fingers in, her eyes stone cold on me as she said my name and began to talk in a naughty way about what she would do to me."

"She got to you," I said, Paris's eyes glazed over as she began to let that frustration that built up four years ago out. "Noticing you, regarding you as so beautiful, she stroked herself to you."

"She wished I could stay in Rome, that I could be her lover. She said as she fucked herself...she wanted me as her own. She felt so wrong, but she wished she could touch me, but held back for her sanity. I asked her if I could disrobe...she encouraged me to."

God, I love this woman...she was biting on. "What did you do with her?"

"I said...I wanted her too...that every morning housekeeping had to change my sheets. She stayed late one night and my father let me have a couple glasses of wine at a cafe...she was at the desk and after excusing myself to sip from the water fountain...I stayed behind for the next elevator car. I told her that night in Italian while drunk ' _Il mio sangue sulle mani._ 'I dared her to fuck me, but she didn't bite. She said I should fall in love with someone else...ohh...ohh God, but that I was a fine woman."

"You ached for her," I said, pushing against her blatantly. "That's when you realized that your thing with Tristan...just a detour."

"I felt beautiful around her, wanted, respected. We spoke, and there was a spark with us." Her voiced hitched as the pressure bubbled up. "I had realized earlier, my want of women, but this was the first time it was painful. That we could never have each other, and we couldn't even touch. It was eye-fucking between us...I stepped out of my clothes...swaggered to lay on the bed next to mine...we were feet apart, but so close. I took her in, touching my breasts...playing with my nipples...dipping fingers...into my pussy."

"You're so wet, baby, thinking about her."

"She told me I was tight...put in a second finger..." Stroking faster against me. "Saying she would do anything for me, her _bella_. She had gone the entire week without underwear, an entire week without fucking her husband, feeling so turned on by my presence, me in tight tank tops...Playing with pencils in front of her, watching me speak."

I focused all I had on my lover, my heart feeling for her so much. All of this passion, this deep want and desire. "You were her apple...ripe and polished. Wanted to bite into you."

"She rolled her nipples in her fingers...opened herself wide for me, circling her clit....I felt so hot, my hair in a pony tail, hers cascading down her figure. She told me I was the only girl she'd ever lust after."

"Paris..."

"Saying my name deeply, _Paris...madre di Dio_..." Her voice was becoming rushed as I felt her body tighten against me. "I felt like she was right against me, making love to me. I felt so loved..."

"Oh God, this is beautiful..."

"I was so young, so taken by her beauty..."

"She was lovely..."

"I wished she was my first, hoped and prayed that I would meet her again..." She shrieked. "Then I met you, and she became a part of my past. And I began...to imagine...we met in Rome..." She straightened against me. "Oh God...Rory..."

"I ruined you for everybody else," I said, realizing how much I had changed her views on love. "You could never stroke yourself to her again."

"Never again...I felt like I was cheating," she seethed out. "You were pure, you didn't take my shit...I didn't have to look like...a fucking supermodel to have your....attention."

"You felt like you did with that woman with me," I observed. "Only this...it was possible."

"Yes...oh yes...yes..." Her eyes rolled back as she pushed closer to her cum. "You were my _bella ragazza_ , someone...I didn't wanna corrupt. I held back...for so long...behind anger..."

"Which was lust."

"It was...I stopped dreaming of her...by the time you were...Juliet..." She hissed. "Oh God, I wanna come."

"You've been so tight all day. I can tell." I pushed against her deeper and deeper...she was becoming undone.

"You have her scent...that's why I was drawn to you....beyond your intelligence." We pushed against each other together, she felt so warm against me. "I knew it was right...from that first day. Behind that laundered uniform...simple scents, drawing me in."

"You always wanted me..."

"Yes...oh my God...that anger you have...those fiery eyes...you're like that woman, only more fucking hot, beautiful and sexy than she...ever was."

I began to feel her break, and I fell into the moment with her. She looked so beautiful against me. "Come for me, _mia bambina_. Paris..."

"Fuck..." She clenched hard, and her eyes tightened. "I feel like I did...that day...right now." She held on tight against me, leaving more scratches upon my back. "But I can touch you...God."

I kissed her, hard, letting my passion overflow for her. I was so heartened that her story from Rome eventually lead all the way to me. "Spill over...come on..." I begged. "Want to see you wet...we'll go in there as lovers, no doubt."

"No doubt...love you..."

"Love you too..." Her voice cracked, hard. She went into a trance as that pleasurable sting went through her. " _Ti amo...mia guida...mio cuore..._ " Her words were deep and powerful as she felt the orgasm course through her deeply. She's so beautiful when she comes, and she growled against my shoulder as the waves went through her. I took her close as she rode me for the last few contractions, and she was exhausted from the twists and turns we had gone through in these minutes that passed since we entered the room. Whimpering, I felt so overwhelmed by how when we make love, we become closer together, and learn more about each other. It's overwhelming, wonderful...passionate.

She came down slowly, unwilling to pull away, and I knew that I just wanted her close to me, nothing else. I heard her breathing calm with each minute that passed, her eyes closed as she was utterly tired from our lovemaking. I know anyone else, they would have probably hated being told that this wasn't their first time lusting for a woman.

But I looked at it as her past, an experience that put her on the road to me. Brushing the hair from her face with my fingers, we languidly kissed as we both came down from our highs, both tired from the infatuation we had demonstrated. Thinking about that woman, having the spare clues from Paris to form a picture of her, I knew that I wasn't jealous that she'd push back into her life. Four years had passed between them, and from her words, it was clear that it would take much more than our pasts to break us apart.

Slowly, her voice came back as she lay against the pillow, keeping her hand clasped in mine as we threw the blanket above us after grabbing her PDA to set the alarm for 6:45pm. The mood wasn't right for studying, and sleep was what we needed. Time to ourselves, time to dress, to gird ourselves for the fireworks of later. Placing it on the nightstand, she spooned herself against me, kissing at my neck and whispering the conversation as we fell into the nap.

"So, what are you thinking?" she asked me, trying to get a sense of my mind.

She wrapped her arms around me as I turned my head. "I think that I'm thankful we brought full changes of clothing with us."

"Same thing here." A soft giggle. "What has happened to us? We went into this last month thinking nothing but affection, but now we can't seem to keep our clothes on."

"That a bad thing?" I smiled.

"I definitely think of it as good." She felt so soft against me. "I feel so open with you now. Letting you in on my past. I've always been so afraid to with everyone else."

"You can tell me anything," I assured her. "I think it gives you so many more layers, to know that even if I'm your first, I'm not the first one to look at you with carnal eyes. People have to admit you're a beautiful girl, and I can't figure out why they can't."

"I...I just don't feel shy around you. You're just so natural, and welcoming, and I love you for being who you are."

"I love you for thinking of me as so unique." I closed my eyes, listening to the rhythm of her breath. "I was scared of...this. What we did, when it came to Dean. I think he'd think there's something wrong with me."

It was time for a warning from her "Shhhh...no more of the D word. Never again. He might be your first love, but he was lousy at it."

"Lousy is nice. You, Par..." I sighed, smiling as I took the covers closely. "The word for you is beyond indescribable."

Her breathing was soft as she described how she thought of me. "I know I have one for you; effervescent."

"Oh, that's perfect!" I beamed with my description. "I love to foam over, especially from your hand. You just fit so right, and, it's like we fit. We just fit on every level."

Her voice was tiring. "We do, definitely." Slowly, we drifted off to sleep as our conversation faded, and where we both had nerves coming into this mansion, they were gone for now. We could face this, knowing that our relationship was strong, that we weren't letting anything stop us. Not uncomfortable moments, or our pasts. We were finding our way, together, and that's all that mattered.

If they accepted us, good. If they didn't, we would have to adjust and deal. It was that simple.

Or so it seemed on the surface. I think of Mom and how two simple words changed the entire dynamic between her and Emily forever. It broke them apart, and only my need for a better education than yet more poorly-taught AP classes at Hollow High brought them back to the stage of somewhat talkative.

I wasn't nervous as Paris settled her head against my shoulder, softly snoozing. She's done so much for me, drove me to the point I am where my fire in all I do is stronger than I ever had.

 _I hope I don't combust. I hope I don't fail her tonight. Or that I'm meek in that moment_. I was ready as I was ever going to be, and this has to work out.

I've lived for everyone else for so long. Now it's time to prove that my age reflects my maturity and that they know Paris and I are true.  


* * *

** Paris's POV **

****I'm a natural born fretter. In every situation, I always think about how I come off in a situation, and I always think less of myself than what actually is shown.

Not in Chilton and academics, mind you, I'm all guns blazing there. But in situations where I have to impress somebody, I go beyond overanalyzation.  I'm thinking that every word, every action, the way I dress, even the kind of barrette I slide into my hair that would piss off an animal activist if it happened to be tortoise-shell, has to be a reflection of me as a strong woman. I have to be perfect, period. There can be not a moment of doubt or fear, and you can't shirk. You have to be dominant, like in sports, from the kickoff.

Of course, this all goes out the window when you face the toughest bitch on nails, who held my title as the Queen Bee so many years ago. 1958 was her year.

Emily Gilmore is her name.

And in a rare moment of weakness here, I have to admit that I am scared shitless of her. She is possibly the only woman in all of Hartford society I feel intimidated around.

It's not just that I'm sitting three places down for her at this moment at the table, next to my girlfriend, her granddaughter. It goes so much further back than that. Even when she had no excuse to be in Chilton while I was in Country Day, it was her alma mater. She had been the last of the old guard, part of that final class of '59 before the school went co-ed, and I knew never to mess with her. When we had to take our compulsory etiquette classes where she was the host of the parties which were our exams, perfection was demanded and we were never to say one word that would be seen as a usurpation of her authority.

I've always had a quiet respect for Mrs. Gilmore. Last year during our project when I prepared the materials, she was there to supervise me and remind me how I was supposed to come off, down to my speaking voice. Richard may have been the adult involved with the project, but his wife helped set the tone for my presentation and how it was supposed to come out. I don't hate her, but I sure feel as if I need to impress her all the time.

But tonight, I had to do this on my terms. Not hers. This may have been her table, but this was the night I was going to face up to her and Richard and tell them I'm in love with their granddaughter, and nothing can stop me.

Now if I can just summon that courage.

I sit at this table, thankful the tone of the dinner has been light so far. Rory is in one of her Friday night dinner dresses, a black floral number which as it should do, does not drive one carnal thought within me. How can it, as her dress shows her as being as neutral as could be. What I'm wearing isn't much better; a red turtleneck and dark brown corduroys, my usual evening uniform it seems. I didn't want to come off too formal, or not too relaxed, trying to play this night up as just innocent studying as much as I could. Everything is neutral so far, the conversation, the lame jokes from Lorelai.

Even she is well behaved, complimenting her mother on the casserole and not pushing things. She's been quiet, looking at us occasionally with some dread. But we haven't done anything. There's nothing we both can do, we can just eat dinner, occasionally talk, I can be friendly with Emily and maybe talk a bit about cars with Mr. Gilmore.

It's gone well. Thank God it's gone well, I think we can do this fine. I've just finished my green beans and I push the plate away, sipping on my ginger ale...

"So, Rory. Did you get your SAT marks yet?" Emily speaks. Rory looks up.

"Not yet, Grandma." We took the SAT and ACT in October and November, both in the middle of the month. The thing I taught her the most was to do the test and forget about it right after, and just wait until both grades come back after winter break. "I think that I did well, though."

"Of course you did," Mrs. Gilmore assured. "I don't see why you would fail either of the tests. You did so well on the PSAT, so this should be no different."

"That was last year. It's different with big tests like those."

May I remind you that to this day, even with all the begging, rewards, and tries to sweet talk her into something naughty, I still don't know Rory's PSAT grade? I give her a secret dirty look, and she responds with a jab at my knee, as if to say I would find out one day...in her will.

"I don't understand though. You'd think they'd want to get those scores to your college choices with due haste."

Rory shakes her head. "I'm really not worried about it for now. I just want to concentrate on my mid-terms."

"But doesn't Yale need the scores by the 15th of next month?" She raised her eyebrow. "I truly think you should be more concerned about this, young lady."

Oh boy, here we go. I can sense psychically the stress that has just hit my girlfriend at the mention of that one word. I take in a breath at the mention of my hated rival.

"I still have two months. They don't even make the decision until mid-February."

"But you have to be in there early. What if they give a slot to someone else and you're unprepared?"

"Grandma...." She sighed. "I don't really want to think about college right now."

"But, Rory." Richard takes the hand-off. "I managed to get you an interview early. You should be preparing a presentation on why exactly you want to continue the legacy."

"I want Harvard more," she argued. "I don't mind Yale, but my heart isn't set on it."

"So many Gilmores have gone there though," Emily argued. "I don't see why you don't give it some kind of chance." Oh God...what were they doing to her?

"Because I don't want to be there. I want to live in Boston, I want to wear a Red Sox hat and wander Harvard Yard. I don't think about Yale," Rory begged. "Please, can we not talk about this tonight?"

"I think that it's a perfect time." Mrs. Gilmore, don't. For the love of everything, stop stressing out my girlfriend to the point she shies away. "Richard talked to admissions and they've agreed to a re-interview on the 22nd for you. It's the perfect time; after the last day of classes, everyone's distracted, and you can make a good case for why you deserve to go to Yale."

"Mom..." Lorelai's tone held a sense of warning.

"Well I can't stand by and watch as Rory wastes a perfectly good opportunity to have an Ivy League interview at very little cost to her beyond time and preparation. It will prepare her for the Harvard interview."

"I am preparing for that one already. Paris and I rehearse it weekly," she mentioned. "We're going to go in together, back-to-back."

"They're going to be unfairly influenced though," Richard implored. "What if she has a better interview than you do? Obviously the counselor is going to see that you're less prepared."

"What do you mean?" I felt the stress rise through me as I tried to watch Ror struggle through the cabal. "I will be well-prepared. I just think if I have the support of a good friend, things will go better for the both of us."

"But Paris has more extra-curricular activities: she's going to mention that in hers. What do you have? Golf, an aborted sorority joining attempt, summer activities."

"So I didn't think camping was important in getting the eye of a college. I'm sorry, Grandma! I was stuck in a school for ten years where I was suffocated daily by teachers and other peers and the last thing on my mind was taking extra things to add artificial life experience." She was feeling the pressure build. "My priority is learning, and I want to do this, on my own. I don't need any more help than I need. I don't need you to go to bat to me for Yale."

"But it's a fine school. Just as fine as Harvard! Why are you so dead set on that school, young lady? You're ill-prepared for the real world." The fuse is launching. "You're going to get out to Cambridge and realize that we're a distance away and we can't help you." I pushed my chair closer to Rory's, so I could have my ankle touch hers in some kind of supporting move.

"I really don't want to talk about this. Especially in front of Paris."

"I think that it's important to her," Mrs. Gilmore argued as her husband tried to speak up and stop this rapid fire questioning, finally seeing that it was time for him to back off.

"Emily--"

"Richard, this is important. She needs to know where she stands, and if she thinks going to a school is like a dream sequence set during _The Paper Chase_ , she needs to come out of the clouds." Even Lorelai was silent, unable to rebut any of her mother's arguments. "I would rather you attend Yale, and I've made that clear."

"I don't want Yale." She shirks in her seat. "I have put in way too many years into preparing for Harvard to stop now."

"We can guarantee this to you though, security in knowing you'll be in a fine school!"

"That's not the point, Grandma!" She put fingers to her temples, the stress building. "I don't care about being with the in crowd! I just want to go where I've wanted to for years. I don't care how, I just want to go!"

"What if you hate it? You're going to regret having these dreams and then you'll be stuck there without anyone to comfort you."

"I'll have Paris," she argues, to no avail. "She will be there for me."

"Yeah, right now. Then when you begin to break down, she'll begin to hate you for not taking this golden opportunity." Why the fuck is she speaking to me like I wasn't in the room?

"Paris, you know as well as anybody that you shouldn't make friends of enemies, right?" I nod sheepishly. "Then please explain to my granddaughter why I have her best interests in mind trying to set up this re-interview." Shit, I'm being put on the spot. What can I say? How can I say it?

"Best interests? Really?" OK, the first thing in my mind seems to work, I guess. "You're telling me that I'm not going to be there for her?"

"Well you have your own education to keep in mind," she reminds me. "How will you have time to help her out?"

"I can make time," I argue. "That's what friends do."

"But you'll be in school. It's cutthroat there, and you--"

OK, that's it! I'm not going to stand for this woman telling me how I'm supposed to act to my best friend. "First of all, Emily, I would really appreciate it if you stopped pressuring Rory into wanting Yale when it's clear she wants it only as a safety. For the last month you've been pushing her into it, and she keeps telling me she doesn't want to go, that Harvard is on her radar and that's it!"

"Paris Eustachia Gellar, I will not be talked down to--" I stand up to her, intending to protect my lover's honor.

"I'm talking at your level, not down, and I really get sick of coming to pick her up on Mondays and hearing her say again and again that she feels like a failure because you can't stand for her to be in nothing but Yale blue! Since she was four years old, she's done nothing but yearned to be in Harvard, and whatever you do, you can't stop it."

"Paris, cool down." Lorelai tries to warn me, but I think I can deal with this.

"No, she needs to hear this! She needs to hear what her granddaughter has struggled to tell her because she's so fearful of saying anything, and I'm frankly, mad at the both of you for pushing her towards something she didn't want, but more towards you, Mrs. Gilmore. You know--"

"I don't have to hear this from a petulant little perfectionist--"

"Grandma!" I was getting in over my head....I felt myself drowning, but still felt the anger course through.

"You should be ashamed of yourself for ever suggesting to your husband he use his contacts to rope Rory into an interview she wasn't prepared for."

"She should be prepared for anything," she argued. "You know that as well as I do. I'm sure you have safety schools yourself."

Why isn't she getting the point? I shake my head and cringe. "Yeah, but only because I enjoy them and if I had to attend them, it's not the end of the world. I know you mean well, that you want the best for your granddaughter. But sticking her in a situation in a place she loathes is not the way to go about it. I understand the legacy, believe me. I know the Gilmores have had one family member attend Yale every generation since the 1840's, more than my legacy at Harvard." I began to calm down. "But sometimes, it's not a right place. Rory's looked at it, very closely. I know this because we've been planning this between ourselves for the last few months. We're both disappointed in the journalism program. I can't handle their law and medical curriculums. It might have been a perfect place to learn about finance and insurance, but Rory isn't headed towards either line of work." I began to feel the tension of the room melt away. "I apologize if I feel like I have to speak for my friend, but she's been extremely intimidated to disappoint you two." I sit back in the chair, feeling relieved that I spoke out, even if it might cost me relationship brownie points. I was just tired of the sadness in her eyes, the disappointment she feels for having not had her heart set in the dreams of her grandfather.

Emily sits stone-still, taking in all I had to say, and Rory, Lorelai and Richard look at her as if she was going to blow up. I knew my girlfriend was in a panic about instigating an argument, but I was tired of this. Every week she went, she took the abuse, and I had to hear about it. It hurts me for her to hurt.

I let out a calming breath and tried to lighten the room, placing my napkin on the plate and taking a sip of water. I feel the tension between us two and I know I have to extricate. "I apologize, Mrs. Gilmore. I just wanted to share my opinion on the matter." She stares at me, her mouth in that position where she was afraid to speak out, and I begin to pull out my chair. She isn't speaking, and I have this sense that whatever goodwill I had built up for years with her has completely evaporated. Emily remains silent, and I begin to get up...

"Excuse me, young lady." She speaks. But not in a manner I ever expected. Her voice was usually stern and commanding, but now her words were weak and less forceful. "Where are you going?"

I tell the truth. "You didn't take it well. I need to disengage from this--" She holds up her hand to stop me.

"No." She looks at me, her eyes challenging. "No...you shouldn't leave. As much as I vehemently disagree with you, you're right, Paris."

"I...I am?" I sit back down, stunned at my unexpected victory.

"Yes. I think we have been putting too much pressure on Rory. Actually," she corrects, "I have." She turns towards her granddaughter, sipping her wine. "I just wanted to see if Rory would give the school a chance, if we could push her into it. But I guess she has proven that she doesn't want to attend it."

"I don't," Rory says. "I'm really sorry to disappoint you both, but I just felt if I said anything, you'd hate me for turning it down. I'm too stuck to Harvard to really change my mind at this point, and though I would consider Yale, it is not my first choice. It can't be. As Paris says, when you dedicate yourself to wanting to go to a school, you target it with everything you've got, and that's where I stand." She explains how she appreciated them cutting her into the interview line, but that she wants to do it on her own terms, not those set by anyone else.

It's a tense few minutes between the two, but in the end, we manage to settle everything down that we need to. Emily eventually sees the light and although she isn't pleased that Rory won't consider her alma mater, Richard is actually relieved, knowing that the professors would take advantage of Rory getting in only based on connections and hammering her with challenges that the other kids wouldn't have. Everyone voices out their feelings about the manner, and finally, Mrs. Gilmore closes the door on it.

"Richard, can you call them and tell them Rory won't interview unless she gets an appointment? If she wants to get in the normal way as just a safety, we must respect that."

"Is that what you really want, dear?" he asks her. Rory nods and smiles.

"Please, Grandpa. I'm thankful you want to help me out, but I don't want to step on anyone to get it." Richard smiles towards the both of us, and the eating resumes as the maid brings out a dessert of chocolate mousse...lactose free for me, of course. Lorelai looks at me as if she's amazed that I was able to root out the peace on the matter, and Rory...

I think I find her reaction to my settling things down the best. When everyone was distracted, her hand ends up on my thigh, and she bends out one of her fingers to trace a pattern across it. One that makes me very thankful that I have such a girlfriend who can deal with all of my tantrums without having to restrain me. She sneaks a smile at me, and her index finger traces characters across my leg, all of which I recognize only on feel. I close my eyes and my stomach flip-flops as I translate the characters.

_I♥UP (pat) THX_

__Yes, I know what you're thinking, surely I would not respond to such a simple, and in the grand scheme of things, infantile statement at all. That it was too simple, and worse...sweet.

Yeah, if you're thinking that, you just need to stop right now. I'm in love, and I'll express it any damned way I want to. Smiling as I let the simple sentiment of the words take me over, I decide to push the limits a bit with her. No one's looking, and we have a tablecloth covering us. As I watch that delectable tongue of my Farm Girl take in the taste of the sinfully sweet concoction she seems to love a bit too much, judging from how her blatant spoon-licking makes me flash back to my bedroom that one morning, I'm so turned on. A feeling I really don't need a few hours after some very satisfying sex.

I draw up her dress, watching her eyes still as she realizes the hem is sliding up her leg. I'm not going to let something so simple go unreciprocated. I just saved her cute ass from being stuck in New Haven, the Ivy equivalent of purgatory, so I'm going to show her exactly how much I want to prove to her. No one is the wiser as I hitch the dark floral print material until her entire inner thigh is exposed to me. I got to see her dress earlier...we both watched each other dress. I was sitting at that table the whole time feeling all slicked up from the knowledge that her panties were lacy, semi-sheer, and colored blue to match her bra.

God, I love seducing her. Setting my finger against her thigh, she can only look straight on and I can only hope I don't hit a place that'll make her bump her knee against the table. Knowing I have a bit of a disadvantage as my right hand isn't the one I write with, I hope I get the pattern of the letters right. It's like we're doing the most base and sexual form of text messaging possible.

If only I had one of those vibrating finger massagers, it would complete the experience. Noted for next time. But I digress. I slide a finger across the fringe of her panties to tease her before I give her the push to know that I'm always going to be there for her, in every sense she can think of. She's all innocent, carefree, just a regular Mary right now, until I scratch the message into her skin.

_I♥U2R_

__This time though, there is no innocent pat at all. Instead, I decide to do so much more than that weakling Chris ever did to his baby's mother (I refuse to use the tabloid talk show variant of this term) at any kind of Gilmore dinner, because I can get away with it. I circle my index around the crotch of her panties, then return to her thigh and make my mark on her.

 _YW-UO ME ;)_ (Yes, I wrote the wink sign. I know, I feel like I'm betraying the masters of the English language here, but love doesn't always involve being grammatically correct.)

I then make a cavalier move for her in front of the three most important people in her life, at the same table. I feel no guilt at all as I slide a finger beneath the leg of her underwear and let it dip into her slit. She doesn't even see it coming, but I can tell defending her honor was the right thing to do, because she's wet from my anger. She's soaked the fabric, her legs pushed in tight together not only from manners, but from the fact she's probably still remembering how hard she came earlier from my hand. She's in heat...she wants more. I look down at her stomach, her diaphragm spreading out and in at an accelerated pace. She spoons more mousse and slides it into her mouth, licking that spoon round and back...

Lord, have mercy on my soul for what I'm about to do in the presence of Emily and Lorelai Gilmore.

I take a spoonful of my own dessert, trying to look completely normal as I push my finger higher...higher....so slick. God, you know, I never shared this, but Tristan used the say the worst things about Ror when she wasn't around. The usual 'I'm going to do her so hard she'll see stars' crap with the other guys that I'm not supposed to hear, but I did anyways. One of his worst lines was 'Mary's gotta have a tight cunt. She'll never loosen up when she wraps it around me and she'll milk me hard.'

I have one finger two and a half inches in and her muscles are grasping on my digit for dear life. For once, the boy has it right.

Except, somehow I don't think she'll be fitting a cock inside her anytime soon. I'm perfectly sized for her, just right. I'm her Goldilocks...not too soft, not too hard, and definitely perfect on the length. I feel her clench against me, eating the mousse as I go on about something idle involving the paper. She nods silently as Richard compliments both our writing and editing abilities.

Funny about the editing thing, because I hope she knows how to self-edit herself and not drop the F-bomb at the table. I push my finger in and out a couple more times, so thankful the chair is deep and the tablecloth is voluminous to hide my dirty deed. I sense that she's about to come with only the barest of touches.

I'm right. I circle her stiff clit, and she smashes her legs together, encouraging a few more circles. I will oblige her, all the while calibrating my next quick and witty to meet her orgasm. I'm smart like that, and as I begin to feel her flood my fingers, I pull away as her face pales, her respiration quickens, and she begins to enjoy her delicious treat in a way that makes Meg fucking Ryan look like an amateur, while her other hand tightens around the arm of the chair tightly as if she's grasping a Louisville Slugger. I pull away just a little, and she tries to hide her reaction behind a bite of mousse.

It works as she soaks through rather quickly. There she is, her dress hitched up, and I'm making her come for the second time in a manner of hours. We're going to begin to get away from the notebook and indulge her deepest, darkest wants. We're both going to do that, and it starts now. She convulses, holding on to the edge of the table tightly, and making deep, lustful moans within her covered mouth.

And now, the Gilmore grandparents are looking at her as if she has a third eyeball coming out of hiding. I leave her behind with one last message on her thigh, written in her own damp arousal as she pushes her thighs in and out to finish her orgasm.

_U CUM EZ AS π R_

__The death glare directed my way made it all worth it before Emily wondered what the matter was just in time for me to push Rory's dress back down and take in her full reaction, featuring a hidden cough and a gasp.

"Is there something wrong, dear?" she asks, to my now flushing and panting girlfriend going through the last vestiges of my returning the favor.

"Oh my God!" she cries out rather loudly, to the shock of everyone at the table before she goes into the hidden reasoning for her sudden...passion. Emily is scared of Rory's reaction before she comes to excuse my finger-fuck under the cover of enjoying a sinful delight. "Yummmm!" The blush is deep and I can see in the side of my vision how her chair is slightly shaking as she rides out the small waves.

"That...is the best chocolate mousse ever!" She makes another lustful "mmmmmm" before shaking herself back to normal. "Seriously, Grandma, that was delicious."

Emily didn't know how to react, really. "Um, thank you, Rory." She shakes her head as the last convulsions go through my tall brunette. "That's the same recipe we've been using for years."

"Maybe the chef added a different kind of chocolate?" Richard proclaimed. "I thought I saw barred Ambrosia in the kitchen rather than the usual powdered stuff they pick up at the chef's store. It is a really good treat."

"Yeah, Mom, it's tops," Lorelai says. I don't know if she's on to us, but it gives me the perfect cover to be even more blatant. Or possibly make Rory have an aneurism right here and now. Looking for any excuse to enjoy my girlfriend further, I completely break my table manners and run that finger that was just inside of her along the rim of the mousse glass. Her breathing quickens as I let the concoction completely coat it, and suck my teeth across it. Emily notices my zeal...

"And you, Paris? How is it? I know it's different with Cool Whip in it instead of real cream." I take in the texture of the chocolate and egg, mixed in with the additional flavoring and that fake whipped topping.

I think this is a moment where if I spontaneously combusted, I would die happy from the taste of my girlfriend mixed with chocolate. I can definitely differentiate her cum from the actual dessert, and my eyes glaze over as I let myself become lost in the taste and emotions of what I just shared with her.

My voice deepens as I direct my words more towards the girl next to me rather than her grandmother. "This mousse is divine, Mrs. Gilmore. Definite compliments to your chef."

"Why, thank you." Emily is in shock. A compliment for her menu, it blows her mind.

"You're welcome." I let the taste linger as Rory can't get over what I just did to her. I love what I just did, and I know she did...but she places her finger on my own thigh to state what she thought of what I just did.

_UR EVIL! DAMN U P!_

__I just smirk as I take in another bite of the mousse and leave one last rebuttal that's sure to leave her a total mess until the next time she can get her revenge on me.

_U NO U♥ME - XOXO_

__Yes, I read _Gossip Girl_ on Maddy's recommendation. And then when I was finished, I told her it was the worst piece of trash I've ever read, that it spits on feminism and all the progress women have made over the last forty years,  the characters were twenty levels below cardboard cutouts, it makes cheesy romance novels look downright progressive, and I would punch the author in the face if I ever saw her on the street and tell her every single little thing that was wrong with her joke of a book, especially spending three pages telling me what some teenage New York bitch was wearing, down to brand names, purchase place, and prices. God, I will choke someone if they ever make it a television show.

But that one line from the book did stick out to me, and it's stayed with me since the annoying bitch of a blogger 'narrator' put it at the end of her post. It was actually kind of bitchy, ideal and...

Well, the perfect way to punctuate what is sure to be a Friday night dinner Rory will never forget. I drop a winning smile on her, and I see her almost swoon at me taking what could've been a nightmare of an hour and instead, she can never thing of chocolate mousse in the same way ever again.

Oh, and if you do happen to fog out the men in the book, it might as well be a tale of lesbian sexual tension.

I know we still have at least one hour to go tonight. I don't know if her grandparents will accept us. But at the very least, I have their respect. I stood up to defend my lover's honor, to make it clear that she wasn't going to Yale because they said so. They'd have to get through me first before they could try to talk her into it. And for that, I know that I've made more headway in ten minutes than Dean could in two years with her. He went to one dinner, that's it. And the chickenshit couldn't stand the heat.

For Rory, I'd follow her to the ends of the earth. I'd go to every dinner, ever if I had to. And to the end, I would show that I will fight for her, tooth and nail, and show that my loyalty lies only with her. I will love her, no matter what. I'm the only one where with just one touch, she comes apart. I respect her intelligence, her beauty, and her morals.

I am the right one to be with Rory Gilmore. Not Dean, not Jess, not Tristan or any other guy in Chilton. Not Louise, Madeline, Summer, or even Lane could ever give her what I want to. Someone to run to, to talk to, just sharing those small moments and everything a relationship should have.

I know, I'm overreaching, that I'm making this declaration and that she has her own free will to love whoever she wants. But I'm here, with her, willing to go through this, and that has to count for something. It definitely counts when it comes to Lorelai, because I definitely need her in my corner for sure.

All I can hope for is that at the end of the night, everything is well. If it isn't, I still have to be here. I cannot let anyone break us apart. Not for anything for the world. The last thing I ever want to be is the woman who broke Rory's heart by giving up when she needed me the most.

We hold hands beneath the table as Lorelai makes a bad joke of some kind about apple tarts. I feel the security and love between us in that hand hold, something that unites us together and makes us stronger together than just ourselves...  


* * *

** Rory's POV **

****How did she get away with that?

Really, I'm asking this, not only to myself, but to the world at large, and I'm looking for any sane explanation to explain the power that this girl is having over me. I still can't believe what she pulled at that table, in the dining room, in front of my mom and my grandparents!

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God...

I think this is the point usually where I make some comparison with Dean usually. He does something stupid and I lead into 'but Paris is better than him because she did this and this and this.'

Problem is, Dean was nice, and he was a gentleman. He attended one dinner and Grandpa pretty much made it clear he would rather reenact a coast-to-coast tour in a 1910s car on dirt roads with iron tires while having a hernia before he ever wanted to speak to that boy again. I knew he would never impress Grandpa at all.

But there was my girlfriend, in a corner of the living room, talking about cars and speed with him, going on and on about how she'd want a V8-something with a 0-to-60 of less than four seconds and other technical gobbledygook that I usually tune out because I'm of the 'key turns, car starts, I hope' school of automobile knowledge. And he was completely enjoying her company.

There I was across the room, completely infatuated with her, my cheeks so warm from just her presence, and my body in wait, begging for more of her affection and love, something which I'm quickly becoming addicted to. I sat with my legs crossed, a pantiliner along my dampened underwear not only from her little fun at the dining room table, but a fear that I might just watch her in this situation and want to rub myself into yet another orgasm from that damned voice.

I'm actually addicted to having sex with Paris. My mind, which should be focusing on exams, is now hard-wired to feel her touch, remember the soft feel of her breasts, the sound of her voice when she gets close to fruition. Sure, my grades are still better than ever. But in between economics lessons I'm thinking Paris should supply me when I'm demanding her touch.

What has happened to me? I have fallen beyond head over heels for this woman, and I just can't stop thinking about her. Formal was a true turning point for the both of us, those three hours apart making us both realize that we need each other, heart and soul. I feel so bonded to her, and for her to do what she did tonight, to stand up to Grandma and tell her point blank that she was wrong for pushing Yale on me, and dragging Grandpa into it for her own needs. I was afraid to say something, to open a wound and renew the hate she held for my mom because if I were to tell her, she'd think I was brainwashed, that it wasn't my decision. I had spent many afternoons with her, rehearsing, just talking about Harvard. It's like a focus to us, a catharsis to have this thing to look forward to.

Truth be told, though, it's more than just the school for me now. I still remember the first friendly conversation we had at the fair, about how she didn't want me to go, but we agreed to disagree, with the conclusion that it was a 'big school'. That we'd never bump into each other, and we would forget each other.

It might be a big school, but as each day goes by, with each new touch and sweet nothing in my ear, each kiss, that campus seems much smaller.

This is getting serious. If she was that willing to defend my honor to keep me on the Harvard track...what does that mean for us? She hasn't really talked about living arrangements or anything past June, but I don't know.

OK, I need to stop thinking about this, just focus on the present. That bridge is a long way off from crossing and for now I should count my blessings that Yale has now been pushed out of the picture. We're back to just Harvard...

"Hey, so everything's going well so far." Mom gave me a glass of Coke as she sat next to me. I took it willingly and sipped from the glass, letting the cool syrup coat my throat. "She seems to be friendly to Grandpa." I crossed my legs over as I brought my attention away from Paris to focus on my mother.

"She is. They're talking about her 911 right now; it's actually quite interesting to hear her describe the car in detail." She went on about the safety and sound systems, along with the finely tuned suspension as he describes his 1973 S, which was his big purchase when he got boosted to the upper offices of his company with a much higher salary. "I still remember taking it on Route 6 up to Provincetown the day after I bought it. Frankly, it was the best drive I've ever had; I still love it to this day, it's still in perfect condition and has wonderful road miles. I assume you've taken yours out on a good run after you got it?" Richard was absolutely intrigued as Paris described the latter portion of her summer vacation after coming back from DC.

"I went a little farther, out of the way. I had the dealer drop mine in Atlantic City after it had a tune up and fluid check, and took it all the way down the Parkway to Cape May, then hopped the ferry to Delaware and just drove all the way down the Delmarva until I got out of the Bay Bridge/Tunnel in Norfolk. The rest of the way I took it easy, headed into the Appalachians on Skyline Drive, took many curves, and it was just a wonderful drive. My girl really knows how to tame those mountain roads."

"That's pretty amazing, dear!" Grandpa exclaimed. "How many miles was that? It had to be at least 1,500."

"It was. I had the top down, wind in my hair, the stereo blaring. I can only imagine how you felt when you had your Mustang and did the BC 99/US 101 drive all those years ago on the Pacific coast."

"You and the road, that's all it is. You learn to love it, you learn to respect it, and it will treat you right." I really enjoyed watching how much they were bonding. "I think you're really taking to the road well, Paris. Everyone else in your school, they buy these cars to drive what, three miles a day? It's such a sinful waste to have all those horses beneath the hood and having only 1/4 able to work themselves. You seem pretty smart and aware that your cars and bikes need to be worked, that they should be driven for pleasure, not work. You have your workhorse SUV and Jaguar, and then the fun toys you get to play with when you need them. That's what I really love, seeing 'em worked to their limits, that feeling of speed, the invincibility you feel within that small cabin."

She smiled at him. "Everyone else gets into makeup, bags, jewelry, all kinds of collections. Not me. I just love that feeling of knowing if I wanted to, I could head up to Vermont for the weekend and just take those roads all over. I do it within common reason, of course."

"I assume you've gone past the speed limit in a few places then, but you've been careful."

She nodded. "Very careful. I had Rory in the car once; I let her drive it." _Whoa, stop, hon. You can't tell him that!_ "You should be very proud of her, because she handled it like a pro." I was in a panic, ready for her to be yelled at by him. Why would she say that? Did she not know...?

He turned towards me, and I felt like a ghost. "Is this so?"

"Y-y-yes?" I whimpered as Mom prepared to usher me away.

"I told her never to do it again," she said, but he stopped her. I was so nervous, my stomach spinning.

"You felt that thrill then, right?" I couldn't understand the smile on his face. "Rory, one spin in a Porsche where I'm sure you were safe isn't the end of the world. You should learn to relax, to enjoy things. I'm sure you did, and I don't think any less of either of you two for bonding through Paris's need for speed."

"It...it was wonderful. Awesome." I glowed, relieved that he found it all right. "I took a curve at 85 and Paris was extremely proud of how I drove it." Mom shook her head. "I might not be able to do it again, but you have to do it once, right?"

"If you enjoy it and you're safe and nobody's around, I say go for it."

"Dad! Don't encourage her." Mom tried to come to my defense, but that only brought back a reminder that she was once in my shoes.

"Nonsense, Lorelai. She's safe and has Rory's well being completely in mind; Paris would have never given her the keys if she didn't have that gut feeling. You, Christopher and that Ferrari, remember that?"

Oh, I'm sure she didn't want to. Dad trashed his sixteenth birthday present on an Avon Mountain curve by taking it at 110 mph and ended up with a broken arm. If Mom hadn't forgotten her purse at the lookout point and took another ride with her friend, she might've been in that car while she was unknowingly two months pregnant with me. I mean, I took that curve at 85, but I judged it and the road was dry. If I would've said 'how about 95' I was sure Paris would've gone volcanic on me. 

"Well...I guess. I just," she looked worried towards my girlfriend. "I feel secure about her driving Rory to and from school. I just find her inner speed freak a bit scary."

"You don't have to worry about it, Ms. Gilmore," Paris assured. "It's winter anyways and I always put away the lead foot this time of year. Summer and fall it's safe, but now and spring, I'm sobered, especially around the holidays." She was apologetic to her. "It gets to Thanksgiving and you get those people out who always misjudge winter driving conditions and always speed, along with the idiots who think a Bud Light is a good substitute for heat. When I get into bad weather, I'm almost as slow as my Nanna Gellar was on the roads with her old maroon Buick boat of a car."

"Ahh, the '53 Estate Wagon," Grandpa remembered within his encyclopedic mind. "Old Brownie?" Paris nodded. "That was a big, beautiful car, they don't make them like that anymore."

"It's still in the family and in great condition. My Uncle Hershel still drives it occasionally from his home on Block Island on the ferry to Narragansett. The backseat is so nice..." She directed a look towards me, "...and spacious." Cue the secret smile and my internal shuddering at the idea of being taken in a big old car like that. I had to cross my legs, and I really enjoyed the bulk of my pad all the sudden.

"We're in a car geek sandwich," Mom quipped as she shook her head. "I feel like I'm with Click and Clack here talking about a Honda transmission."

"Surely you jest, Lorelai." Paris seemed very offended, though she still smiled. "I'm more for a Toyota when it comes to Japanese makes. You know, I've been looking at the Prius, that new hybrid they just came out with? What do you think of it, Mr. Gilmore?"

"I think it's a great concept," he declared brightly. "I don't understand why the American makers are jumping on it, and the auto coverage division of my company looked it over in Japan. They feel like it'll be a high-demand car because of the electric motor, though there's still some nagging issues like engine quietness. Too soft, someone crosses the street and they don't hear you ahead."

"They can work those issues out, I'm sure." Paris smiles at him. "What do you think of hybrids, Rory?" She gave me an apologetic look. "I didn't mean to leave you out."

"Oh, that's all right," I assured. "I definitely would be interested in one. I'm sure you're waiting for the third generation model so you can have all that speed."

"You might think that," Paris told me, "but if they come out with a Lexus version, I'm all over it."

"Of course you'd want the higher-cost label," I rationalized. "Toyota's not good enough?"

"It's fine. But leather seats, lots of legroom...I hear the Prius isn't conducive to being a very roomy car." Oh God, she was flirting with me again. "I might be a small girl, but I need to spread out." I had to shut my eyes, this was too much!

"Y...yeah," I stuttered, as Paris pursed her lips, amused at how seductive she can be in front of my grandfather. He was really impressed with her, and I hoped that foreboding was a good sign.

Which took me to thoughts of where Grandma was. I was surprised that she hadn't joined us after dinner because she always talks to us in the living room.

"I should go check where Grandma is," I said, excusing myself up to look for her. I needed them both in the room before I can have the courage to bring things to where they need to be. Mom looked at me, and then Paris, and I let Grandpa know that I would be back with her shortly.

Giving Paris one last look, I got up from my seat, putting my soda down on the table atop of a coaster and head into the small hallway linking Grandpa's den and Grandma's parlor. I walked slowly in order to not disturb the throw rug beneath my feet, and peered into the room through a peek in the door to see Emily looking at various pieces of paper and books to plan one of her DAR events.

I knocked. "Grandma?"

She looked up, glasses on her face. "Yes, dear."

"I was wondering why you're not with us all." I entered the room, ready to back away if she didn't let me come in. "Usually you're out there for the whole time."

"It's...it's nothing." She sounded distracted. I sat down on the other side of the table, facing her. "Just some holiday planning, we have that event at the Knights of Columbus hall on the 22nd that I have to prepare for. Getting out the invitations and such."

"The Yule Ball?" She nodded in the affirmative. "Sounds like fun."

"Quite." Her way of ending the topic as she brought herself towards the woman of the evening. "So, how are you and Paris getting along?"

I tried to avoid it with a non-committal answer. "Fine." I cross my legs together, helping to seal and stamp envelopes to help her out. "It might be a bit more hectic this time of year but we've navigated everything smoothly."

"I see that," Grandma responded. "I'm just curious about how much of a presence she is in your life lately. From what I remember, you two were barely civil to each other."

"We bonded during the Washington trip. It was good for the both of us."

"Yes, but you seemed to be joined at the hip."

"We are," I said. "I feel a close bond with her now."

"I'll say. You don't usually have any kind of guest, except for that meeting with Dean." It was then I realized that in this large gap of time, I had not let my grandparents know that I wasn't exactly all that social with Dean anymore. "How is he doing, anyways?"

 _Oh, shit._ Well, it proves to me how much they really cared about Dean. "I wouldn't know. We broke up about a month and a half ago."

"You did?" She was surprised as I licked and stamped five more envelopes. "Why wouldn't you say anything about it?"

"Because," I responded, "it's complicated. He was mad at me over a situation I couldn't control with a boy in town I don't like romantically, and I didn't take well to his attitude. So I ended it."

"Just like that?" Grandma stopped looking over her paperwork. "Why wouldn't you work it out, dear? I'm sure it was just some kind of misunderstanding between you both."

"It wasn't. He got jealous and jumped to a conclusion that was never true. Dean did a lot of that since I came home from Washington, and he was taking me for granted. I don't need that stress in my life, so I ended it with him." Why was she pushing me on this?

"But I don't understand. You were deeply in love with him. What changed your mind so quickly?"

"Nothing," I insisted. "It's nothing at all. The connection wasn't there, and there was a chasm between us. He wants me to be the complacent wife, I want to see the world. He doesn't even want to take college that seriously."

"You loved him though. Why give up two years just on a whim?"

"Grandma, I have my reasons. I don't want him back. He's in love with someone else in his hometown and I don't want to stop that."

"So what?" OK, wait, she wasn't a fan of Dean. Why defend him? "You work it out, you fight for him. You don't just give up because he pitches a fit at you one day." Her voice rose towards me. "He might not be the best man for you, young lady, but you can change him. You can mold him if you try."

"I'm not that kind of woman! Grandma, he was cheating on me with some other girl."

"So? Maybe if you would've butted in you could've stopped it." In my mind, I screamed _Stop defending this idiot!_

 __"Do you know how stupid you sound?" OK, that wasn't what I wanted to say. Out loud, at least. "Yeah, I'm going to convince my boyfriend who isn't in love with me to have me back."

"Young lady, do not take that tone with me." She got up as her voice took that dark tone she used often with Mom. "He was in love with you and you pushed him away."

"He pushed me away first!" I began to yell back. "I cannot be in love with someone who thinks of me second! I wasn't married to him, so I have no obligations to stay with Dean if it wasn't going to work out!"

"So that's it? One thing wrong and you're done with him."

"His car was unsafe. I didn't listen to Grandpa and I spent weeks in a cast because of an accident I had in it! Do you really think I'm that dense? That I would stay with someone who wasn't abusing me physically, but putting me down mentally? Let's put it this way Grandma; he didn't want to have sex with me!"

"Lorelai Leigh, this is information I don't need to hear--"

"I don't care. Why would you defend him when it's clear I'm done with him? One afternoon, I offered myself to him, no questions asked. I would've been safe to the nth degree. But did he take it? No. He refused me, and he made me feel like scum for doing so." I shouted at her, and I didn't give a fuck about decorum or niceties. "I am a red-blooded woman looking for much more than a make-out partner or some guy to tend to my every need. I need someone I can love for who they are, and--"

"Apparently Paris is doing that for you," she screamed. "It all makes sense now. Being alone, in the bedroom, all that cursing."

Fuck, she knew. She fucking knew. My skin took on a color that made a vampire look like they're blushing. I stared at her.

"You really think I didn't get that sense? A year ago, you treated that girl like a cancer, and now I can't read the newsletter or paper and not see your names pasted together by an ampersand." She was screaming at me. "I thought I was seeing things, that the both of you wouldn't participate in that dance marathon nonsense voluntarily."

"Grandma--"

"It all makes sense now. Sharon has been trying to get that girl together with Vance Beardsley III for years and she keeps turning him down. I don't know why, he would be a good provider for her. But she gets lovesick for that stupid felon Tristan DuGrey and when he's gone, suddenly she figures out that no man can love her." I was beginning to cry as this woman I was related to began to attack my girlfriend's character. "Any boy in Hartford would want her."

"Any boy would treat her like shit!" I never cursed at her, but it seemed appropriate, and she began to reel back as I went on the defensive. "And how can you think one good thought of Sharon Gellar? She's a hateful, spiteful bitch who couldn't even push the top 150 when she went to school, so she pushes her poor daughter to extreme limits so she can score all the glory. I don't know how she does it, live in a house with this soulless drunk who doesn't give a fuck about her own flesh and blood? You don't even talk to her!"

"That doesn't mean I don't care about her, dear!"

"How can you care? She took Paris's father, who might be the kindest, gentlest man outside of Grandpa in this whole city, and took him to the cleaners on lies and falsehoods. We came out to him Wednesday night and he couldn't have been more caring about us. Paris might have been forcibly torn apart from him, but their relationship is as close as Mom and I."

"So you confirm it," she spat out bitterly. "You dumped a guy who would give you the world for some silly little romance with a **girl**?"

I hated how she said the word, as if it's a slur on the level of other certain words. I cringed as I began to feel like Mom did all of those years ago when she confessed her pregnancy.

"Tell me you're not in love with her," Emily demanded. "That I was just hearing things in that hallway."

I can't lie to her, no matter what, and I'm too angry to censor myself like I usually can.

"What do you think? When you feel that pull towards someone, you can't deny it, and I have that with her."

"So you invite her here just so you can rub it in our faces that you don't want to have a respectable relationship? That you're so desperate for romance, you're willing to give it to someone who's so needy--"

"Needy?!" I flared up. "Really, Paris is so desperate and needy that she can only go to me and say 'Rory, I have feelings for you, I want you and I love you.' I'm the one who took the steps to woo her. I told her I wanted her, and it was a big risk that could've pushed us further away. But she bit, and I'm damned glad she did." I cried, my voice loud and frayed as footsteps moved towards the room. "This has been the happiest month of my life, and yes, I am in love with her. There was no hesitation when I told her that, and I wanted to come here tonight and tell you that I found someone who I feel like can be my soul mate. Not just my Christopher, someone who's there but runs away when he realizes what the consequences are. Paris is smart, she's intelligent, and the most beautiful woman I know. She has empathy within her heart and she does nothing but put everyone else in front of her. Yes, she's insane about Harvard, but I am too. I'm not seeing the problem you have with us."

"You can't be together!" She moved towards me. "You have so much potential to be a wonderful woman out there, but you want to be a lesbian because you think she's the love of her life. That's not how it works, Rory!" She shook her head. "I wish your mother had raised you better to know that this is a moral dead end--"

"Oh, don't you dare drag her into this," I warned. "Don't you dare, Grandma."

"What? If she hadn't left us, you wouldn't think more of Paris beyond a friend."

"Yeah, because you would have shot us down by force!" I darted a look towards the other side of the room, where Paris, Mom and Grandpa looked in at our loud fight from the door. "I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I'm telling you the truth, that I love her. It's not as if I can get knocked up by her or anything."

"Oh, that makes it so much better, that you can't have her baby. Thank God for that, because now you're going to deny us grandchildren because you're only thinking of yourself." She raised her hands up, her voice becoming ragged. "That's all I've been looking for, an appropriate suitor who makes it downright impossible for you to continue the family legacy! Well thank you, Rory, for thinking of us when it comes to making life choices like becoming gay because the reasoning center of your brain seems to have been messed up."

"Excuse me," Grandpa boomed. "What's happening here?"

I don't expect Emily Gilmore to ever say what she did. But she does, and...it hurts. It's like she stabbed a fucking knife in my back.

"Your granddaughter who you're so proud of is a disappointment to us." He looks shocked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well that girl next to you? She's Rory's lover, and she's a lesbian. Way to thank us for sending her to Chilton, huh?" He looks at her, and Paris gave me a pained look, in shock. And for once, my mother is speechless. Silent.

It's the worst moment of my life. I hear the d-word, and I collapse in the chair, unable to rebut. No one can come near me, afraid of Grandma, and I expected Grandpa to follow suit. A minute of silence, wracked with my sobs. I can't believe she called me that...hurt me in this way.

"Emily," he says tersely. "What is the meaning of this?"

"She dumped Dean last month and fell in love with Paris, apparently. How do you feel about that, dear? That your granddaughter is so petty, she will risk our reputations for the love of a woman?" I expected him to respond in kind, and for our relationship to be irrevocably broken.

I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. My heart wanted to run from my body and leave me as just flesh and bone. I looked towards my girlfriend and I knew that she wanted to hug me, but she was afraid to move one inch, scared that my big bear of a grandfather will stop her.

I was like a mess. I hated myself. _What if Grandma is right? I'm being selfish, only thinking of myself..._

 __"Rory is a lesbian?" Taken aback, I prepared for his vitriol. "And what exactly is the problem with that?"

_Huh?_

__"Richard, she's laying with another woman. The Bible forbids this. I forbid this. Everyone in the world thinks this is sick." Her voice was crisp and precise.

Great, I'm ill because I have elegant fingers buried inside me instead of a grubby, dirty penis.

"The Bible says a lot of things, like we can't eat clams," he responded proudly. "Last time I checked, the shellfish industry was alive and well. I take the book seriously, but it's kind of like some political memoir, some things are glossed over, and some who wrote it inserted lies and falsehoods just for spite, using the mouth of God to excuse their personal feelings." He was acting very calm and reasoned. "Paris, you want to hug your girlfriend?" She nodded. "Go over there."

"Richard--"

"Emily, after so many years, you think I raised my daughter to be intolerant and had her teach Rory to be the same?" His voice boomed with authority as I got up and fell into Paris's arms. She wrapped around me tightly, and I cried into her shoulder. "I was just talking to this young lady, and the way she went on about how proud she was of her when it came to her editing and work ethic, I can see that I'd rather have her with my granddaughter than any boy." He shook his head. "How can you even think a positive thought about that dullard Dean Forrester? I heard her say he cheated on her. He has no honor at all to turn Rory down when she felt she was ready, and it's no wonder she felt this way for Paris."

"Are you listening to yourself, Richard? You're actually going to endorse this? With not a qualm? What if Paris hurts her?"

"Then we're there for her. But I doubt this young lady would ever be so spiteful and mean to her ever again." He spoke his mind, strongly. "She doesn't get enough support, I can always tell that. She was dragged through the mud when Sharon divorced poor Harold and she finds happiness in not only her cars and dancing, but in our granddaughter. How can you speak so ill of her, Emily?"

"She was having sex with her upstairs, in her bed!" Richard stepped back a couple of steps, scared. "That she would show us such blatant disrespect--"

"Mom--"

"Don't. Say. A. Word. Lorelai."

Mom stepped in front of Grandpa in a defensive position, firm and angry, falling back into the strong girl she was when she was about to leave the mansion.

"No, Mom, I have to. You and Dad did the same thing when you were in his dorm when you were younger, and I don't see any problem. Yes, I reacted like you did at first, but I calmed down when I saw how much more good than bad this did for her. She's thriving, Paris is thriving, and I have not once had to yell at either of them because they're doing something wrong."

"So you're encouraging their...thing."

"No, I'm thinking whatever happened with Dean told her that she wasn't right for a guy. That she saw Paris and thought 'what a fine young woman she is...and she's so attractive. I know it might not be normal, but let's give this girl-on-girl thing a shot.' And what do you know, they're happy and gay. Literally. And I love it because I can trust Paris with Rory's very life. She won't hurt my daughter." She was so passionate defending us that she cried. "You know, last week she fought tooth and nail to get her back because she got set up on a date with some guy in Philly by her mother that **he** didn't want because that woman talked him into it without them being consulted at all. Rory sees that, she overreacts, and she almost loses that guiding force, that person keeping her together and from falling apart within the hellish walls of that school. It took them so long to find their footing. They used to hate each other so deeply I felt like I'd come home to her with a black eye one day. But I look at this small, blonde, gifted young woman, and I see myself in her."

It's then that for the first time since she came to Grandma for help with Chilton, she truly spoke her mind. Her words were firm, and I watch as Grandpa slid his hand into his daughter's, showing that Emily was fighting a one-woman battle between us. "She has a father who loves her with all he has, who regards her as his best blessing, but has to put up with a cold bitch of a mother who barely acknowledges her existence." Emily attempted to speak over her, but failed miserably. "She's stuck in a situation she didn't want to be in, having this way of living her life that isn't supported at all by anyone. She's heard backtalk, all the words, the slurs, and she tries to rise above it, but inside, she's fucking hurting. Her heart is protected by all these layers because there's nothing but hurt in her life. She has had one woman through her entire she can depend on, her nanny, and without her she's all alone, this empty heiress thinking of Harvard as her only life goal."

I felt Paris tighten her hold around me, and she rocked me back and forth as Lorelai finally made clear her uncompromising acceptance of us. "When Rory came into her life, she didn't want her help. She pushed her away so many times that my daughter should've taken her command to stay away from her very seriously. But she kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and eventually, they became friends with a good understanding of each other. And when they went to Washington, they began to think of each other differently, as more than friends. It took them so long to figure out they were on the same page, and it works for them. They work. There's nothing wrong with them. Paris has been there for Rory more than anyone else in the last year, and I've been watching them together for the last month. I know this isn't normal, Mom, but if they love each other, who's to stop them?" She calmed down, trying to find her footing at the end. "So don't yell at me. Don't yell at her. Nature chose them to find each other, and if they bond on that very close level, I can't stop them. Please, understand this."

She talked herself out, and I expected Paris to say something next. She brushed a kiss across my cheek and turned to face Emily as I pulled back to have Grandpa hug me against him.

"So," Emily sneered, wrapping her arms around her chest. "The truth comes out. You want Rory at Harvard just so you can have your way with her and control her. That's what this is all about. Your defense of her at the table was just a front."

Paris was very angered at her aside. Her jaw squared up, and she faced down my grandmother like she was some freshman at Hillside about to be ripped apart, point by point. She squinted her eyes, and she brought out every vocal gun she could possibly muster.

"Think whatever you want, Mrs. Gilmore. Call me a homewrecker, slander my name, tell me I'm inferior and I should just settle for some guy who doesn't care about me except around will time when my father dies and he can get a hold of the Gellar millions. You've put Rory through hell to get an education, and she's met every challenge you've thrown at her head-on. Get social? She tried and almost got a felony burglary charge out of it. Become a debutante. She did it. She absolutely hated it, but she did it. Invite people to parties that she barely knows because she needs 'connections'. She did that too, and she was well within her rights to tell you off for making her have such a stuffy party."

I held back my grandfather just in case he was ready to stop her, but I didn't feel any resistance against my hand at all. She cut Emily hard, calling her on all of her crap.

"We both came here tonight, in good faith to make you understand that our bond is close, that in the space of a month I've went from feeling all alone in the world, questioning my feelings, even my sanity, to having the love of a strong, beautiful woman who I feel will make a difference, no matter what she does. I came here because I wanted to be open...to be honest with you. To be in a non-confrontational situation where we could talk like civilized adults." She snarled her voice. "We can't have that, can we, Emily? You need conflict. You can't live without picking a fight, questioning life choices, to nitpick on every little thing your daughter and her progeny have ever done since the strip turned pink." I watched her eyes as she spoke, instead of her mouth at once. They were dead focused, a dark forest shade of brown, and she barely blinked at all facing down our family matriarch.

"Look, I'm sorry if you got a bad hand, that you can't stand your daughter managing a great business, that your granddaughter has seemed to do just fine without going through the social wringer, or that you have to micromanage every single detail of their lives down to the time they must bow at your whim. Your granddaughter, my girlfriend, does not deserve that treatment. She deserves acceptance of who she is. Whatever problems you might have with me, they don't apply to her. Her grades are still well, and we get in our romance without making any compromises.

"If you can't accept that, I feel sorry for you. Because you'd be losing the best thing that's ever come into your life. Besides that, she turned eighteen in October, but I really think she's mature beyond her years. Even more than I am. She has never raised her voice at anyone unless she feels rightfully pissed off, and the first time I saw that anger, I knew I could never get her to that point again, even if I did a few more times after. All I did was fall in love with her, and all she did was return the favor. If there's anything wrong with that, it's that I kept pushing her off to the side."

She left Emily with one less volley. "By the way, I never want to hear anybody slander Tristan DuGrey **ever** again. His leaving might have been the thing that set all of this in motion, but he had to act out. Nobody listened to him, and when I tried to help, it was too late. It's because of people like you like you, my mother, and Tristan's parents that give the upper class a bad name, not giving a care about the welfare of their children or paying attention to their needs. I might not talk to him, but wherever he is, he's doing so much better than he would be yelled by his father daily." She was exhausted when she finally stopped talking, and in that short moment of defending my honor, my love for her trebled.

The four of us in that room had all spoken our piece to Emily Rochelle Gilmore, and I was surprised to see my grandfather accept us so readily. Emily stared at all of us hard as Paris backed away, feeling proud of herself that she finally faced up to one of Hartford's scions of society and stated her feelings outright.

We didn't know what she'd say. Grandpa rubbed his fingers on my wrist, a sign that he still loved me, no matter what. I was so proud of my girlfriend in this moment, but not only that, also for my mom and myself. We said what we needed to, and all we can hope for is acceptance.

But I knew that it wouldn't come tonight.

She looked at all of us, and shook her head. We were all in anticipation...

"Paris, have you told your mother yet?"

She responded quickly, stumbling over a couple of words. "Sometime next week. I need to gather courage with her."

Emily shook her head. "I need some time to think about this. I won't tell anybody about what ensued here tonight, because our family problems should not be aired out." Then she brought her attention towards me. "Until I tell you so, Rory, you will not be required to come back here for dinner or the Christmas party. What you told me tonight hurts me, and I will not have this repeat on a weekly basis." Then to Mom. "You too, Lorelai. I will not be told how to think by you, and I feel you could have stopped this from happening." And then towards Richard. The poor man has to live with her, and I know we just assured him he'd be in the pool house for the next few weeks.

"I'm disappointed with you. It's your choice whether you want to accept these two in the same school, because you hold the checkbook for Rory. I'd much rather see them separated from this point forward, but I guess I don't have a choice in this. If you want to see them, fine. But you won't tell me about it. You won't push me towards your side. I have to focus on holiday parties, and I do not need my granddaughter's sexuality to be hanging in the air."

"Emily--"

"This is non-negotiable, dear." Her voice was cold. "I will deal with this after the holidays." I couldn't believe her. _She's pushing us off as if we're an event?_ I feel my heart sink. "I cannot understand why you would support this. Maybe I will in time. But for now, I'm in utter shock. I've had three people try to reason with me to see things their way, and I can't deal with this right now. I'm overwhelmed." She sits back down at the table to continue her sealing and stamping, as if nothing had happened. "Please show yourselves out."

"Grandma--" I tried to speak up, but I'm quickly ignored.

"Goodbye, Rory." She went back to her work, and disregarded us all.

I guess this is the way it's going to be. I felt empty, in shock, and just...like I've lost her. That's all I can think.

I lead everyone out as Grandpa shut the doors to the parlor, and he called for the maid to bring us our coats and bags. Mom took my hand and a pallor hung in the air as I took one last look at my grandmother. Pushing us away, while leaving things unsettled and completely open. It hurts to know that she said all of this, but she doesn't even say if she'll accept us or not.

We came out to the living room, where we put on our coats as Grandpa sat looked at me. I was scared, despite his acceptance of us.

"I'm so sorry, Rory," he said, very apologetic. "If it makes you feel better, I think you two are a perfect match. Completely unexpected and something I would have never anticipated, but I think that you two have a good rapport. You remind me of screwball friends in an old comedy. Lucy and Ethel, for instance."

"Grandpa!" I blushed, and Paris was sort of lost as to if she's the Ethel or the Lucy. An image of her saying _Vitameatavegamin_ floated in my mind and was kind of cute, but she'd likely say it all deadpan and unenthusiastically. "I...I...thank you. I know that you're disappointed in me a little though." I moved towards him.

"Why is that?"

"Because, I'm not...I won't be with a guy. I--"

"Dear, say no more." He stopped me, bending down to kiss my cheek. "If you feel Paris is your one and only, I can't stop you. She's a great young woman, and with you both together, you're going to be an unstoppable force that will take your chosen fields by storm."

"What about Yale though? I know you were looking forward to it." I looked a bit down.

"I can get into crimson. It's going to be sort of a kicking and screaming process, but it's just a college. A good college. Not as good as Yale," he winked, "but it's still a pretty top-notch school." He smiled at me, and I was assured that he cannot think of them turning me down.

"As for my reasons for accepting you, some of my co-workers are gay and lesbian, and they work just as hard, if not better, than the other workers on my floor. They know that if a colleague ever thinks of them as sick, they can come to me and set them straight." He further explained that he came into the family business during the Civil Rights era, and he had to fight the guys upstairs for years to break up the white guy monopoly of the company, to make them more diverse and that there were many nights where he wanted to give up. "But in my heart, I know that whatever lifestyle you have, if it does not harm anyone, you should be free to pursue your life, your career, anything you might want to achieve."

"Dad," Mom says, the closeness they've always had even in their worst of times reflected in a rare hug. "Thank you for defending us. For trying to make her see the light. I don't see how you can be so accepting of her, like I am."

"I think of it this way, Lor. I should have done more for you all those years ago. But I was afraid. Emily is the family woman, I'm the breadwinner. But this...I cannot lose my granddaughter. I respect Rory for standing up to us, laying it on the line and not backing down. I am very proud of you tonight." Releasing my mom, he directed a look of respect towards Paris.

"And you, young lady."

"Yes?" Paris's voice actually shook a little. "What i-is it Mr. Gilmore?"

"I just have a couple things to say to you." He walked all of us to the door. "For Rory, you treat her well."

"Of course, sir." She looked at him. "I know if I hurt her, you would never forgive me. I treasure her love every day."

"I see it in your eyes," he observed. "You set your sights on her like I did Emily. You didn't let anything stop you, and now you two will work well. I know it."

"Thank you, sir." She smiled at him. "Was there something else?"

"Yes." He laughed. "You two better go 12-0 during debate season." There was an immediate calming breath as Paris smiled at the tall man I was proud to be related to. "I think you might be able to shut out those pesky Hillsiders after that verbal performance tonight. You two, together, are unstoppable. You stated your cases, and I think that my wife has plenty to think about. I'm sorry she's going to avoid you, but I promise you both that you have all the support that you need."

I looked at this man, and my respect for him grew more and more. He actually stood up to Grandma without as much as a step towards her, and for that he is forever in my debt. "The check for second semester goes out tomorrow, personally delivered to Headmaster Charleston. I will draw the funds from my account, and Rory, you will be assured graduation from Chilton. I hope that you're both careful and discreet, and that you will make us proud. And I promise you, Emily will see the light. I will push carefully, and though I know she holds a grudge for a long time, this has to work out. I won't let it tear us apart."

"I guess that's all I can ask for," I said, and we hugged one last time. "Thank you, Grandpa."

"Anytime, kiddo." He smiled at all three of us. "I might come into town next week to check in on you."

"Actually, I'm going to visit Dad up in Boston next weekend, to check how my future sister's doing," I responded. "But I hope we'll see you before the holidays." We all said our goodbyes, and he was friendly as he saw us out. I felt the chill of the December night weigh upon me as the three of ended up in the front drive, Paris unlocking the door of the Jag with her remote. Mom stepped aside, and I fumbled with my hands in my pockets as we prepared for the new awkward situation before us. I know what she'll say right away.

"So...she heard us." Paris felt a bit mortified.

"She did." I shook my head. "We had sex above her and she heard it. I haven't been so embarrassed, ever. She baited me, and I bit right on. I should've denied it and waited to tell her." I rolled my eyes. "I'm very sorry, Par. I didn't think it would be this bad. I don't even know if she'll accept us eventually." Her index finger circled inside of my palm as she brought herself next to me.

"Rory, I don't regret anything about tonight," she told me, her words confident and her stride very strong, as her mouth brushes against my cheek. "Nothing at all."

"Are you sure?"

"Certain." She licked her lips to moisturize them. "We did what we have to do, and we knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park. I didn't expect that though. That she would just stop it after a bit and tell us we shouldn't see each other." We both frowned, shaking our heads. "I am sorry--"

"I'm not." I knew what she was apologizing for, but there was need for it at all. I can't be mad at her. "We have a sex drive around each other, Par, and we can't stop that."

"No." She still felt unsure. "Richard and I were talking about you while you and Emily fought. It's funny what he said before we heard you."

"What's that?" She slid her secret smile across her lips and whispered it into my ear.

"If I were a man, I'd be perfect with you." A bit awkward. "But he seemed to come around pretty quickly."

"Your episode of _Car Talk_ helped with that." We both hugged close. "Seriously, talking to him like that? It scored points with him, and he seemed very impressed. I'm glad you can get along with him."

"There was never any doubt." We were both in awe, knowing that even my grandma can't stop us. She opened the door and threw her bag on my seat (yes, I think of it that way now). She took a deep breath, shaking her head. "We knew your grandma was going to be a tough nut to crack."

"Yeah." I brushed my hair back nervously, as my other hand shook. I don't know how I can handle this, and I felt like I was in a depression.

But she seems to know the best way to make me feel better, always. She took my hand into hers, and then the other one, and stared at me with this intensely beautiful focus. It made me blush as she looked, and then slid her left hand up my arm until it cupped against my chin. She softly exhaled a puff of breath against my face, visible in the cold air.

"We’re fine, I promise," she assured me, winding her fingers around a few locks. "I'm not going to let this ruin us, or anything else. We can get past this. Your grandmother will come around, and as Richard said, she has plenty to think about."

"So, you're not going to leave me?" My teeth chattered from the cold. "She said you would."

"As far as I know, I plan on staying with you for quite a long time," she assured, letting a smirk inch across her mouth. "I'm here for keeps, Rory. Don't you ever doubt that I'll let old-style mores stop me from being in love with you." She pushed close, and I felt that tenuous magnetic pull once again. I forgot around the world around me as my fingers slid beneath her jacket, the sweater, and the turtleneck shirt beneath to scratch my nails against bare skin.

"Gilmore..." she gasped. "God, I'm so glad your wild side loves to play with me more than Dean."

"Love you, Par-Bear," I husked. "Your smooth skin, your warm eyes..." I slid a buss against her mouth, "Your incredibly kissable lips." Another kiss. "I feel like I'm making out with Angelina Jolie."

She blushed, incredibly lost from my compliment. "My lips aren't like hers at all," she demurred.

"They aren't. They're much better." I let my hand linger against the waistband of her pants, hooking a finger against the belt loop as we began to kiss slowly, enjoying the feeling of what we were doing. It was so cold out, in the mid-20's and we had no hats and gloves on, but our little space is like that baseball stadium in Milwaukee where its 30 degrees warmer in our little space together. I pushed the kiss further until our tongues came together, and I pushed out an orgasmic purr as I let myself believe my chocolate/cum mix still lingered within her taste buds. We pushed against the car, my eyes closed as I become lost in the sensations. I couldn't believe I was doing this...but I couldn't help it. It's a wonderful feeling. It took us a while to break apart, at least a minute, and that's only because of one thing...

"Ahem. Uh, girls?"

OK, my mom. I pulled away slowly, and let my hands fall away from Paris at the last possible moment, the same with her. We broke apart, and already we felt that sense of ennui that we both have when we aren't around each other. Paris's face was well-flushed, her eyes still warmed and focused only on me as we pull away. I'm sure that her heart wasn't doing much better, probably pounding against her chest very hard. She looked at Mom and I, and shook her head.

"Um, call me this weekend?"

I nodded. "Tonight yet?"

"We'll see." She opened her car again, and cleared her throat. "Thank you again, Lorelai."

"Anytime, Paris. We're here for you. I will be, too."

"Thanks." She climbed into the car. "Love you, Ror."

"I love you too, Par." I tried not to hitch my voice, but I couldn't stop it. "Drive safe." She started the car, and we walk towards the Jeep as I keep my head turned back to watch her drive out of the circle and back onto Chatham Lane, watching the Jag until the front hedges in front of the mansion blocked my view of the car. I got into the Jeep and put on my seatbelt, throwing my bag in the back as Mom voices her reaction to the kiss we just shared.

"I guess you're right. You definitely kiss Paris better than Dean."

"Mom!" I'm embarrassed for her to say that. "You...come on!"

"Well, it's true. Looking at you two, I can see why you love her now." She gave me a serious look. "You did as well as you could in there, kiddo."

"I could've done more. I should've been calmer when she tried to bait me." I settled against the back of the seat. "That wasn't what I wanted to happen."

"You can't predict what happens in that situation. Be glad she didn't cut you off from Grandpa."

"Yeah, I suppose." I shook my head. "I hope you didn't feel horrible when she attacked you."

"After eighteen years, it just brushes right off," she says, putting the vehicle into park. We went on for a few more moments of talking, and then I put on my Walkman's headphones, tune to the U of H student station on to block out the road noise and silence, and the world. Leaving me where I am now, listening to a Leona Naess song that seems quite appropriate, if only for a few changes to the words.

**_Then something caught my eye and I turned to look toward the shine,  
and Mama's hand would no longer wait._ **

**_I turned around and it began,  
standing there, panic-stricken,  
Every face became the same ,  
everyone shouting out names,  
and my heart could not be tamed,  
so I stand to call out..._ **

**__**I want to cry as I listen to this song, this perfect reflection of my emotions. Though Paris is here for me, I feel a loss. My grandmother, who I love with all I have, does not like us. Does not like me in this situation. She didn't want to be back in a situation like this, and I threw in it.

And now I pay the price. I watch the Hartford hills disappear in the distance as we incline down from the Blue Hills. I feel that emptiness, that hurt. That my love for one woman has driven away another. I don't want to be let go. I want my Grandma. I want Paris.

I want them both, and for Grandma to accept her.

**_Oh mama don't let me go, 'cause you know how much I need you,  
Oh mama don't let me go, 'cause you know how much I need you,  
'Cause I need you,  
I need you,  
I need you right now..._ **

**__**I need Emily's acceptance, but it won't be coming for a while.

I hope that while isn't actually forever. I regret that I swore at her, and some of the things I said. But a few I don't. My love for Paris is one of them. It's true and it cannot be broken.

Please, God, make her see that we're a good couple. That without her, I'm still that isolated girl in Stars Hollow, feeling as if no one can love her for what she is.

Please, Grandma. Come back into my world...  


* * *

** Emily's POV, 11:00pm **

****What have I done? What on earth made me say such things to my own flesh and blood?

I've been sitting here in this room for the last two hours, silent, licking my envelopes idly and stamping them. I don't even know if most of them are correct and correspond to the label/name list I put together anymore. I don't really care, because it was three hours ago that my granddaughter told me she was interested in women.

One woman, in particular.

She couldn't have picked from anyone at Chilton besides her editor and president? Any boy would kill to have her, and I would approve of most of them.

But Paris Gellar? I still can't believe it. Rory could choose from anyone in that school, and she chose her.

I carried the doubts that they were not in that bedroom earlier making love. I thought they were just dreaming, or talking to someone else on the phone. But they weren't.

My granddaughter made love to her girlfriend right above my head. I didn't think she was.

I don't understand why I defended that boy Dean at all, on second thought. Why would I do that? Tell her that she should've stayed with someone who cheated on her?

I'm trying to deny that this happened. That my granddaughter is a lesbian.

But I can't. They were hugging in front of me, and I tried my best to tell myself that it was wrong, that this was unnatural for two girls to be so affectionate and loving. It was wrong, and it always was.

However, is it wrong? Did I overreact to them because my granddaughter is trying to prove that she's an independent woman, that she takes almost all of my stubborn traits and for once has decided that what she is doing is right? That she knows what she is doing and that she's willing to learn from the consequences?

I just wish I could know how I truly feel about this. On one hand, Paris is perfectly acceptable and a lovely young woman.

On the other hand, she is a woman. A feisty young girl who has brought out Rory's independence through all of this. Should I be glad that this happened with her, that she won't be pushed aside and molded into what Dean wants?

As much as I'd like to just accept them, I can't. I have appearances to keep up, a legacy to uphold and as the matriarch to this family, I do not want to be embarrassed again, shown by others that 'her family is out of control', when I really don't have control of Rory beyond her society life.

I might not even have that anymore. She pretty much made it clear to me in her tirade that I could fill a meet market with the top 100 richest adolescents in the world, and every one of them would be rejected because her bond to Paris is too strong.

She isn't a disappointment, though. Why I said that, I don't know. The words were acidic from the moment they left my throat. But I said them, and that was it. My argument was lost, and I found myself vehemently disagreeing with my own husband for the first time in many, many years.

I shouldn't be saying these kinds of things, or treating Rory this way.

Because I know how she feels. I can't go any further than that, but you have to know that there's so much going on in my mind that I think I imploded my most important relationship and that I should have measured my words much more than I did in the heat of the moment.

Rory had every right to call me out. Paris was definitely right about my treatment of her.

I don't know how I can fix this. I have to take some time away from the situation, to decompress and think about how to deal with this.

I think after the parties are all over, that I need to leave Hartford for awhile. Probably alone. Just a holiday vacation to decompress and learn for myself what all of this means. I need to learn how to deal with this, to talk to someone who knows how I feel, as a woman who learned that all she can do in the world, that she cannot control who her granddaughter falls in love with.

For now, I need a glass of Irish cream. I need to forget. I can't apologize right away, because the wounds are still open and fresh.

Hopefully one day, the girls can forgive me, and I can say how I truly feel about them beyond those factors I need to stay in full control of...  


* * *

** Paris's POV **

****I'm beginning to feel the pressure build up. The anxiety, the fear I have, I'm petrified.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm being followed. Like there's this unspoken presence I can't get a thumbnail on because it stays just out of sight. It can't be true, I know it can't. I'm just thinking things, overanalyzing. Even Dr. Birnbaum told me to stay calm, to be on track, to think of coming out as opening your heart up to scrutiny. Everyone has to see that this isn't just some attempt to undermine my rival, or gain an advantage over her. As we said tonight, her grades are well and they still fluctuate away from my own patterns enough to not suggest we're groupthinking. I only study with her in team projects, never for individual work.

But as I sit at my desk, I go back over the night in my mind.

And this is what I think;

I'm glad it didn't go like it did with Daddy.

Now before you misinterpret my wording as 'You wanted this to go badly?', I need you to know that what I mean is that I need that push to stay together with someone. That it is worth fighting for to love Rory and that I won't become complacent because I'm accepted just because I do all the right things or have the right number in _Hartford Magazine_ 's list of 50 richest daughters of society.

Not that I even know which number I am. As long as I still have seven figures and a plus sign in front of the dollar sign, I'm all good. All I'm glad for is that I saw through Enron's bullshit from day one and told my stockbroker if he invested one cent of my trust in the private energy debacle, I would have his head.

But back to the point. I'm glad Rory and I had it out with Emily. When I saw her attack her that was when I knew that I wasn't going to stand by and let her be taken apart by this woman. So when I jumped in, I meant every word that I said, and I was there for my girlfriend in her moment of need.

The support of Richard means so much to me, too. I knew it would be easy to bond, but I know even with his quick acceptance comes all the conditions of a dating a Gilmore girl. That I provide for Rory and I'm always there in her moment of need, and that I never break her heart. I know I can meet that threshold rather easily, and that even if he is startled that he has to refer to Ror's significant other as a 'her', it's not much of a change. Heck, I'm pretty much almost like...

OK, I promised myself I wouldn't apply labels to us. Those belong to media experts on MSNBC, not actual humans or anyone in the community we are now a part of.

Anyways, I got out what I wanted to say to Emily. And so did Rory. In the end, that's what really matters to the both of us. Not that she accepts or not, but has to think about it. We left that room without a decision, and though there is that anguish that hangs in the air where we'll have to wait to hear from her, at least it's out there.

And I can take comfort that she won't tell Sharon. That was my largest fear going in, and it's been averted. Even in anger, Emily's word is true and she won't tell Mother to spite me.

If you don't think I'm petrified of Sharon though, you haven't seen her anger at all. The worst she's done. That emotional damage I carry every day of my life, the rage, the hate and annoyance that I'm not willing to conform to her image. I have taken so much abuse from her over the years, and though I really hate to admit the truth to myself, I know that she's given me a lifetime of issues that I will carry around. I have finally just resigned myself to the fact that I will be seeing a shrink for the rest of my life and putting little Marcus and Cecilia Birnbaum through college single-handedly.

I know she's not going to react well. That's a given. For now, it's more about minimizing the damage. I still would like to have a relationship with her of some kind. Any kind. Even if it's a distant one.

But I can't delude myself. It's either going to go OK, or horribly wrong. I know when I'm telling her, and that's report card day. Hopefully the afterglow of my grades will buffer whatever rage she has against Rory and I.

I can only hope. And pray that she understands this is nothing against her. This is how I want to live, and I'm willing to put everything I have into fighting for this relationship. I proved that tonight in front of Emily and Richard. I will not roll over, or back down. My love for Rory goes beyond everything I've ever fought for. I may have given up dance eventually, but I still regret to this day that I let Sharon get to me.

I should be happy for myself, not her. In nineteen days, I officially become an adult, and it's time to prove that I can live up to that title.

I'm fighting for this. Sharon can take anything away from me, but she cannot take Rory. I can live without anything else.

I just don't know if I can live without her now...  


* * *

**_ To be continued... _ **   



	21. Funding Battles and Teacher Flirtations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the big showdown as Paris and Rory battle to keep Francie from denying funding to Chilton's gay-straight alliance, and Paris calls for help from their leader to do so. Surprises are bound to happen during the debate, and later the girls confront a piece of Paris's past.

**Title: Longing with a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-One | Funding Battles and Teacher Flirtations  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, Paris POV  
 **Spoilers:** No spoilers, all within this story's universe outside of Francie's dealings with Rory.  
 **Rating:** Light R for this one (Minor flirting, descriptions of homophobic behavior by another character, profanity, light sexual situations)  
 **Disclaimer:** Still not mine. These lovely ladies belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television, though there are also original characters here that are my own. My first name for Ms. Peters is inspired by Patricia51's name for her in her Prory fic series _Stop the Presses_. Although, anyone else notice you can't find _Gilmore Girls_ DVD's rather easily anymore? And is anyone else thinking 'Blu-ray release' soon? (crosses fingers). All other products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, Realm of the Shadow, RalSt, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** It's the big showdown as Paris and Rory battle to keep Francie from denying funding to Chilton's gay-straight alliance, and Paris calls for help from their leader to do so. Surprises are bound to happen during the debate, and later the girls confront a piece of Paris's past.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** Yes, I am still alive. Yes, it has been over two years since I've updated this story, and I have to apologize for making you wait. I haven't forgotten this story, but I've also had a year I'm not exactly happy with having to live in. My job has changed around a lot, I have more responsibilities, and less free time to work with. Also there are more interests (and fandoms) in my life, and I will admit four years out from the series and working with my writing partner Marieke I'm starting to see that Rory never treated Paris as well as I have imagined, and I've taken more to Paris/Lorelai. However, that does not change this universe where Rory is her own woman and treats Paris with respect.  Also, too many stories on ff.net had me discouraged (seriously, let's get the point here; Rory never was threatened with pregnancy in her last month before graduation. It's stupid, out of character, and annoying. Nor was Paris.).

If you're looking for analogues for Nora and Ms. Salmon, picture Nora as Raven Symone, sass and curviness and all, while Ms. Salmon's resemblance to Brooke Smith (she who played Erica on _Grey's Anatomy_ before she departed into that cursed Seattle Parking Lot of Disappearances and left me yearning for her comeback one day) is completely purposeful.

Thank you to everyone who has been patient with me and following this story despite a lack of updates, especially those in the GGSlash group and FF.net. I do feel like I let you down by not getting this out. But I had reasons; towards the end of this chapter I had a love scene, written twice and over 20k which I both had written out but didn't feel worked with where the story was at this point. I debated what to do before deciding to cut them out entirely and just end it on a more emotional than sexual note. However I have not deleted either scene and may release the softer scene as Chapter 22, with the other one as its own story. That one I seriously changed my mind on after the abhorrent reviewer on _Battleships, Tensions..._ suggested I add more spanking to my fics (the scene was written before that review and included consensual student/teacher roleplay but after that I decided to pull it back because it was not up to my standards and after my negative review of his awful foray into GG fanfic, I decided that it didn't work for this chapter.).

Thank you to Danielle for sticking by me for so long and for also surviving **SEVEN DAYS** without power because of the great Halloween Nor'easter. I shall never complain about losing power for a mere 28½ hours ever again after a thunderstorm (though I had to miss the GG fifth season opener because of that and have it taped). Thanks also to Marieke for keeping me interested in fanfiction with our nightly Paris/Lorelai/Lenneke adventures (who is Lenneke? You'll find out one day.).

This chapter has been gone over so many times, but it is unbetaed, so let me know about any errors you see that I should correct. And, please, please, leave me feedback on the story, good or bad. Detailed feedback. I know this chapter is cute, good and I will probably write more (please), and no, I cannot update now, for that is impossible ten minutes after I posted a new chapter.  


* * *

There are frustrations that have come within my life that just won't go away. Competition, unexpected surprises, and of course, those who are bound and determined to see you fail, no matter the consequences.

I know to everyone else I might seem cutthroat in trying to get my way, but that isn't at all true. After what I did to Rory I soon began to regret giving her the cold shoulder after I found out through Tristan that she was going to date him, which wasn't true, but hey, I was looking for every reason to hate her at the time. I have taken some grey market shortcuts to get my way at times, but nothing that would stick me in jail by any means. If anything, peeking at Rory's files on her first day was nothing more than a minor misdemeanor and two days of detention.

But I have never gone to the steps that Francine Jarvis has to undermine anybody. Never would I be that cold-hearted and dark. I couldn't stand to have that attitude, much less her horrible morals, where she uses her conservative values to undermine others at her own expense. I know things from Madeline that I could never tell Rory because I don't want her innocent soul to be sullied by what she has done.

Until last week however, I was willing to dismiss them. No matter what she did, from taking out my electoral rival based on a pithy blowjob to ruining years of Puffs traditions, I couldn't say a word. There is an unsaid line between student body president and senior class president that has never been crossed in this entire school's history. There have been battles behind the scenes and negotiations, but usually we work together. We have to. _All for Chilton_ is a part of the alma mater, and it applies like Charleston's words that failure is not a part of Chilton.

But when I heard those tapes last Monday, and then all through this weekend, I knew I couldn't stand any longer for Francie to use her position of power to abuse the office. It's one thing to feel like we must compete with each other. She's going for valedictorian with just as much zeal as Rory and I, and she has a long generational line at Brown she needs to live up to. I understand that.

What you never do is use a position of power to benefit yourself, ever. No matter how you might feel about someone you run an organization with, you leave it at the door and you work with them. Nothing more. I learned that lesson well with Rory; when I gave her a chance at the _Franklin_ , she worked her ass off to make her presence known. She's a damned good reporter and her _de facto_ co-editing with me, I can't beat it. I won't admit it to her but she's helped me avert more mistakes than I will ever let her know about.

Francie took it beyond that though, thinking Rory's small town upbringing meant that she was a reincarnated Dorothy Gale who wouldn't question anything she wanted to do at all.

Y'know, one thing they forget to tell you about those ruby slippers though? They're made out of **rubies**. Imagine the toe of that going right where it counts. Forget for a moment how I get panic attacks from watching that film or that the actual slippers were rhinestone-pasted high heels. If they were real ruby slippers, they would hurt.

Rory knows how to use her slippers for more than clicking three times and reciting a proverb. In her shoes she's done so much more than she ever could have in Hollow High. Going into today I was nervous that she would lose her nerve around Francie once they came face to face anew at that conference table.

She once again has proved me wrong and proved herself to be incredibly worthy. There is no doubt in my mind that when I made that rushed decision to offer VP to her in May, I didn't think of all that she could bring to the table back then beyond an adorable face and a guaranteed ally next to me.

But now as I analyze the events of the day, I can tell you that without Rory by my side this afternoon, the fall of Paris Gellar would have ensued over the next few days.

Or it would have happened in the last few hours...  


* * *

It had been a long and busy day for all of us. Rory and I had skipped lunch and met with Nora Folsom to let her know the threat to RTS. At first she brushed off the threats as business as usual, but as I played the clips on my iPod, she was visibly anguished and slumped into a chair in the conference room. I was grave and serious as I let her know I would try all I could to keep her funding, but that it wasn't going to be easy.

"This is a threat, Nora. But it isn't an ending."

"How can you say that? You heard her in those tapes. She wants to bring me and the entire organization down! What I really want to do is--"

Rory interrupted her calmly, holding up her hand. "I know you want to kill her, Nora. Trust me, I was the one who had to take it all and I would just love to give her a homemade tube tying."

My reaction to that image was uncharacteristic. "Ewww!" I closed my eyes and choked back as Rory rolled her eyes.

"Not helping, Par." She turned back to Nora. "I really think Francie is more bluster than action, especially here. She wants to make a point and this will allow her to do so."

She laid out the picture of what we had to do, walking around the room. "We have fifteen members in the government, and we need two-thirds to push the funding through. That's eleven if I'm doing the math right."

"I thought we needed ten," I corrected, but Rory directed that look at me that chills all my drive when she's on a hot streak during question and answer periods.

"Ten is not enough here. We need to try for eleven, even twelve if we can get it. I think we have the votes, but three are Jarvis cronies. They'll vote to deny no matter what. We have seven committed to voting with the both of us. So we have 7-3 going into the meeting tomorrow. We need to turn four, and try damned hard for five. But it still has to come as a surprise vote." She detailed what Francie had planned to do, including how she'd organize within the week before next week's meeting to get her 7-10 majority. "Madeline told me today that Francie began full court press to deny funding on the undecideds. So we need to work around that. She thinks right now we're unaware and that I'm keeping this secret. She has somewhat of a head start."

"So what do you suggest I do?" Nora tried to struggle with her decisions as RTS president. "I don't know that I can get my club to get the pressure on them, and you know we provide a shield to some of those members who come to our meetings but don't participate in our public efforts. If they come out in support of funding, they'll also be pushed out."

I let my thoughts into the matter. "We organize silently then, get it out through IM, texting and email. You get your members in the loop about everything in the next six-seven hours, they'll have free time. They text or email a member, then the other and then the other. That spreads the email campaign forward. By the time you get in tomorrow morning your members are aware their future is in stake. We keep it secret, then you get in there and your members watch the meeting after I decide to invite you in the room. I spring the vote, allow a debate period and then the five turn our way."

Nora hesitated for a few moments, pulling back her hair and playing with a ring on her finger. She considered the risk of some members bumped out and asked us about it.

"They can submit anonymous comments," I told her. "I don't often allow them, but they're allowed in our rules of order. I want this vote to be organized, but I don't want you to feel threatened. I assure you that your group will survive with full school funding."

Nora was in a panic, I could tell. Usually she was calm and composed, but she kept fumbling with her ring. She knew that she needed to keep student government funding so that Chilton would consider RTS an official school club. Without it they had just as much influence on school affairs as those kids who played trading card games in the corner of the dining hall.

"I can't risk anonymous comments; I have to speak on behalf of everybody. But what if they try to go after us?"

That was when Rory stepped in again. "If Francie tries anything, she'll have to answer to the remainder of the student body. The both of us and Ms. Peters will make sure to keep her in line. I guarantee it."

"So why protect us?" she questioned. "I don't understand how you're giving me this notice you'd never give anybody else at all."

This was the moment of truth for the both of us. We hadn't come out to anyone but friends and our family, so this was our first edge away from our comfort zone. I took in a deep breath as Rory took my hand and prepared Nora for what she was facing.

"We've been together for a month," Rory said calmly. Nora just stood there stunned for a moment, making me afraid that I was about to be in for some kind of tongue lashing from her.

But that thought melted away as she smiled towards us, and then laughed a bit. Both of us were confused and directed an odd towards the girl. She's an odd woman to be sure; an African-American from one of Hartford's more interesting neighborhoods who pretty much went against her entire family to be out with her lover of two years, Melanie McHale. She was always one to be unflinching with her opinions.

Of course, this was no different.

"Damn it, I owe Mel 50 bucks!"

"Huh?" Of course I was highly confused, until it became clear that Nora was incredibly perceptive.

"Come on, really, Paris? I knew you might bend towards our side of the scale since seventh grade!" She shook her head and I was mortally embarrassed while Nora stated my entire Country Day and pre-sophomore romantic history to Rory. "Men find you intimidating, but women are naturally drawn to you. I even had a couple thoughts of asking you out in ninth grade, but you were a bit hella scary back then, all focused on the state tests and debate team, not to mention Harvard!"

"How did I give off a vibe?" I was offended by her assertion that I was already drawn towards girls so young, even if Madeline has told me she noticed around the same time. An outsider's view though is a little different...and maybe a little bit more clear, I hate to admit.

"The pining over **one** boy? Really? Come on, you were like I was before I kissed my first girl. I put all my effort into some idiot thug in sixth grade and when I finally got a chance to date him it was so boring. He was self-indulgent, selfish and his kissing just didn't work for me. You know..." There's that evil Nora smile she uses to get her way. "Kind of reminds me of a certain blonde you yearned for before Laura Ingalls Wilder over there came into your world."

"Oh my God..." I blushed furiously that Nora had me so figured out. "So you knew eventually we'd get together?"

"The last two years Mel and I got together on the first day and made a bet on how long it would take to get you...to the dyyyyyke side!"

I was so humiliated while Nora brought out her horrid Darth Vader impression. "Can we please get back to the matter at hand?" I asked firmly, scaring both girls back into normalcy.

"Sorry...sorry." Nora shirked back as I regained my composure. "I guess I figured you were into discipline, Gilmore. Perfect choice of woman."

Rory was startled and sighed. "Sometimes I have to wonder." I directed a stern stare towards my girlfriend and she came back into line. "N-n...not that I would ever question our love, Paris."

That made me smile. "You better not." I then proceeded to run down the rest of the plan of attack with Nora assuring me she would cooperate every step of the way. It was going to be hard and I definitely was putting the entire student government on the line just based on this one vote. I had to be careful, but most of all I had to make sure Francie's hyperbole fell flat. If I could get the vote out in a normal way, as if it was part of a normal vote on something which was approved every year, that would do it for me. I could live with that.

But Francie was prepared. I knew that. With Nora and the rest of the Rainbow Triangles on our side, I had to make sure this passed and that the five would go my way. The surprise vote was the best course of action to that. If they didn't get hyped up, they wouldn't know what they're voting for...

Unfortunately I'm not the president of the Minot, North Dakota city council approving more money for the senior center in a slam dunk vote. There would be no quick path to the words 'motion approved'. Francine would make sure of that.  


* * *

The beginning of the meeting went as expected, but I kept more eye contact towards the right side of the table than I usually had in the past. I had to keep an eye on Francie's body language to see how exactly she intimidated Rory into going with her. While Rory sat silently next to me as I led the meeting and let other council members speak their minds about issues while my mind multi-tasked the various situations I found myself in at that moment.

Indeed, Francie was nowhere near paying attention to anything else. She kept trying to get Rory's attention through silent means, such as a rolled pencil or a nudge of some kind which was always out of reach. The frustration of watching her try to prod my VP while someone else went on about their effort or the minutes were approved from the last meeting got to me. I was powerless to stop Francie at this point, my only power at that point hoping that I could sneak by the vote in a whirl of other dull legislation.

Ms. Peters walked around the room, monitoring the proceedings. After hearing the recordings she had told me that she supported the both of us, but that we should still be careful that we're not projecting too much of our support into the matter. The only other person who knew in that room a vote was up was Madeline, known only to her in strict confidence.

There also had to be a period of debate. Usually it's not an issue with Key Club or Amnesty so we always skipped it, but I had to give others a voice. Some of the members of the group might not like the group not because of their beliefs but just on other factors such as overfunding of school groups or a lack of understanding about what exactly goes into a gay-straight alliance. Those arguments I can understand and will support.

Outright hate is something I can't get behind.

Slowly we debated and considered issues. It was how I expected it to go and I was able to keep everything in control. Francie kept quiet, along with her cronies. They never suspected a thing at all as we went through issues involving...uggh...the Valentine's dance. This time she didn't want to move the venue or pocket any of the funding, which was such a relief after the grief Rory went through over the Formal. God, my girl is smart; if she was alive during Watergate who knows what might have happened to Nixon.

Finally, it was the moment of truth. The vote went through to reject a motion for a smoking zone between the Randall and Montrose buildings...yet again. How many votes and years is it going to take for the smokers to get a clue most of the students hate the smell of cigarettes and don't like butts littering the grounds of the campus? My mother is a heavy smoker and it's only through plenty of monitoring on my Nanna's part that I got through my entire germination without taking a hit of nicotine.

I paused at the last 'nay' sounded through the room, holding my gavel tight and preparing for my next move. Eight members of the RTS stood outside the room, ready to be called in.

 _This is it, Gellar,_ I thought to myself, directing a stare at my girlfriend, who in turn returned it. _This goes down perfectly, you will be respected forever. If not, we go down together with the ship. Don't bullshit, don't give up, and don't fuck up. Show that bitch that you are the student body president, not her_.

I slammed the gavel down hard and tossed it down firmly. "Motion, once again, denied by a 12-3 tally. Try again next year, Marlboro Men." I slid on my reading glasses in a deliberate move to show my authority. I knew exactly what I was reading, but everything about this vote had to be orchestrated perfectly. I made sure that voice was procedural, not ready for a fight. No way can I show my hand off to Francie.

"We have some visitors today who want to monitor the meeting and offer some opinions. Kelly, could you open the door and let them sit on the far side of the room?"

Our treasurer rose and walked to the door, opening it up and letting the eight members of the club in. There were four boys, four women, two of them in couples. Nora and Melanie of course, naturally sat in the front, while Mark Newsom, the male leader of the alliance sat to their right. I kept my eyes off Francie as I read the motion.

"Next order of business, our gay-straight alliance, the Rainbow Triangle Society, has their funding up for a vote. I feel that they have earned a raise from the $500 for the 2002 calendar year to S1,000, and Miss Folsom has assured me that it will be satisfactory for 2003." I took my eyes off the page and then my glasses. I could've sworn I saw Rory melting in her seat, but since they're meant only for up-close reading I couldn't tell for sure. Not a look towards Francie at all. "I will open the floor up to debate, then to the public."

Predictably, Francie's hand went up, and I directed my attention to her. "Yes, Miss Jarvis. You have the floor." A nervous pause and a hope that I wasn't about to see everything go down in flames.

Her opening statement however kind of hurt as she alluded to history long relegated to the dust bin. "This group cannot continue to be funded by the school. This school began in 1803 as an extension of the Puritan church, and it should be apparent that the behavior this group endorses is offensive to the founders of this school. Augustus Chilton would have shamed anyone who had ever kissed their roommate, and he did. The historical records for this school show that a Dorothy Chambliss of Avon, aged fourteen, in 1804 showed a romantic interest in her roommate. When this was found out, Founder Chilton rightfully expelled her for violating the Honor Code."

Little would I have known that all weekend, Rory had spent her time also researching the school's history, and she rose her hand up to make a point.

"Miss Gilmore, you have a response to Miss Jarvis?" She rose up and there was no longer a sign of that nervous sixteen year-old cowering when I introduced myself to her two years ago.

She was prepared, without one index card to be found.

"I do, President." She turned away to face Francie.

So it began.

"May I remind you, Miss Jarvis that this school has been free from any church influence since 1906? Some Chilton mothers took offense to the exclusion of a suffragist instructor who supported the right to vote by women and the attempts by the Church and the regents to terminate her contract. The administration of the school was savaged in the _Courant_ and smaller newspapers of the day for their position, the church received protests from several organizations in the state, including the public school teacher's union representing Hartford Public Schools. Students from Miss Porter's came to the aid of Chiltonians who wanted the teacher to stay and suggested a merger with Chilton. Although this would have been helpful, the legacy of Chilton would have forever disappeared with the union of the two. It became a thorny issue for the Church to deal with and the administration was of no help, so towards the beginning of the 1906-07 school year, the Puritans removed their funding from the school and only took on a small religious role in the matters of the Academy. Shortly after, these Chilton mothers and other pillars of the community took control of the school and allowed that woman to teach." There was no malice and anger to her arguments, with her voice staying even and hand movements limited and perfect. "Since that year, the influence of Augustus Chilton and his ancestors has only been ceremonial, not official."

"So I'm supposed to be swayed by your argument based on a vague story about some long-dead teacher?" Francie's jaw squared and I sat back and took in the arguments.

"I'm sorry to bring history into this further, but Augustus Chilton, his ancestors and later administrations disallowed Jewish students and the practice of Judaism for years. This continued until a progressive board of regents allowed Jewish students admission in 1935 because the Great Depression wasn't exactly filling the Chilton endowment. Progress is always made in small steps. Our first minority student was admitted in 1948, months after Jackie Robinson took the field in Brooklyn. Of course, the co-ed issue is still something that divides many alumni to this day, but in my opinion opening the doors of our Academy to males was a step in the right direction."

"I'm sorry, what point were you trying to make, Gilmore?" She seethed the name like it was hateful. "I can read this history lesson anytime in the library."

"That we may be a private institution, but everyone who leaves here a graduate later becomes a part of the public. You cannot get around that, Francie." She walked around the table, and there was no illusion that she was even flustered by the redhead arguing for her. "The causes we fund and the students we admit are watched by many organizations that aren't _U.S. News and World Report_. I could care less how they think of us, but I'm thinking about in the future when I talk to someone and I bring up my alma mater, I don't want to have to hear them respond with 'hey, that's the school that hates gays, right?'"

There was a shocked reaction through the room, but she carried on. "I read about the history of this school and without exception, it has been progressive. The school of the first female Justice of the Supreme Court, the institution where forty CEO's of Fortune 500 companies graduated from. We have won many athletic and scholastic championships, fed so many students into the Ivy League, the Seven Sisters, the Big Ten, Pacific Ten; I could name every conference in the nation. But most of all...we remain at the heart of everything, an accepting institution."

A pause for dramatic effect as I could see Francie's face redden in anger. "I was accepted here, but I still had to pay my way."

"More like your grandparents--"

Ms. Peters stepped in before things turned cold. "Back off the attack, Miss Jarvis."

"Thank you," Rory said, and brought herself back on point. "I didn't have to be accepted here. I could have easily been rejected. But I wasn't, I worked hard, and look at where I am. Vice president of the student body." She turned around on her heel. "Now I'm not a hateful person. I don't like being hateful to anyone. The very fact that you could be opposed to someone just because they choose to love someone else? Is there ever a problem with that?"

"Of course there is! It is unnatural and against what God intended."

"Let's not bring God into this, Francie. We're not here as biblical scholars, just to decide if this group should remain funded by the school." I kept my eyes on her while she made her case. "Do they do good work? I think they proved that with their multiple clothing drives through the year, along with their support of many social service organizations within Hartford. Whereas certain other groups only seem to exist to keep the names of their members in the society papers and bulletin boards, they exist to provide a refuge from hate in this school. They take in anybody, whether they are rich or poor, popular or invisible, loved or loathed. They are there for them, and in turn they help provide a caring environment to get some of these students out into the open, off the sidelines."

"You can't defend them, Rory," Francie argued harshly. "This isn't a matter of what they do, it's what they promote. A lifestyle many people are against!"

"They aren't promoting anything but tolerance and safety, along with community service. I look at this group and I don't see anything evil about them."

"That's because you live in that stupid little town--"

 _Don't even go there_. I firmly pounded my gavel and stopped her argument right there. "How her town is doesn't make a difference here at all. I will advise you, Jarvis, stay on point."

"I'm just trying to say the real world is cruel. It's not going to be fun or all nursing home visits and campfire circles, whatever you all do. It's cold out there, and if you want to keep this club, you're promoting a lifestyle that will scar you, be cruel, subject you to things that heterosexuals will never experience. All you're doing in your club is insulating your members from the real world out there. I could care less how many good faith effort things you do in the community. I don't care for instance that WFSB does that coat drive this month, and WVIT is collecting canned food. It's all a sham. It's there to put a happy face on the community, when really it's just future branding to get people to think your station is awesome and who cares that your weatherman was arrested for drunken driving? I will not approve funding to shield students who should just stick on a happy face, get over it, and maybe find a date with someone of their own sex."

It was like the Scopes trial watching these two ping pong back and forth their arguments. I swore I even saw Ms. Peters unconsciously click an invisible stopwatch. "These students deserve protection and civil rights, and I won't stand by you casting a vote for them to be pushed out of the closet. Their community service is good and they do more than they need to in order to receive the student funding. There should be no issue in approving it."

"It's wasteful!" Francie shouted, pounding on the table. "You mean you would rather hide students than have them out in the general body?"

"Students like Nora and Melanie, they've handled it. They get over the slurs and soon it was pretty much a losing game to tease them because they love each other. Now they're fine. Someone else, they need support and help."

"They can go outside the school and get that support!"

"Some may not! Some can't afford the time to do so. Chilton is a high-pressure environment and there's a need for a group like this within the walls of our school. I don't understand why you're so against this."

"Because it is biologically wrong and our efforts should go to abstinence education, not for something like this."

"Guess what? My mother received that abstinence education at Hillside." Her voice firmed as she began to make her final drive to her point. "I'm living proof that abstinence does nothing but pressure you to have sex because it's forbidden and seemingly evil. It doesn't work, period. I'm not here to argue about sex ed, but if you want to fund abstinence education in Chilton, why don't you just throw $50,000 in Governor Rowland's hot tub and see what it gets you?"

Whoa. Now that's something you don't hear out of Rory's mouth everyday. An attack on the highest officer in the state and one who signs bills Francie's father authors or votes on. She wore a smirk of satisfaction as Francie tried to attack her in a way that wasn't personal.

"It...it works sometimes."

"I'm sorry, but sometimes doesn't count in teen pregnancy stats." She made her way back to her seat. "I support the funding, if not to protect these students, but to provide them a forum that another student organization might not endorse. Some of them are liked by the school, some of them aren't. All deserve a place of safety to go besides the corner of the dining hall at lunch, and I fully support them and their funding."

"I guess we'll have to disagree on this then, Gilmore." Her eyes suggested cold hate for the girl as she finished her argument, and Rory sat down next to me, feeling like she had won her argument. I thought that she had done a wonderful job, never biting on anything personal, and I had to give her points for keeping a veiled attack on Francie's father well hidden.

"Thank you, ladies," I said, still firm and neutral. "Anyone else have an opinion on the matter at the table here?" A few spoke out for our side, including Madeline, who agreed with our side of course, but added that she would approve even more than the regular funding. "They deserve $1,500," she said, much to our surprise. "They were almost non-existent my freshman year, but Nora has done an excellent job with her outreach and other efforts, along with their adviser, Ms. Salmon. I think that any group who would give extra support to the soccer team by pressuring the cheerleaders to actually drag a couple of bodies out to their game? That's a winning group in my book."

"I never even considered that," I said thoughtfully. I was surprised with each new day how Madeline was becoming her own woman. Louise sat next to her, but was distant. "Anything else, Miss Lynn?"

"Not much more. Also please, let them have a better classroom to meet in than the basement one they have now. I like the art room as much as the next person, but they need a place to meet where students can find them and can look outside a window. Nothing against your style at all, Nora, but I really think you could do with a better atmosphere."

"I've been trying to get that myself," Nora responded, happy that the issue was getting notice.

"With that...I guess, comment period. Miss Folsom?" She came to a lectern at the end of the table and had a couple sheets of papers of notes from herself and of the meeting. I knew that this was the critical part of stating her case, to save the funding. I looked once towards Francie and Rory before bringing my attention to the lectern.

If looks could kill, both of them would have been long dead. It was a détente between them, both of them knowing they had to get their way.

Whatever the case, they had to accept whatever vote I could bring out of these other twelve students. We can't change minds after the fact, so we had to keep the appeal from being so high pressured and heated. Rory might have tried to be kind, but I was still afraid she was hard-selling it a bit too much.

"Representatives, Miss Gellar, Miss Gilmore, Ms. Peters?"

Thankfully, Nora was the voice of sanity in the entire situation. I listened intently as she described a sixteen year-old next to her, Devon Fredrickson. She spoke from her heart as she described how this shy boy had come to Chilton knowing he saw things differently, but still tried to pursue his dreams.

"I remember when he walked in our room the first time about how scared that he was to be true to himself and be how he was. Devon put on a strong front, he dated girls, tried to come off as a 'true male'. He talked to me, and the alliance about how he felt the first time he saw his best friend as more than just that, along with the anguish he felt of having to stay distant."

Devon's story unfolded from there. This kid, everything about him suggests 'All-American'. He's from a north Hartford suburb, heavy into sports, was heavily recruited by many schools in the area to attend based on his athletic skills. He chose Chilton and quickly rose through the freshman and JV levels to make varsity this year as a guard for the basketball team.

Nora's voice echoed through the room as Devon sat down, looking nervously at the entire council.

"He came to us at the beginning of September. Usually, I see a student in a letter jacket and I think, they're here to bait or tease us. They don't care about our message at all, or what we do. The RTS still has memories of a hockey player who came in five years ago in good faith, but turned away from us as soon as he became one of the top goal scorers in the state. The pressure of a locker room setting, the need to keep your orientation away from those cruel guys that call you a 'fag' just because you had a weak night grabbing rebounds. The kind of language that hits me right in the gut when I hear it, because I hate these words myself."

"It took me awhile to trust him. Others did so, right away. We have an open door, but I have a shielded heart. Many of us do." She glanced down at the lectern. "I had a rough life before I came here, lost without a purpose. I got the scholarship to escape the apathy of my local school and I thought it would be a new start. Instead, I felt ignored and hated even more because I knew early on based on my personal experience that I could never love a man.

"Some in my family experienced sexual abuse. My brother, my sister, they have. Only by the grace of God did I escape that and testify against that relative who would be so low as to ruin the trust of a family member. My father never forgave me. Who knows where he is now? I avoided gangs only by using my smarts to get ahead. I refused to let the teacher's idea of 'extra credit' as defined by the teacher's edition be the limit to my education. I worked damned hard to get in this school, but only to find myself lost again, all over again. I went home every night scared that because of the way I am, it might be my last journey home. I still do."

There has never been a time in my entire school career where I have expressed any kind of emotion. I have sat through several memorial services where everyone mourns someone that when it comes down to it, was either an ordinary or marginal student who made some kind of stupid choice. Drinking, speeding, taking drugs. Unless it has been for a truly tragic or natural death, I'm like Lynda Day; it's their own damned fault and I do not mourn for them. I don't cry, or ever express any kind of emotion in a school ceremony.

The stories of Nora and Devin however were forming a hard lump in my throat.

"I knew I was gay for years. I never said a word however because I could have been killed for being the way I am. I was afraid and scared, and even would have gone the entirety of my Chilton education dateless if I had to. I had to get through school. I had to finish it, and discover myself when I left here, hopefully for a tolerant university."

She took a breath, and then a sip of her water. Her voice wavering, she continued. "I didn't even know there was a GSA in this school at all. Their bulletin board messages were always buried under some charity car wash announcement, or in many cases just ripped down out of spite. I felt alone in my own world, not wanting to make new friends because I was afraid. Afraid of being myself. But somehow, I remember the morning of September 15, 1999. The girl across from me, our current student body president, was reading the morning announcements. Usually I wouldn't listen at all because I could care less about dance team tryouts. Even though everyone assumes because of my race and my build I must be the next Beyonce, when really I have about as much groove as Steve Urkel." She received a couple laughs. "I still hear her voice as clear as day...'Finally, the first meeting of the year for RTS, the school's gay-straight alliance, will be held in B22 Cartright at 3:45 this afternoon.' I remember, I knew I had to be there. So I went."

Nora described the state of the group at the beginning of 1999 as fractured and weak, led by a teacher advisor who refused to advise at all and only took it for Headmaster brownie points. After a strong start in the Puffs schism the group had been discredited and slandered secretly by the school groups, and the top leadership was a mess, asking for only the minimum $50 to hold a meeting in a classroom and led by someone who used the group more as their personal clique than a social group, disallowing anyone new in unless they personally knew them.

"It was not a good situation that I came to. The Rainbows didn't feel safe, the group's leader was...and I really hate to say this, an extreme drama queen. He loved to exacerbate everything and didn't care about the group charter at all. I introduced myself and came out for the first time to them, but I didn't feel right. It didn't seem like a community. Open teasing was allowed, use of slurs, apparently in a move for self-depreciating humor, but that instead created a hostile environment. It was appalling that the group was in that shape."

"For one month I took it all in stride. I thought it could change. Then came October 12." She paused to compose herself. "The day in 1998 I still remember well. Turning on the television, hoping for the best for a story I followed with much more interest than I usually did with the news. I heard those words...'Matthew Shepard died in the hospital early this morning.' I openly wept in shock that morning and still remember the darkness I felt that someone would ever say those things, or kill another person because of who they loved. I was in a daze. I couldn't go to school. I was thankful that someone in Hartford organized a candlelight vigil at the Statehouse that night. It was a defining moment of my life, a call to action that I knew who I was. I knew that I wasn't like anybody else, that I was always more pulled towards one sex than the other."

"On that day, I brought up Matthew's death. I wanted to have a moment of silence and reflection among the members." No longer was there a single person in that room looking at their notes. All eyes were on her. "You know what the group leader said?"

A silent beat. Her eyes focused on everybody, with her jaw squaring for her prepared anger. "Matthew who?"

It was an unacceptable action for someone to have ever done that. I will not say here who that group leader was at the time because he has moved on from this school, thankfully. Suffice it to say that if he had asked for funding during my tenure, he wouldn't have gotten it.

"I couldn't believe him at all. He claimed to be the leader of a group that tries to spread acceptance of the way we live our life throughout the Chilton community, but he can't acknowledge an event in our time that has had the impact of Stonewall? He didn't know about it? It appalled me as a gay person that the face of our group within the school couldn't even be bothered to know what we were fighting for. That he could be in it for his own selfish needs, to give him 'friends' and to use us as a meet market, that was not what I signed up for. He was a senior. I was a freshman. I faced him, a foot between him and my own height, and I told him to get the fuck out."

If this was a regular meeting, she would have been thrown out right there. But I didn't raise a hand at all to warn her. Nor did Ms. Peters or anybody else. I couldn't censor this moment.

"He asked me what was wrong, and I went off on a tirade that if he was truly committed to the Rainbows, he would have us out every single day doing things in the community to prove that the fears and doubts of the eighties were over. I wasn't afraid. Most of us were not afraid. He made us feel like our orientation was a curse, nothing to bring out into the open. It was against the spirit of the founders in 1989. It was unacceptable. I refused to allow RTS to be led any longer by someone like that.

"When I was finished, he told us we were on his own and he took his friends with him. We went from twelve to six members in that one moment. He said he would start another group as he left. Funny thing, the Headmaster refused to fund them and they quietly disappeared. I took over the presidency of the Rainbow Triangle Society, and we were done being silent. I was younger then than Miss Gellar is heading the government, but I had just as much responsibility to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual population of this institution as she does with the entirety of this student body. My anger and passion has gone into reforming this group, to make it be out and have it be not only a refuge, but a place for encouragement to live your life as you love it. To be unafraid to be out and proud, but prepared if you're not ready to step out of the shadows and make that commitment to your life.

"On September 11, we organized the vigil in the front quadrangle after the buildings collapsed, helped appeal to the Headmaster to cancel classes for the remainder of the day and the next day. We have done much for this community, stepped in and volunteered wherever we could. I have received hate mail and death threats for making the club what it is, but that has been more than overwhelmed by all the thanks and positive letters from many organizations and individuals through this state and up north in Massachusetts. I've spent countless hours encouraging other GSA's around the state and New England to be more active and be for just more than just gay activity at school, but for gay civil rights in every facet of life. We do that through public service, hard work, encouraging other groups to combine with us. The Junior Rotary Club has a partnership with us, the DAR, the League of Women Voters and so many other groups. We convinced the Chilton Regents to force the Boy Scouts to meet elsewhere because of their pathetic policy of excluding gays from their organization, no matter their age. I mean, God, what do we have to do to prove that we want to be a force in this school?"

I could tell Nora was at her breaking point, the pressure of losing the funding getting to her with the passion of her words. "I know there are some of you who would not like to extend the funding for us on the smallest of concerns, or because you think homosexuality is wrong, that it's some evil force designed to draw us closer to Satan or whatever. I am content with my view of God, however. I think that he is a kind and benevolent being who does not need us to take every word in the Bible seriously and look at that book for what it is, as a guidepoint, not as an unchanging constitution. We have made progress in 2,000 years, I'd like to think. I wish that those who would love to use their religion as an excuse to hate my way of life would actually look at where I'd be without this club. I'd be closed in and distant. Hell, I could've been long a tragedy on the 6 o'clock news, given the 'she was a kind girl' treatment and ignored after, just remembered as a faded light pole memorial on Zwieback Street. Many of us sitting in front of you would be the same way, or possibly in a loveless relationship because we can't be who we are. The members we keep secret at least have at the minimum, a place to go so in their darkest hour. We are happy as we are and if this funding is pulled from under our feet, I don't know what we can do. I know we can get private funding, but that comes with strings, and possibly the pressure to change our agenda based on our funders. At least with the student body behind us, we have that freedom to go on as we are. I can leave at the end of next semester with diploma in hand knowing the Rainbow Triangle Society is strong, that it will remain that place to go when you're drawn to someone the same as you that you have those feelings for.

"If you deny this funding, you will deny these students that safe haven, and I know that you will look back in the distant years and regret that you could have made a difference. You may disagree with me. There are even a few who might want to see me expelled because I'm in a loving relationship with a woman I love, and everyone else in this school because we aren't following Augustus Chilton's Honor Code to the letter because of who we loved. But you know that the love of someone of the same sex has always endured. It has for many years of this school's history in 'Boston marriages', requests to stay boarded with the same girl for all of your intermediate years, the tears when someone has found out your secret and forced you apart. Those days have passed us, along with the boarding era, a hidden part of Chilton's history. But love continues to be a rising emotion within the walls of this school, each and every day. No one can stop the emotions, the bliss and happiness you feel when you know that you are who you are, and you're proud to say that you're in a school tolerant to everyone."

I felt her entire speech hit personally within my soul, and I admit now that I did shed tears. Even if I had not known I loved Rory in that moment, I was proud for who I was. Though I'm not ready to expose us yet, Nora's words reassured me that if Rory and I were to need protection, we could be in that room and not be afraid. Closing her speech, she aimed her words right towards Francie's side of the table.

"I know that I won't see a unanimous vote with my words. I don't expect that. I also hope that your vote isn't saying you hate citizens who love members of the same sex. But I ask you to consider in your heart, as a Chiltonian, as a human being, and as a representative of the 1,600 members of this student body, is your voice representing everybody? Do you feel you can cast that vote and be confident those you represent would approve of that vote? And could you face one of our hidden members, explain the exact reason you voted to oppose the funding, and know in your heart that you made the right choice? Please, do not vote on emotion. Vote on our request with deliberation and consideration. That is all I ask of you. That is all the Rainbow Triangle Society asks of you. Vote how **you** feel, not how it will appear to others.

"As for Devon? He came here for safety. Not from his teammates or Coach Fulham, who have pledged their full support to him. He needed our support to stand up to his sports-obsessed father who wants him to be a jock, and wanted to be assured that he was OK the way he was. It is. It always should be. And hopefully many years from now, the Blue Demons will assure another school fielding their first gay player that it is the same as the end of segregation; dividing does not help. Uniting always makes you a winner. Thank you."

She sat back down, and all was quiet for the next minute as many of us recovered from the power of Nora's words. Rory brushed back tears, while Madeline beamed a bright smile towards the RTS members to tell them they were supported. Many of the other government members did the same thing.

There seemed to be only a few neutral faces in the room, our swing votes of course. But surprisingly among them were one of Francie's friends, Lemon. Her partner-in-crime thought deliberately about what she heard, as I saw her take notes all throughout everybody's arguments. For a usual yes-girl, that was surprising.

On my side though, I couldn't gauge Louise's reaction. She was sitting in her chair quietly, fiddling with a pencil and never looking up to check Nora. I remembered the rules of order and I decided that indeed, we would vote instead for the $1,500 instead of the original thousand.

It was a last minute bet on double zero, for sure. Adding money usually kills something. But if I was reading everybody right, I had the votes.

After thanking everybody for their debate, our treasurer prepared to count the votes as Ms. Peters walked the room. I started with the end of the table on the right side.

"O'Malley, your vote."

"Aye."

"Peltier?"

"Aye."

"Hammond?"

"Nay."

Not a surprise, especially since his moment of weakness 'bought' Francie the election.

"Jessup?"

"Nay."

"Velacruz?"

"Aye."

"Darling?" You guessed it, the second of the Jarvis supporters.

"Nay."

I was getting nervous, we were at 3-3...

"Feldner?"

"Aye."

"Radnor?"

"Aye."

Now onto the other far side of the table, where at least three yes votes were guaranteed.

"Langford?"

"Aye...ma'am." Really not starting to mind Brad anymore. At least he has well-instilled manners and a nice choice of woman.

"Lynn?"

"Aye."

_Ten votes, 7-3. We're on our way..._

__"Grant?" I wasn't even going to panic about this one--

"Nay."

Huh? Nay? Was she sure that she knew what she was voting for?

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that vote," I said to her, brushing my lobes to fake that I needed my ears cleaned and popped.

Once again she stated her vote. "Nay. I understood my vote."

I was stunned. My best friend, bosom buddy since preschool, was going against me. I was appalled. I wasn't even looking at Rory for her reaction, but searching within my soul. I wanted to cry, shake some sense into her and tell her she was actually siding with Francie, the biggest bitch we know besides me. Beyond that, she was voting against gay rights. I would have never expected her to be that way.

The funding was dead with that denial. Rory and I were votes eight and nine, but we needed ten. Louise was ten. She was the one to meet that 67% threshold.

My heart clenched. I prepared myself for an oncoming panic attack. But I had to ride this through and go forward. I could announce the results and then hand the gavel to Rory while I punched something hard before I had to go to the hospital. Preferably Francie's jaw.

But there was no hope. I saw it in Nora's eyes. She knew the vote. She knew the math. She was going down in defeat.

I had to get through this. There were two more votes before the two of us, Francie and Lemon. I prepared for the inevitable...

"Jarvis?"

She cast her vote as harshly as she could muster, her eyes full of sick smugness. "Nay!" I bet she wished the Grinch would've stayed the way he was before Who-ville convinced him to give back the presents.

This was it. 9-6 took it only to 60% approval. Enough to avoid a filibuster in the U.S. Senate, but not to save the RTS.

 

"Monroe?" I tried to be neutral, but there wasn't any hope. I had lost this vote for sure.

"Aye."

Yup, our fate was sealed--

_Wait, what? Did I hear that right?_

__I thought I was hearing things. Lemon Monroe, Francie's best friend, was going **against her**?

I had to make sure, just for the sake of accuracy.

"Miss Monroe, you are voting to extend the funding, is that correct?" Francie tried to keep her from speaking, but her hand was pushed away as Lemon explained the reasoning for her vote.

"I know what I'm voting for, Paris. I cannot possibly vote to block funding for an organization...that I will be joining myself."

She blinked a couple of times to the empty sounds of silence, then she stated why. "Francie, you always told me these students were only looking out for themselves and their agenda. You told me to stay away from them, that they were looking to turn me into something that I wasn't." She took a deep breath, and with the Puffs already well known after the supposed veil of secrecy lifted, she confessed to her best friend exactly how she felt. "I...some of the members of the Puffs and I...we experimented, in that way. I...actually fell in love with one of them, but held back my true feelings since saying so would have resulted in my expulsion in the group in your hands. I have since regretted that I turned her down and instead went with a date you set me up on at church who was horrible to me." Lemon's voice, which was usually very weak and quiet, was in this moment strong and echoing through the room. She got up and looked towards Clea Yang, a student sitting with the RTS group who had been with us during the Puffs initiation. "I don't know if your offer from a year ago still stands and if you reject me, it's justified. But...if you're willing to, I would finally love to take you out on that date, Clea. I think...I think that at the very least, I'm bisexual. I don't know if this can be forever. But I can no longer stand by and watch while my best friend tries to convince me that what I feel in my heart is not right."

Clea got up, feeling out of sorts, in shock. I could tell that there was that connection between them that Rory and I shared. She seemed giddy and a bit excited. But still skeptical. "Are you sure, Lem? What about your parents--"

"They know. They don't like it, but they'll live with it." She paused to catch her breath. "Please, Clea. If you're with somebody, I understand, but Nora is right. I'm voting with my heart and with my fellow students this time, not what is expected."

Clea paused, considering what she wanted. But there was no hesitation. I didn't consider it back then, but Lemon and Clea were almost inseparable during the initiation after Francie had to go into her ceremony.

"Just don't break my heart, please, Lem? Give us a good chance together. Of course, please come to our meetings and know that we will protect you."

Lemon beamed at the acceptance. Since she was in a formal setting she couldn't hash out the specifics of the date during the meeting. "Thank you!" She then looked at me, seeming very apologetic. "I...I'm so sorry, Paris. I didn't mean to...oh, God, you must find me embarrassing right now!" Laughing nervously, Lemon looked down at the table. "I'm such a ditz!"

I smiled at Lemon and reassured her. "Miss Monroe, you explained your vote. That's all I needed. I'm not mad or disappointed in you for your interruption at all." I did give her a light warning. "Just don't expect me to be so lenient in the future."

"I...I won't. Thank you, Paris." Rory could finally breathe as I called on her vote.

"Aye."

Finally I could get this out of the way. "And I vote aye." After a confirmation period with the treasurer to second the vote, I focused on a certain redhead to watch her biggest effort to interfere with my legacy and the rights of the students I represent go down in flames.

I was firm and even as I went through the final formality. "The ayes are ten, the nays are five. The vote meets two-thirds majority. The Rainbow Triangle Society will receive $1,500 of funding for the new calendar year, along with a new classroom to meet in, plus the full endorsement of this body as an organization representing the students of the Academy. The motion carries."

I brought the gavel down nice and hard to make it so. In the meetings I've presided over, it was the most satisfying pounding I've taken...

And if Lorelai ever hears that, I'll never hear the end of it. Backing slowly away from that statement...

All I can say is that I can now carry for the rest of my life the image of Francie's bitch face as I made it so. To see one of her own allies cast the vote to take us over the top, it was much more than satisfying, it was downright courageous and gutsy for her to do so.

But it was also so enjoyable to see her give a nice look towards Francie that read 'you don't own me. I'm my own woman and don't you dare try to stop me.'

The rest of the meeting went swimmingly, since there wasn't much to do. With Francie's motion to vote for the funding just before the holidays muted, she had nothing she could bring up or oppose. It was quiet all through.

At the end, I adjourned the meeting, and immediately it was time for Rory to deal with the ramifications of outing Francie's plans. The redhead took her by the hand demandingly, looking stern and angry.

"Rory, I'd like to talk to you...alone." Her cold voice chilled Rory all over again. Her fight or flight response sparked up, panic flashing in her eyes.

I had to stop this. There was no way she was going to get her way.

"Nice try," I warned her, getting in front of Rory and asserting myself like a mother hen. "Francine, I will advise you now as your superior; stay away from her."

"Superior of what?" She scoffed in my face. "So you have a gavel. That's all you have. I'm the senior class president. You have to deal with everybody else."

"Francie..." Lemon tried to yank her hand to pull her away, but she pulled back.

"We are no longer friends, Lemon. You are supposed to support me, nothing else." She turned around and tried to seem intimidating. But Lemon hadn't lost her courage by any means at all.

"I would support you, but this is insane. Forcing students to vote with you, threatening them, giving them hell if they defy you. I'm sorry. I was your best friend, but I cannot continue to be so if you're going to behave like this."

"She's right, Miss Jarvis." Ms. Peters had been watching the situation in the corner of the room, heading towards us when she felt fearful that Lemon and Rory were about to feel threatened. "I will not have you acting threatening to those who oppose your policy. Cool it down or I will send you to the Headmaster." She walked into Francie's personal space to make it clear. "I know what you've been doing to Miss Gilmore, and it stops now. Be thankful that I didn't report your conduct any further." She pinched her fingers together, leaving only slight space between them. "I was this close to forcing faculty supervision for you to use the restroom."

"You wouldn't have had the guts," Francie dared as she gathered her bag. Ms. Peters didn't even flinch as her cool voice warned her otherwise.

"Guess what? I work for a private school. Your father can't touch us. We can do whatever it takes to discipline you within the statutes, and if I have to have someone timing your bathroom breaks to the second and pull you off the toilet, I will. If I hear about one more instance of you or your friends intimidating others in any sense, you're done here and in every other club. Do I make myself clear, young lady?"

I shuddered. I knew Ms. Peters would do whatever it took to keep Francie in line. Mainly because what usually isn't mentioned by many is that Ms. Peters is actually Staff Sergeant Angelina Peters. She refuses to use her Army rank in civilian life, but she was in it for sixteen years, mainly working off military time as a reporter and later section editor at _Stars & Stripes_, and of course as a decorated veteran of Desert Storm. I love Ms. Peters at times like this when she gets into disciplinarian mode; she drives us all. The paper comes out on time, everyone comes to agreements, and even students like Francine Jarvis are no match for this woman.

"Yes, ma'am," she responded in a quivering voice. That would have been enough, but there was still some unfinished business to take care of.

"Now I think that something is owed to Miss Gilmore, isn't it?" Francie looked down for but a moment, and found her chin propped right back up. "I said to you, Miss Jarvis, you owe Miss Gilmore something."

Francie looked at Rory. "I'm sorry, Rory."

"What was that, Jarvis? My hearing has deteriorated a bit in my old age." Ha, please! She's 42 and can still hear a robin chirp three miles away at rush hour!

"I apologize for my conduct to you, Miss Gilmore. It was wrong to force you to vote against your feelings." Lemon was the only other one to know about everything and you could tell she was angry at her friend. I know for sure she was never in the bathroom with Francie because I didn't hear her voice in those tapes. "It was unacceptable."

Although I considered the apology half-assed and under pressure, Rory had just enough forgiveness to let bygones be bygones.

"I accept your apology, Francie," she said, a believable smile on her lips.

"Can I go now, Ms. Peters?" she asked in a frustrated voice.

"Yes, go on." Francie fled from the room, mortally embarrassed. Lemon was still in the room and looked to talk to Rory, while I found my gaze moving towards a certain blonde packing her things. I headed over to the far side of the table to talk to her. I really had to get to the bottom of this.

"Why did you vote against the funding?" I tried to be as kind as I could, but frankly I was pissed. Louise always seemed like an open kind of person. That was the last thing I ever expected her to do. Slamming her bag onto the table, her eyes flared with anger.

"I voted how I did because I felt like it. Now if you'll excuse me--"

I grabbed at her wrist before she could leave. "You know that's bull, Lou. You've been distant to everybody since you got together with that guy on the football team. I want to know what's happening with you, it's not like you to be this cold. That's my role," I joked.

Louise wasn't laughing at all, gritting her teeth while continuing to gather her things. "Look, I'm here, I voted. That's what we needed, right?"

"I needed your vote! One which I can usually count on!" I yelled.

"Please, you don't need me at all. You and Gilmore and Madeline are against me and how I live my life!"

"I don't know how you live, that's the problem!" I continued to keep my voice raised. "Tell me what is going on!"

"I'm breathing and fine. There, that's your update, Gel." She yanked back her hand. "Please leave me alone. You shouldn't be concerned about nothing." Walking away, I was desperate. I don't care if Rory is my girlfriend. At the core, Louise will always be my first friend and what affects her affects me. If it was about us keeping secrets I could understand. But nobody had been told about our relationship at all.

I didn't know what else to say to stop her. So I asked her the only question I could.

"Am...am I still your friend, Louise?" I was meek asking her. "I don't like it when we fight." I sounded pathetic, I know, but I needed that reassurance that I was still in her life. She looked at me, serious, the pale beauty of her face filled with worry lines and self-loathing.

There was something in her eyes I had never seen before in my life. Not a kind of sadness or anger. They were kind of dark and vacant, not as if they were dilated, but as if she had given up on everything. It hurt me to see her like that.

It wounded me even more to hear her answer me.

"I don't feel like a friend to anyone, anymore." Her voice had a tone of defeat, the usual sensual husk gone, and her words dull and wavering. This wasn't the Louise I knew at all. She was a shell of herself. "I...I need to go." She scurried out and my heart broke.

I was expecting to celebrate my victory over Francie. Now I didn't know if I wanted to gloat over anything. Something was seriously wrong with this girl and she was able to keep a strong front usually. If she was pissed it was usually something a party, a talk, and a hot blonde could deal with.

Now I wasn't so sure. There wasn't anything obvious wrong. I had been checking her physically to see she was doing anything dangerous. About the only danger sign was her eyes were rimmed red, but that was likely just from crying. There were no cuts, her skin was still full of life, her figure was just fine and she was still doing well in class. Her nose was normal so she wasn't huffing or sniffing anything...

I hope. I watched her leave and turned around to see Rory and Nora talking. I was planning to go with them to the RTS room and celebrate the funding win, but I couldn't at this point. Nora hugged me right away and thanked me with a kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you so much!" She was jubilant. "I didn't think we could get it, but we did. More funding too, I'm so psyched! We're going to be unstoppable this year."

"It's not...a problem." I gasped for a bit of air. "Nothing against your hugs, Nor...but release...please?"

"Oh." She took a look at my discomfort and released. "Sorry, Par."

"She does the same thing with me," Rory responded with a laugh. "I asked her to a dance and when she said yes, I apparently almost killed her with a bear hug."

"You forget, Gilmore that I am a small woman, thus I have small lungs."

"Yes, but you do have big boobs to make up for it." She directed her secret smile towards me and I was completely speechless. _Oh my God, she didn't just say that!_ My mouth dropped open as my jaw seemed to paralyze. We were in front of Ms. Peters yet, after all!

"Oh, I must agree with you, Rory." She smiled while giving me that heated once-over. "I watched her grow into her fine lil' body that first year at Chilton in the locker room. If Mel here hadn't have sprung me a year later, I might have--"

"NORA!!" I whispered her name roughly. "Ms. Peters is here. I'm really, really, really trying to keep this quiet for now."

"Oh, so I guess you don't know," Nora shrugged. "I assumed you did."

"What are you talking about?"

She pulled me aside to the side of the room so that Ms. Peters wouldn't catch us. "There's a good reason Ms. Salmon is our group leader and why Angie over there got all green-eyed monster over us getting our funding pulled."

"Of course there was. Francie was flouting over her."

"Paris..." Nora smiled at me. "Tell me that you have no freakin' idea why Ms. Peters was so passionate about you getting this in as soon as you could."

I shook my head. "Nora, you're talking crazy. Ms. Peters is our faculty advisor on the government and _Franklin_ , nothing more than that."

"See..." Nora giggled slightly, taking me by the shoulder and turning me around. "This is why I love you repping us, Gellar. You don't care about the usual gossip and you just go in, do your job and bulldoze through all the bullshit. Never mind the things that should bash you in the face like a 2x4."

"So...Ms. Peters and Ms. Salmon...what are you saying?"

Dear God, I need a brain scan. I can recite facts, but sometimes I feel like my mind is like a badly dubbed Asian-language film. Nora shook her head and let me know what should have been obvious.

"How do I have to spell it out for you, Paris? They're a couple."

"Yes, they're a couple of teachers--"

"No, a couple as in I've caught them in the newsroom making out like I know you and Rory have a couple times, and don't you deny it."

"That's not true. Ms. Peters was in the Army, she could never--"

Nora quickly interrupted me. "It was after her service had ended. When she reached the ETS for her second period of duty she asked for honorable discharge and of course received it, well deserved for an officer of her caliber." That put her at 34 since she went right in after high school. I felt like I was violating her privacy, but Nora went on further. "She was married and ready to have kids, but she had problems conceiving."

"OK, Nora? I do not need to know this. Whatever this is, it's private information--"

"Paris, it's OK." Standing behind me was Ms. Peters with her hand on my shoulder. "I've told this story every year when RTS has had their first meeting."

"But that would mean..."

"Yes, that would mean what you think it means." Rory and Lemon came over. "Elise and I have been together for six years, and the Headmaster has no objections to us living together or raising a child."

"A child?" Rory was surprised. "I mean, I know how you have children, but..."

It was from there that the tension of the earlier meeting gave way to a much more relaxed pace as Ms. Peters explained her circumstances. Which in retrospect I should have known, but hey, she's my advisor, I'm the editor. Unless I'm planning an entire _Franklin_ edition around the life and times of Bill Hicks and John Holmes uncensored, we don't usually argue about anything.

What happened was this; Ms. Peters had been Staff Sergeant Angelina Mason coming off her discharge and moved back home to Hartford with her husband, for whom I will not name for good reason. They wanted a kid, but she had fertility problems. They tried everything, including IVF, but she wasn't getting knocked up by anything medical science could offer.

That left the last option; surrogacy. Her and Ms. Salmon had become fast friends from the moment she came to the Academy and she was a station of sanity coming from the Army and into the school. Ms. Salmon was relationship adverse and always willing to help her few friends with anything they might want.

So one day, Ms. Peters asked her if she could carry her child for a nice amount of money. Usually you'd ask for a ride to the airport from a friend, but how can you turn down such an offer that would at the very least give you some financial security? Elise accepted her and Mr. Mason's offer, and after five months of IVF treatments, Elise was finally able to offer her the wonderful news that she would soon be a mother.

Usually this would be a wonderful time to live. Ms. Peters would be a mother and live happily ever after, and her and Ms. Salmon would remain close for the rest of their lives.

But as she explained it, it was not to be.

"Elise was in the fourth month, while I was ready to tell my family after everything was out of the woods. I knew they'd find it strange, but it was in all but birth, my child. It was a miracle that it had worked out with Elise, and I was pleased to see her progress. We'd see each other everyday, I'd hear her jokingly curse me for sticking her with morning sickness, all of the usual things a surrogate mother deals with, only we were friends and we knew each other.

"One day I was on my computer and my husband forgot to sign out of his Outlook Express. He received a few new messages and I tried to close the icon on the taskbar, but instead, I opened up the program full-screen. I would have quickly closed it had my eyes not laid on the words 'Dear honey,'. It would have been fine...if it had been me writing that email." Her mouth firmed into a frown as she described what she discovered next. Scrolling down the message even though she didn't want to, she read a reply from her husband lower down that described him as instead of a future father, a man who was a complete bachelor and unattached. She didn't have to be explicit with what was in the message at all, there was no need.

"So I went through his email, which I knew was an invasion of privacy, and discovered that he had been using that email address for six years. Three of them had been used to have a relationship with this woman. Can you just imagine it? I was overseas at a base in Japan thinking my husband loved me, while he was meeting this woman back here in town behind my back for needs that I would love to fill, but hello, busy defending the flag and everything else a soldier does?"

"You must've hated him," Lemon commented.

"Oh, Lemon, I didn't hate him at all." She shrugged. "I don't think hate could describe how I felt about having been cheated on for so long. I freaked out. I made sure I was still clean and went through a battery of tests to make sure I was fine. I didn't say anything for two weeks to him or Elise. Especially Elise. I was afraid of what she would say because I had to wait for the tests to come through before I could say a word. I didn't want her to panic and lose the baby."

Eventually the tests did come back, and they were all thankfully negative. In the meantime the dope had forgotten to realize she worked on a heavily computerized and networked military newspaper and knew her way around multiple operating systems. She had his hard drive copied, the emails archived, and by the time he got home from a 'business trip' a few days later, he was dead in the water. The evidence was presented to him clear as day that he had been caught. No court in any state would ever give him anything. She did not have to raise her voice at all, and with all the military precision instilled within her his stuff was out by the next day, the divorce a few months later went uncontested and he left Hartford without a penny of his wife's never to be heard from again.

But in the interim it set up a quandary of what to do. Mr. Mason had given up all rights to paternity, leaving Ms. Peters an unexpected single mother. There was an expectation that with her husband leaving, Elise would revoke her deal to carry the child and have it sent to adoption, since Mr. Mason was to have guided her through all of the pre-natal activities with Ms. Peters only watching it from the side. Even with it being biologically Ms. Peters's the agreement allowed Ms. Salmon final say on what she would do with the child if the covenant was broke.

"We sat down with each other. I was ready to let go, but then she took my hand and asked me, 'do you still want your child, Angelina?' I nodded that I did. 'Will you help me carry it to term?' No hesitation at all on my part. 'Can I count on you to always be there for me? I know you weren't expecting to have to play the...father, as it were, but I'm going to do this with you, or not at all.' It wasn't threatening; she needed me there. She didn't want me to be distant. We sat down and came to the determination that no longer was the child of my former husband and I. This would be our child, in equal measure."

She told the story vividly, explaining how she was again excited to have a child after the turmoil of her marriage falling apart. She fell into the 'father' role with all of her zeal, being there for every doctor's visit, late night food run, every Lamaze class she and Elise attended. The days turned into weeks, and then a couple of months. Ms. Salmon eventually moved in to facilitate Ms. Peters not having to run her across town to get home every night. Seven months in, the two women had completely formed a bond that seemed unbreakable, and that's when it got really interesting.

"It was a late night at Chilton, a horrid one. The snow was flying everywhere, I had a heavy advising session on the _Franklin_ with that year's editor, and I was totally worn out. I was expecting a long grading session through the night, but our benevolent Headmaster had seen the storm reports from Buffalo and Rochester. He knew there would be no school the next day. So I get home prepared to just sleep the night away. I put my pajamas on and..."

She paused, recalling the scene as if I was retelling the story of the notebook all over again. "The power went out. I cursed under my breath and looked outside; there was no way that the circuit breaker tripped since I saw darkness all the way to the traffic light seventeen blocks down Zion to Fairfield, but thank goodness I had the furnace on a generator. So I lit a candle and guided myself into my bedroom. Elise was laying down on it since I didn't have another bed in the house; I usually slept on the couch downstairs. But that night I couldn't take the risk of having her alone; I had to protect her. She woke up from the glare of the candle."

Ms. Peters took a breath in. I felt my skin prickle at the upcoming portion of her story in anticipation. "You know how they say that there's a moment where you fall in love, that it's perfect and there's nothing that can stop it from occurring? That was it." I tried to visualize the blonde physics teacher in my mind seven months pregnant. Ms. Salmon is a beautiful woman and I could just imagine the passion and panic in that moment.

The details were sparse, owing to the teacher/student dynamic, but still enough to jump over easily filled blanks. Ms. Salmon wore a thin maternity nightgown in bed and looked up at the other woman. Ms. Peters told her of the power outage and told her she had to put something else on, but Ms. Salmon was one to enjoy the cold a bit.

"I still remember in that moment staring at Elise, taking her all in truly. The heft of her breasts, the glow of her cheeks from the pregnancy, how the curve of her stomach encased my future child in the safety of her womb. I had grown to consider her close since the beginning of the divorce, but couldn't figure out why. After the papers were signed and we left the courthouse, she held my hand. It was completely natural and I didn't even notice that she clasped it intimately."

"So how did you see her that night?" Rory wondered. "All of that time together helping to bring this child into the world...it must made for close touching and a few uncomfortable brushes and glances."

"It took me awhile to connect the dots," she admitted. "A glance of her leg here when she crossed it...a feeling to be so maternal and protecting of her. Not just as the mother, but like that bond you have with a midwife that you both know what you each want. I never thought twice about touching her, helping her breathe in pre-natal classes, going through the rehearsal of what to do when it was time. Decorating the nursery...man, that takes me all the way back. I even recall her wearing one of my Army dress shirts when she wasn't real along. My husband was into dropping the pretenses at home, but Elise always calls me ma'am out of respect. I've tried to push her out of it, but I can't get it to stick."

"You know, Ms. Peters..." Nora grinned. "We're all big girls in here. I don't mind hearing you get naughty about what happened."

"Yes, but do you want the other poor girls here to have their minds blown, Folsom?" She smiled mischievously towards the girl. "I don't know that they're ready to hear about this."

I thought I wasn't myself, but my mouth jumped ahead of my mind. Probably all my inner vixen's fault.

"I don't think I would mind." I would have caught myself, but it was too late. I couldn't take it back. I blushed violently and tried to take it back, but it was too late as Rory let me know it was fine to be inquiring.

"So Paris's sex drive? I think it's finally hatched."

"Oh dear," I groaned. "I do not have a sex drive!" Thankfully they averted the further need to tease and push me further out while Ms. Peters chuckled.

"Fine, you're pretty much all trusted anyways. It's not like Elise ever prevents me from telling me about it; she considers it as sort of a lesbian evangelism, as it were." She continued, her face warming as she expanded the description as much as she possibly could without taking it out of the educational context.

I don't know why romance seems to a follow a template of need or desire for something. I fell for Rory more out of acceptance and trust more than anything else. Ms. Peters told of missing comfort, having been stuck with only herself for so many years, the only communication between her and her husband through letters which passed through the military censors or the usual holiday video message on television. She finally had something tangible for the first time in years keeping her in the States and as she explained it her having Ms. Salmon as a surrogate made her feel like she always wanted to be, a friend to someone close.

But it was more than that. "I didn't even know I was falling in love with her," she confessed. "That first week in class I felt odd about being the one teaching her how to breathe and deliver since I was the only woman 'father' in the room. It started out just that way, but in two months it became more. She moved in. I began to cook for her, while she helped me decorate the nursery and even touch on the worst thing of my classes, my disorganization of my lesson plans. We helped each other...I guess you could even say we complemented each other. But not like my husband."

Cue the echoes back to that day in the dorm Rory was brushing my hair before the date when she said a couple should complement each other. I shuddered at the parallels we seemed to share with each other.

She told of falling in love further, noticing Ms. Salmon when she passed her classroom or in the halls, and of one odd touch in the teacher's lounge. "I remember she wanted me to feel the baby kick and it just happened to begin at that time. I didn't think of it as anything but second nature, so I felt her stomach. I thought of it as much more as the kick though, it was the way she looked at me. The focus of her eyes, the intimacy of the touch. Ms. James from the office walked in just at the moment I was closing in, unconsciously." I felt so uncomfortable all the sudden. "Since she's so conservative I had to explain that she was my surrogate, but she didn't seem to understand. Mainly because I was still technically married in the legal sense, but I didn't care. He was out of the house and out of my life.

"It became a tradition to catch up at lunch, whether in the lounge or in our classrooms. Watching my child develop, the both of us looking at the ultrasound pictures, soon we became inseparable. She kept trying to half-heartedly pull away from helping with decorations and shopping but it was useless. We were building that bond, becoming closer. I...I even have to admit to maybe pushing things along with a trip to try on maternity clothing that turned into me acting like a daft idiot for three hours while I stared at Elise looking beautiful in everything."

 _I have to cross my legs_ , I thought, doing exactly that as I held a shudder as close as I could in silence. I loved this the most, the seduction, the teasing and realizations. I took in Lemon to my other side listening fully intent. No longer taking notes at all, but finally able to use her imagination for much more than how to satisfy Francie's latest plan of attack. I saw the resignation and tension which had been on her shoulders when she walked into the conference room earlier was gone. She was fully calm and content with who she was.

Then I darted my gaze to Rory, Nora between us, a purposeful move because I felt I couldn't keep my self-control. I just think about how she listens and brings her full attention to superiors. I wish you could have a picture of her paying attention. For some reason it reminds me of those paintings where a nun is looking up with her hands clasped in prayer. Rory has the same pose down to the reflection in her eyes, only her hands are unconsciously scribbling notes onto a pad or notebook of some kind in her rushed yet neat scribe. I really think we're of the same cloth, women who soak up everything we hear and don't ever find ourselves distracted by the little things.

She's so beautiful listening. I can see her when she was six years old, listening to a story in a public library curled up with her stuffed chicken...

It feels even more right to be her girlfriend in that moment. Among some of our own, including our own advisor, telling us how she fell in love.

"I finally had to confront my feelings the night of that power outage. Laying with Elise in the same bed, protecting her." Ms. Peters's voice quivered from the emotional impact. "There I was, three weeks after I retook my maiden name, trying to assure Elise all would be fine, that the power would come back soon. The only thing between us a few inches of space and the thin fabric of her nightgown, along with my pajama shirt. She didn't wear a fragrance, but she had a soft scent of talc and almond. I was laying there, looking into her green eyes, and thinking about how much of a beautiful woman she was to carry my child. I couldn't help but stare, to touch..." She paused. "I wrapped my arms around her stomach. I fell asleep to the little kicks against her belly, thinking of how I...I loved Elise. For the first time, I admitted that I wanted her, something I had stopped myself from thinking because it was wrong to be that way. I was scared to say something, so much pressure not only from my parents, but from the service and the school."

I imagined this in a moody and sensual way, filled with shadows and much nervous energy between them. As Ms. Peters described the moment, I saw a lot of myself in her, that fear of others finding out and that excitement of knowing your one and only was in someone so close.

She goes back to the power outage and a few hours later.

"What happened in that bedroom was a complete surprise to the both of us. There didn't seem to a true point where we looked into each other's eyes and saw each other as soulmates. It didn't come right away. But I think what sparked our relationship was just a need for intimacy, someone who needs the other. We both woke up at 3am, the power was still out. We wanted to grade, but our laptops were on horrid batteries. So there was nothing to do. We had distractions those last two months. Things to do, television to watch, classes to worry about and grade, worries about the baby from our parents. They were all gone. We held each other, finally realizing that what was missing from our friendship was a relationship. I had all those doubts floating around in me. But at the same time, I had a want for her, to feel her hands and ravage her body with appreciation for being my surrogate. We talked for a minute or two. Wondered what was going on. Then I just laid it out for her and said I felt something for her and I would understand if she wanted to turn me down."

A pause. "That's when Elise confessed that she wanted me to be hers. It was breathless, quiet, filled with tears. My mind couldn't analyze at all. I did the thing my heart told me to do; I kissed her."

And then Elise returned the kiss, then Ms. Peters reciprocated. A question whether the power was going to be turned back on was asked, but it was lost in a maze of lust as Ms. Peters tried to describe in PG-13 terms what my mind could only picture in NC-17. The only trigger was obvious desire between the two women, a need to feel again. After so many years of feeling unfulfilled, Ms. Peters felt loved all over again as her and Ms. Salmon came together in a way that I...I...

I could really tell you everything she said further out from here, tell you how much they bonded through that evening and into the morning until they had a long heart-to-heart where they decided to test whether a relationship between a surrogate and the child's mother could possibly work. About how Angelina was there to hold her hand and cut the cord when Elise gave birth to Gertrude Vanessa Peters, the first two names being the middle names of her mothers. Gertrude being more known as Trudy. I could state how they still look at each other today with a fire that many couples could wish they would have half of in their own lives.

This could be something I could go on and on about, but I choose not to. Not only for her privacy, but because coming out to your lover is an experience all your own. How I will come out will be different from them. How Rory knew her eyes wandered to me, I know there were private thoughts I didn't know about which went into her decision.

So I won't tell you all of that.

What I will say is two things pertaining to the both of us;

I hope we can last five years like they have. I will definitely be fighting for this relationship. Ms. Salmon and Ms. Peters went through the process with their own families as the relationship continued.

The Masons refused to acknowledge Trudy at all as part of their family. Ms. Peters went through a year of estrangement with her strict general father and her sister. But they eventually saw the light when they saw Ms. Salmon was unlike Mr. Mason in every way. Where he wanted to emotionally stunt the strength the Army gave her to submit her back into a housewife, Elise encouraged her to remain strong in every moment, including facing her father. General Peters could not deny that his daughter was under a better influence after that, and they now get along, although the disappointment that a traditional marriage broke apart to do so remains.

I was inspired, and I saw all of us in the room reacting the same way to this story.

OK, maybe not the same way. You know how hard it is not to imagine two other women together? Especially when they're teachers you've long respected and thought of as conservative and boring? There goes that image.

After some more talking and oohing and ahhing about the relationship from Lemon, she left the room with Nora and Melinda, leaving Rory and I to gather our things before we left for home. As I was leaving, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Paris, a moment alone?" Ms. Peters was insistent on me staying.

"Oh, um, sure, of course." Rory smiled at me as she exited. Then I turned back around as I secured my messenger bag on my shoulder. With Rory gone, I thought I was just being reminded of something to do with the paper.

"What is it, Ms. Peters?"

It was something to do with the paper. But not the publication, much to my shock.

"There's one reason I felt gutsy enough to tell you that story." She shook her head and chuckled. "I know, Paris."

"Know what?" I was without a hint and had no idea. She moved in close to the shell of my ear, and then softly...

"Last Monday I had to stop back in the newsroom for some papers I forgot to grade."

_Oh, shit. No...no...please just tell me that what she's about to say isn't true._

__"I was actually in on Nora's bet. I thought around semester exams."

Oh, come on! What is the Chilton LGBT community, an annex of Stars Hollow?! I was white as a sheet, a skin tone that with my genes (and fading tan) was hard to muster, but thus, there I was with my jaw slacked while my faculty advisor just shook her head with an evil smirk and gave me a once-over.

"I can't say that I'm disappointed though. It was fun watching you all of these months dance around Miss Gilmore and try to deny you felt something with her. But to me it was clear as a window. The touches, asserting that in all but masthead she was your co-editor. I could just tell on that day you were planning something."

 _Oh kay._ I had no idea why Ms. Peters would even try to encourage me to break several Chilton rules, so I had to ask, beyond being a part of the bet, why she would indulge in the slow seduction of my best friend.

"I guess you could call it a community service," she presumed. "You're in love, Miss Gellar. It makes you calmer. You're less stressed about things, debating is less frustrating, everyone gets their say. Plus I have my own reason for encouraging your misbehavior in the darkroom." She moved closer to me and whispered dangerously into my ear. "Let's just say there was a good reason Ms. Salmon and I called in sick the next morning."

Fuck.

"You...you didn't." I went from white to red faster than my 911 goes from 0 to 60.

"Both of us wish we could be that young again. Had to wear a heat pad on my lower back on Wednesday." She moved away, non-chalant. "Goodnight, Paris, and thank you for having such a sane and..." a pause to take her voice down to a smoky tenor, "...passionate voice in student government." She walked out, leaving me standing there as if I was glued to the floor.

I was trying to block out Ms. Peters walking in and taking her girlfriend right in the living room the moment she came home, fueled by our orgasmic screams from the next room.

That means they have both fantasized about me.

And fantasized about Rory. The both of us together. The ultimate taboo, beyond having sex with a teacher. Imagining two students together as you make love to a fellow teacher.

I think I need to see a cardiologist. All of these revelations and discoveries certainly cannot be good for the health of my heart. I mean...wow.

Madeline and Louise? You can't doubt they've been a part of male teacher fantasies, no matter what. But me? I'm no looker. I still wonder what Rory sees in my physically and if she loves me for my brain...

Wait, forgot the outright confession earlier that she enjoys the girls. In hindsight, I also noticed that Ms. Peters's eyes were blousebound once those words were said.

Damn it, it might be back to the blazer just for punishment of those two. I'm being imagined by two teachers and my girlfriend...

Then again, my ol' ego can't help but enjoy the boost. I leave the conference room with a bit of a spring in my step.

Come on. I have forty year-old teachers lusting after me...

Oh, and Rory...

I thought she'd react strangely to the revelation.  


* * *

Apparently in the mind of Rory Gilmore, 'teachers using our voyeuristic tryst in the darkroom as fantasy material for their own sex lives' means a completely different kind of strange to her.

Like the kinky kind of strange.

"You really think I'm embarrassed Ms. Peters heard us?" She unbuttoned her blouse with a smile as I relayed the details of the short conversation with the older woman. "I kind of expected it, actually."

"What, you wanted her to catch us?"

Rory nodded innocently. "Would there have been a problem if we were? Come on, Par, half of what we did in there was fueled by the thought of someone catching us, red warning light be damned." She tossed the shirt onto the backseat and I did my best not to look at her. "It actually makes it even hotter in retrospect."

"But we could have been caught! You're missing the point I'm making here, Gilmore. I was under the expectation that there would be total privacy within that room and Ms. Peters would have completely departed. Now I don't know how I feel about it. I'm kind of embarrassed that for the rest of my days in this school she will look at me and think 'that Paris, she's kind of a moaner.' If it was Madeline...I wouldn't be mortified. It's different with her."

"Oh, but I think of it this way." Damn you, Rory for having that sweet but naughty voice. "Imagine if she had walked in on us in the middle of our passion. I don't know about you, but I consider Angie among the hottest teachers in Chilton. I even voted in Madeline's poll and put her right on top."

"She is Ms. Peters," I lectured, "Not...Angie. It is disrespectful to use a first name with an instructor."

"I've called her Angie and she hasn't batted an eye." She went further, crossing her arms over her chest and flaring it out purposefully as she pushed the seat back. "But really, she is a forty year-old woman in excellent shape with a sharp tongue, killer legs and a need to feel commanding over her students. But she's still sweet. When the regents wanted to cut the _Franklin_ funding and your appeals weren't enough, it was her who saved our bacon with her appeal to future students."

"You're...you're right." I kept my focus straight to keep myself in control, but Rory insisted on going on with her fawning.

"I love it when she hovers above you. She has that small cleavage she only displays when she's bent over and it's a small gift to me for having to go through some of the most appalling instructors this school has to offer. I know she does it for Ms. Salmon in case there's that temptation for a mid-day quickie, but I'm sure the ladies of the RTS also appreciate it. I know I do." She lay back on the seat and began to buckle her seatbelt--

At the same time my own legs buckled. Imagining Ms. Peters like that and her scent still hanging in my nostrils, I had been tense through most of the time she told of how her and Ms. Salmon fell in love. The sex especially got to me. I don't know why, but it did. It might have been Ms. Peters describing the way she licked her lips when she disrobed Ms. Salmon and stared at her body in the candlelight, carrying her child. In my mind it was so provocative to imagine her eyes scanning that woman as if trying to find some typographical error that was well hidden in six-point legal type, but failing to do so because she was so perfectly beautiful.

It brought to a flash of Rory...pregnant.

When she's much, much older, though. At her current age her hips cannot possibly handle the strain of bearing a child, nor can my thoughts do the same. I reeled back in surprise thinking of my girlfriend with child. I was blushing and...

More thoughts of Elise going down on Ms. Peters in her full school regalia. I thought about them in a classroom, watching them like I did Lorelai and Mr. Medina. The only thing is I know I wouldn't feel dirty watching those two women at all. The former, it felt wrong and the only way I could cleanse myself was to spread it through the whole school.

But Peters and Salmon? Oh, lord, that could be something hot to watch. I even wondered if Ms. Peters got into her car and sped up the expressway so she could 'celebrate' the rescue of RTS...

 _God!_ I suddenly felt so turned on. I shouldn't feel this way. Rory would surely object to me fantasizing about a teacher in this way...

At least I thought so. She yanked the keyring from my fingers before I could place the key into the ignition. My sudden change in demeanor must have startled her.

With a smile, she opened up her door. "I'm driving us."

"Rory--"

"No, no, no, don't you even." She waved her finger and got out of the car to switch sides. I pushed over to the passenger seat with much resignation since she had never driven the XJ-8 before. I trusted her well enough and she's insured, but it's my car. I was worried. I settled myself in for the half-hour drive as a passenger as she got in before doing a quick adjustment of the seats, the wheel and mirror to her liking as she explained why she was taking the wheel.

"You need a break and some quiet time to relax. That was a tough meeting and I'm stressed, but I'm sure not as much as you. Louise didn't vote with you, Francie was obstinate and stubborn and you do so much for me every single day you drive into town to pick me up. Let me at least give you a little break, hon."

"I'm fine."

"Sure, you are." Starting the car, her eyes read my situation. "You were primed for a fight going in, and you got it. I knew I could hold my own but you're not used to both Francie **and** Louise sharing the same position."

"I know." Sighing, I settled back into the seat. "I'm really worried about her now. There's something going on and I can't seem to get her alone to tell me what it is."

"Do you think it's because Madeline is giving her the silent treatment?" Rory wondered.

I shook my head. "At this point, Madeline is reaching out. She hasn't had a chance to talk to her in a week; when she calls her at home she gets an off-hook signal and when she tries to get her cell, it transfers to voicemail. Texts receive no response at all. I've even tried the same avenues and I don't get to hear from her." I was very down on the situation, on the cusp of tears. "I even called Mrs. Grant Sunday night to see if there was anything going on. I guess Louise told her she wants to be left alone, because Mrs. Grant apologized and said she wasn't home and couldn't take a message."

"You don't think...could she be pregnant?" Rory was scared. "I didn't notice anything untoward, she doesn't seem sick or anything. But my mom, she didn't know until she was fitted for her cotillion dress."

"That might explain why she was so quiet and willing to DJ at Formal, then." I thought back to where things turned sour. "I just don't know, though. She's on a birth control patch, but it still has that small margin of error. She would be eating more at lunch if she was...but she still nibbles." I set my head on Rory's shoulder as she brushed her hands through my hair to keep me calm. "I just don't know what to do. I feel like I'm failing at being her best friend. Here I am building things with you and she's becoming distant when I didn't mean to be. She can come to me at any time, she knows that."

"You've told her that?"

I nodded. "Just last week, both in email and in person. I'm at my wit's end on what to say. I even went so far as to ask Dr. Birnbaum if there was anything more I could do and she advised telling the guidance counselor. But there's a whole can of worms right there." I felt odd keeping Rory somewhat in the dark about this and keeping it in the darkness of my mind, but it was the only thing I could do. I can't dwell on this. "I honestly have no idea what to do."

"You could talk to Mom," she suggested. "I know it might not seem like an option but I'm sure she'll keep it private."

I nodded, but still had trepidation. "I could do that. But I'm not sure." I feel guilty about not telling Rory about the pregnancy scare months ago, but I promised Louise. I have to hold that promise no matter how much it hurts me not to say a word. Hartford society is cruel and if it ever came out Lou had that scare, I'm done. It's that simple.

I hope it's just senior fatigue. I'm praying that it is just that and she would come back from winter break recharged. But I don't know that. I slumped back in the seat after Rory pecked my forehead assuring me everything will work out.

"You're an old soul, Par," she told me, looking both ways before backing out of the parking space. "I think you share that with your father. I saw him last week and there's that part of him in you. You can't worry about these things; they'll all fall into place soon. Besides, you have to celebrate. You kicked Francie's ass with that vote today. If it wasn't for you taking action, I don't know what would have happened."

"I know." I was weary, looking out the window. "I just know that this is going to come up sooner than later. Whatever is going on with Lou, it cannot be good."

"I'm here for you, hon." Smiling towards me and patting my leg, she effortlessly made her way out of the space. "You're not alone anymore. I won't let you be."

I was worried though, since Lou knew me before she ever came into the picture. "Even if it is Louise?"

"Par, there's more than love bonding us two together. We both have gone through so much in our lives." If I expected her to list something tough I was sorely disappointed. "For instance we never turned on WWOR's _Romper Room_ and heard Miss Molly call our names in the Magic Mirror."

"Oh man, do not remind me of that." I had to laugh as that was one of the bitter things that came from my childhood. "I even had Daddy send a letter asking why I never heard my name. Bastards never responded and that woman kept saying obscure names like Jonah. Sorry my father stuck me with a unique name and your mom was on Demerol."

"Hey, it could be worse. We could've been born in 1968 San Francisco. You would've made an adorable flower child." She drove out of the parking lot and onto the road, heading towards the west. We kept talking, and I felt more at ease about Louise, though still unsettled. It had been a strange day, filled with revelations and great things, but at the same time I still felt down a bit. No matter how I felt though at least I could count on Rory to give me all the room she could to make me relax.

Relax of course being an understatement. Heading down Route 175 towards 173, I watched the scenery and strip malls pass by in the passenger's side window, still feeling unsettled about everything. But I was relaxed. At least in most aspects.

Sharon of course is front and center for me. I still have this sense that I'm being followed, but it can't be true. I'm just being overly paranoid. Chilton's security is among the best in the state, even above the standards of the Hartford Police. There's no one watching me there. I also don't see the same car in my rear view or in my neighborhood...

OK, I'm beginning to sound like I'm wearing a tin foil hat. Enough with that line of thinking.

I just feel like somehow this house of cards will tumble somehow, and there goes my happiness. I can't let it slip through my fingers. I'm happy. I beat Francie for once. She lost her case and she now knows she can't get anyone else to do her dirty work.

But still, I worry. I'm like Grumpy Bear...

Damn it! I liked them. When I was four! That was 1988. It is now 2002, and I should not be thinking about them just because my nickname is--

"Par-Bear." Huh? My voice never sing-songs things, ever...

Oh, right. It's Rory, currently driving my car as if it's second nature to do so. Why is she so happy all the sudden? There's nothing happening, just her, the road and...

Her fingers sliding on up my thighs and towards the hem of my skirt?

No. Oh, no. Lorelai Leigh Gilmore! Just because I have done this to you a few times does not mean you get to try it out on me! Don't you even dare--

"So, do you think Ms. Peters is a TILF?" The question was sudden, her voice casual and calming. "I never thought I'd see her in the light that I did today."

"TILF?" What does she mean with her question? _She must've meant 'Ms. Peters likes the TIFF format for photographic layouts in QuarkXPress.'_ She is a consummate professional.

"Paris, I saw you lost in thought as you took in her story. Especially at the part where you got to imagine her going down on Ms. Salmon."

"I...I did not," I creak out immediately. "I took it in as if it was just another story." Which I did. Really.

So I might have felt a bit of pressure between my legs. So?

"I'm sure you did. Crossing those legs back and forth almost every minute she spoke. I think you were getting wet from the imagery she suggested..."

Oh God, she's hitching it up, moving the fabric higher. Come on, Rory, concentrate on the road. It's a winding one, you might lose control of the car. Hands at 10 and 2, right now!

Damn it, mouth, work! These are not thoughts, these are statements. Interrupt this frickin' tease and give me some mercy!

Fuck, where is my voice?

"You soaked over what wasn't, though." She's wrong. I'm not feeling wet at all. There is one thing you never do, and that's have sexual fantasies of your teacher...

Fine, I'm an awful liar. I'm wet...kind of.

"I didn't see anything untoward in your eyes. But in your body language you were finding yourself warming from the allegations. Thinking of them close in that bed together, Angelina protective of her child in Elise's womb, doing all she could to resist. But it was fruitless, for Elise in Angelina's eyes was a blonde goddess, her savior, keeping her sane when her entire world was falling apart."

"Rory..." Finally, I say something. But I sound incredibly weak. Man, I can do 180 easy during a debate but with my girlfriend one word is hard! Stop hiking my skirt...

"I love how she described it in spare detail, leaving the level of explicitness within our imagination." I roll my eyes back as my body humidifies. "I was sitting there listening like a good little girl, but I wasn't good at all."

Good about what?

Oh, no. She did not...

"I love the quiet comes the most, the ones no one ever notices. That I can keep in complete control and don't at all appear untowards to anybody. But in detail I'm imagining biting, scratching and those two women swearing and screaming into the Hartford night as they find themselves. They have that most umbilical of connections, a child growing in another woman's body. It's beautiful and inspiring, yet so raw to think that you can imagine yourself spilling that seed into her instead of the out of the way husband."

She did. In detail that would make Traci Lords blush. Well, legal Traci. You know, one of the parents at school looks like her, sort of...

"I saw it so much in your body, Par. You felt like you were a voyeur into that world. Hearing them make love, you wish you could have peeked into that bedroom and watched them go at it. Know how it feels to fuck someone lengthwise, your hand against their cleft as you push it in and out...in and out...feeling the force of her walls against her fingers. I see those hands now in my mind. I picture them dripping with cum."

I'm breathing heavily now, trying to bring the rhythm of my heart back down to normal. All I see though is a dark apartment and two of my teachers making love with spare sheets on their bed in the shadows. Nothing I should think about...

"I know you want to feel, Par. That you just want to let go and be free. You've been pushed down for so long but I'm finally opening your heart to these new things. You're doing the same to me. I wish you could know what it's like to not touch yourself, yet have the most divine of orgasms. That one you worked for, imagined for three days, three nights since your last one. It takes a trigger to let it go, and I think this is it."

"No...it isn't," How hard is it to understand what I'm thinking? You are driving a $70,000 piece of machinery! You need to control it! "We are on the road right now. I should not allow this."

"You shouldn't, but you are," she dares to affirm. "You're so damp right now...the heat's getting to you, isn't it?" Her hand moves abruptly from my thigh, towards the buttons of my blouse.

How did my hands get paralyzed from only Rory's small flitting touch against my breastbone? She unsnaps my tie, her eyes remaining on the road while her driving stays careful.

Her small fingers slide the small buttons of my blouse through each eyelet. "Paris, you're hot."

"I am..." Who am I, Stuart Smalley? I don't need self-affirmation of my beauty!

"You're aroused." She says this as her hand brushes across my left breast. OK, I can do this, tamp it all down and push it away. Don't give her any clues that you want anything from this and you want her hand back on the steering wheel.

"I...I...I guess I am." Damn it! My body has full control over the rational state of my mind. Four buttons down, my pink camisole was exposed. Fitting almost tightly, it hardly holds my curves in check.

"You feel lucky today, right? Kicking Francie's ass, winning the vote, getting what you wanted. Well..." I don't know how she's doing it, but she knows the Chilton shirt extremely well. Without as much as a glance every button is quickly undone until she pushes each half of the blouse out of the way to expose my camisole.

She finishes her hanging statement. "...you almost got everything that you wanted today."

Really, Paris? You had to make the clever farm girl your lover, the one who's revealing herself as seductive, silly and sexy under the cover of a repressed schoolgirl for so long? What have you gotten yourself into, young lady?

She stops at a traffic light, then smiles at me. "Tell me you didn't forget." Her eyes narrow and she gives me that dangerous once-over that could liquefy my insides, I'm sure.

"The funding...it passed. That was my goal for today." How could I forget that? It's been a big yellow caution sign since Francie dropped her first slur via microcassette last Monday. She lets her fingers undo the left cuff of my blouse. Suddenly I'm feeling a bit self-conscious about my 'war uniform'.

Namely, that one certain portion I usually wear was excluded to assert my alpha status in the room with her. I am showing, and suddenly feeling shy about that one choice as I felt her hand pull at the fabric of my shirt.

Rory humors me. "I know you wanted the funding. But I suppose you forgot to check your phone for my last text."

"No, I didn't, I--"

This delayed thinking thing? It's really getting old already. Here it comes, the sound of the SMS at 11:30pm last night as I'm just about to fall asleep. I knew it was from Ror, but I thought nothing of it at the time. I knew it was going to be a struggle, but there was a chance we couldn't get the funding.

But I did. The vote went through, and thus in the laws of text messaging, what Rory wrote and my bleary eyes barely comprehended, was about to hit me full force.

I don't need to get out my phone for a reminder. The electronic letters in that box on the phone screen flash in my mind so perfectly.

_PB, you win the vote, ul b rightfully & deeply rewarded. <3 U, Ror_

__I thought she meant she'd take me out for dinner at a place with great homestyle mac and cheese.

But as she eyes me up and takes in my deep cleavage, the hunger she usually sates at Luke's is far from her mind. Her eyes are that dark blue, her socks down to her near her ankles, an intention to have my eyesight filled with her shapely legs.

Oh my God.

She looks at me, her gaze hot and hard.

The right turn signal is on. We're at our usual Hartford intersection to get home, New Britain and Ridgewood. Usually not using the signal leads us a mile south to the Route 9 expressway towards the south and to the Hollow.

A right turn is north. North towards the Avon Mountain area.

I live near Avon Mountain.

"You said Sharon wasn't home tonight, right?"

Was she...

That's right. I did on the way to school feel thankful that my mother had a date night in Manhattan with Mohegan Man. Which is more like her running up his American Express card at Barney's and Tiffany, but I digress. She wasn't going to be home...

"I called Mom already; we're all set." What? "I'm becoming thankful that I leave a uniform and clothes change in your trunk now, hon."

Uniform change? What did she mean she had a--

"Besides, you still owe me that opportunity to try out your private bathtub. The one with the waterproof HDTV and multiple jet settings?" She untucks the camisole from my skirt, and then blatantly moves her hand beneath my skirt. My muscles have tightened all up, and my body is losing all control. Fingers spider up my thigh, dampened with sweat. "Along with that library of yours; it makes Grandpa's seem like a bunch of books in dorm room milk crates."

Fuck...moving higher...higher.

"You were in heat last week. Now it's my turn to take you how I want to, Par." Damn, she knows I can't resist her when she's possessive. "When we get into the garage, our bags stay in the car. We won't be needing them tonight."

Fingers on the edging of my panties. My heart is beating at triple time. Where my mind is filled with fear of my mother discovering us, I know she couldn't get back to town before I got to school. Her liver and sex drive would never make it so. I will not think about her.

I can't. Not when Ror is so...

"I love it when you're dripping wet like this. Thinking about us, and Ms. Peters and Ms. Salmon. You don't have to hide it, Par. I know. And I understand how you feel." She dips another finger in, and as she sees the light turn yellow, quickly brushes both fingers against my clitoris, blood flowing through like the Columbia. I react with a very held back cry and gasp, my right hand gripping the side of the seat for dear life at what is about to happen. She stretches across and brushes a quick kiss against my lips before leaving me to hang with a few final words.

"People like to say make-up or anger sex is the best type of passion." She smirks. "I think they're wrong. Victory sex has to be the most awesome thing you can share with your mate. I thought I'd have to wait to share that with you until debate season because let's face it, you'll be monking it up in the five days of prep before debate, and so will I. All that held in tension and desire, we have to be stuck on one topic to defend or shoot down and can only feel relieved when a winner is declared." She takes her hand out of my space. "But tonight, we get a first crack at it. I get the feeling that we're not going to be either quiet or innocent."

She finally sets her hand on the steering wheel as she makes her right turn onto Ridgewood. I finally get to settle down.

But not for long. "We will have fun tonight, Par," she guarantees, laughing and prepared for what I never could have imagined all that time ago when I first took in this small town girl carnally. "Or should I say, you are going to get soo lucky, _mia bambina_?"

I settle back into my seat, my legs crossed, body tight, and pussy pounding. Picturing Peters and Salmon together...then the library.

And that bathtub.

Who would've ever thought Gilmore could top DuGrey in the fantasy setting department? He went with the car, the kitchen island and in front of a maid. That last one was of course mortifying because the youngest maid there is 37 and known me for six years. It would be like having sex in front of your sister.

But with this, not one boy in the entirety of Chilton can ever grab my heart again. This is not going to be a quiet Tuesday at all. I leave on the shirt and button it back up, but not before leaving her one warning.

"Are you sure you're prepared, Gilmore?" I dare. "I can be quite...passionate about my victories."

"How passionate?"

"Let's just say if debate season turns out to be a shutout, we're never leaving the bedroom." I give her a smoky glare, satisfied with my comeback.

She wants to be this way? I can dish it out just as well. My confidence is coming back in droves and there's no way she can top that. No way at all--

"Well then." An innocent smile. "I look forward to see how you master debates."

Ahh, wordplay. Just the thing I love when it comes to flirting with Gilmore. I shake my head and tsk her in response.

"I master them in my sleep," I respond.

"Oh, do I ever know." She presses her foot on the gas pedal a little more, letting a few more RPM's pour into my purring kitty of a car. "I heard you mastering debates all summer in your sleep. You knew how to ace them."

"I'm a natural. But mastering debates by myself? It just isn't the same without a partner." I'm not even touching her and I know what nerves I'm pinching in Ror. "A partner who's learning how to show her true colors, coming out of hiding and as of today, began to really come out of hiding." I love doing this for her. "A girl who with just her withering stare, made her opponent sit up and take notice that her liver isn't lily at all, but full of bile. Poisonous bile they best stay out of the way of. I even thought as this debate was going on that maybe, I could stand back and have her take lead on the first one with Wesleyan?" I am making her nervous, I know. But I have to set this up before I quickly change my mind. "It's going to be a tough topic, certainly, when it is revealed as after break is over. But I'm confident that if my partner can null her opponent's arguments in a high pressure situation like that, she can take lead on the debate team."

There was silence for the next half-mile, as I expected. Offering up lead chair in the debate was something I didn't even consider up until this moment, I admit. I am a control freak and I have to know my destiny, whatever it might be. Putting Rory in charge could already threaten a perfect record right on the first match. Even if it was Wesleyan, the pushover school of the conference.

But I have to do it. This isn't about her getting perks just because I'm her lover or anything. She has to learn to lead. I see her as a leader in some aspect of her life. If only someone could tell her that.

She ponders my words for awhile, and hesitates. I know it's pressure to have to lead on the debate, but I know she can do it.

"You. You want me to lead off...the first debate?"

"Yes. Yes, I do," I state confidently. "I have full confidence in you to do so. If you do well, we split debate-leading for the year."

"But what about Brad?" Damn it, don't remind me. "He's going to be on the team this year too. Surely you want to offer him some lead chairs."

"I will, in time. But I want you to lead this first one. Please, for me." I plead with her to do so. "I promise you in the meantime, I will make it worth your while."

More time to ponder. She likely has some conditions to do so. I wouldn't expect it any other way.

"Two things." OK, I guess I can handle two things. "No lectures on WPM. If I lead, we go at my speed. It'll still be fast, but I want to stretch our arguments to a leisurely pace."

"Fine." I shook my head, but still agreed.

"Brad will get equal time with us. He is joining our team and I expect him to not be pushed off because his debate skills are a little weak."

"Rory--"

"No, Paris. Brad is Madeline's boyfriend. If you're mean to her, Maddy will never let you hear the end of it. Be kind to him? Please?"

"Well..."

"Paris Eustace." She grits out my middle name. Damn, I better comply.

"Fine, Brad is our teammate, not someone I tease." I settled into the seat. "I don't understand it though. I know he loves the stage, but why does his debating need so much work?"

"I don't think it's his fault. He's a born actor so he still feels like he has to throw for a touchdown each time he makes a point. That's what tripped him up at Hillside."

"All he needs to do is advance the ball."

"Yes, but he's intense. Like you are with the paper."

"I suppose." I sigh, looking out the window at the passing scenery. I feel prickles along my skin at the fact I will be alone tonight.

Alone in the house...with Rory.

"What did you tell Lorelai when you asked if you could stay over?" Why do I ask? Am I nervous that Lorelai is going to find out--

"Oh, this morning when I asked?" Wow, she had more confidence in the vote than I thought. "I told her she didn't want to know."

"That's it?"

"Par." She smirks as she looks at the road. "I ran out of project excuses long, long ago. I think my mom is smart enough to know we're not watching a _History's Mysteries_ marathon or debating whether the Mercator or Lambert projection presents the surface of the earth better on a map. She invented sneaking out, so trust me, she knows that we are both...physically active."

"You mean sexually active?"

She hmm's in my direction and doubts my thought process. "How active do you want to be tonight, then?"

"What is your definition of 'active'?" I challenge.

"Well..." she smiles. "I would have to say I'd love it if you lost your voice by tomorrow morning."

"That's it?" I decided to play with her a little, moving my hand up from the cupholder to dare a touch on her thigh. But she was on to me right away. I wasn't even able to get it over the console before she took it and shook her head in disapproval.

"I'm sorry, hon. You're just going to have to wait until later to get that frustration out." I glare at her, hard.

"Why can't I let it out now?"

"Well, you could," she suggests. "But I just want you to know, good things come to those who wait." Her focus stays straight on the road. "You have plenty of good things coming when we get to the Manor."

"What kind of good things?"

"I can think of quite a few things." Her hand is back over the console line, on the outside of my thigh. "If you want to really know though, I want us to be so active tonight, you'll have to wear **two** undershirts to hide the sexual marks I plan to leave on you."

"What about you? I know you've only got one in the trunk." I laugh a little, daring her to respond.

"Don't tempt me, Gellar." She sighs, her fingers pushing even higher up my skirt. "I'm just going to tell you right now to expect the unexpected. She digs her nail in hard against my skin, and I react with a shocked gasp. "I have my plans already, but you're not going to know a thing."

I feel the tip of the nail almost pierce my skin. Her words and that one action result in me clenching my legs hard as my inner muscles clench and let a push of fluid slide out from between my legs, sticking the satin against my mons.

"You've surprised me for too long. Tonight..." I'm feeling very dizzy, anticipating. That swell against my bra returns.

I'm in for big trouble.

"I get full reign to reward you for kicking Francie's ass. Just imagine tonight as if it was February, we won the debate, and Sherrie and my dad were nowhere to be found. If we had celebrated and realized that spark was there. Except I'm turning the tables, _mia_."

I can't say a word at all. My body is fully frozen, my mouth dries, and there's no way to respond.

"The secrets you hold are becoming mine, Paris. They're ours now. Feel free to let yourself go tonight. It's just you..." She brings the finger she dug in out from my skirt, and against my lips. I can't believe she's being this seductive. "...and I. So if you're wondering how active we're going to be tonight. Don't. Turn off your mind, let yourself go, and just know that you're loved. I love you, and I will show you how much I do in the Manor until we're so tired, exhausted and famished. We won today, and you deserve to celebrate." She brushes the finger against my lips, and then goes back to driving in silence.

Because I can't say a word. I can't move a muscle. Until we get home, I'm nothing more than paralyzed. My body can only rest in anticipation for what is about to happen within the walls of my childhood home.

I can't even dare a glance at the girl. I'm that enamored with her. Only four weeks ago she strutted into my house confidently and killed the last thoughts of an innocent lesbian relationship, she keeps surprising me. I don't know what's going to happen tonight. My usual grasp on control has completely disappeared.

Yet? I'm not in a panic. There's no temptation to mainline Xanax into my bloodstream to keep myself calm. If this was happening in another relationship, I'd be in the middle of an argument with screaming and possible violence.

Is it possible I'm getting off on being controlled?

I don't think it is possible. It's a definite.

Dr. Birnbaum would be proud that my trust issues are finally melting a little.

Although if I dare mention that it was because my lesbian newspaper advisor had hot pregnancy sex with her surrogate that lead to everything, I don't know what would happen. It's like a freakin' domino effect!

Oh dear, remembering Ms. Peters at the end of the meeting near me...

I am in this deep...  


* * *

Later, we're up in my bedroom. Texts are all over the table next to the computer area, along with sheets of looseleaf and the remains of a dinner consisting of something which allegedly were chicken wings dipped in a spicy sauce (apparently named for Buffalo) and we're...

Looking at old photo albums.

What, you were expecting something sinful? Well, to be honest, I was myself. I was half expecting to be near my usual post-coital zombie state at this point of the evening.

But then as Rory was exploring the house she found the cache of photo albums my father keeps in his den. Mostly because it's a convenient place to put them all, but it was mostly to keep them protected from being a part of any divorce settlement where we were all sure my mother was going to digitize a select few photos of my younger years and throw out the rest because they reminded her of fashion stages she now curses going through.

I could care less though and I'm thankful I still have them. Though I went kicking and screaming into looking at them (I think the term 'over my dead body' was used at one point in the conversation), we eventually ended up in my bedroom looking over the wedding album of my parents, looking at happier times which mainly involved blackmail material on my father.

"He never wanted me to know about this, did he?" I laughed as Rory pointed out a picture of him wearing a mauve leisure suit paired with a shirt which had a collar bigger than a parrot's wings dancing to what I could easily assume was disco. "I never thought of him being into disco."

"Everyone was into disco in the 70's," Rory tried to assure me. "Mom had her disco records taken away after Emily thought she was, uh, you know, when she was listening to that one Donna Summer song."

"Still, it's my father. A reasonable man. He surely did not idolize John Travolta."

Rory reminded me who Daddy was. "Your father, the massive dork? Didn't he own one of the first Rubik's Cubes?"

"Rory..."

"And then he made sure you were among the first kids in the state to own a Nintendo and a Super Nintendo. Even though you really didn't care and he was mostly getting it for himself because he's a Mario geek. C'mon, he has crystal Luigi **cufflinks**!"

I rolled my eyes at the revelation and shook my head. "And that he's proud of that is a little troubling."

"Better admitting that than my mother, who has a lucky Rainbow Brite doll overlooking her office." She smiled. "Face it, Par; our parents do uncool things that were cool in their time."

"So there's hope that Madeline's kids are going to think she's weird for her Britney memorabilia collection?"

"She'll probably defend it to the day she'll die, seriously. But...I think you're more neutral. You really don't have many out there likes because you're just more quiet."

"I just can't get behind fads though," I told her. "I don't know if that makes me odd or just a little staid."

"Well, I know for me, it makes you a little more approachable and quiet. Sort of like you hold these things in and it's up to me to unlock the mystery of what makes you smile or drives you up a wall." She set her hand inside of mine and gave me a glance, keeping me calmed. "I love that you just do things for yourself, rather than the crowd."

I paused for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. "I...I, um...thank you." I couldn't really say anything more because I felt so shy about everything between us. I didn't want to ruin anything with a misplaced comment or just by seeming unsure. Which I was looking over all of these albums of myself growing up.

I had never really taken a look at them beyond using them in research for genealogy for research and the like because I am the type of person who doesn't like to dwell on the past. My heart doesn't allow me to look back because I know I'll be reminded of my heartbreak in the past.

Especially of Sharon. I hated lingering on memories of my mother and I dreaded what would happen when Rory hit that point. I tried to hide the album for 1989 but she eventually found it at my feet.

"Why so shy about looking at this? Did you dress as a clown for Halloween?" She laughed and opened it up, not at the beginning of the year like I hoped, but near the middle. "I'm sure what's in here isn't so..."

She stopped suddenly as the page came down. Instead of the silly picture of me in an awfully flowery Passover dress, she came upon a picture of me I always hated being reminded of.

In the foreground was my father, sitting next to me in a rumpled suit, looking every bit tired, like a man defeated, holding my left hand. The background showed my mother being distant, staying away from the both of us.

I was the focal point of the picture.

My head was bandaged. I was barely cognizant of my surroundings. I was in a hospital bed at General with high rails surrounding me, my frail little four year-old frame looking like I had just gone through a botched invasion of Kandahar. The reminder of it all sent me back to the fear I felt for years that I know will never go away.

Rory's jubilant mood took on a sudden pallor and she looked at the other pictures on the page, of bandages and bruises, my anguish, a summer of hell that no summer camp experience would have ever topped.

"What...what happened?" She looked at the entire layout of pictures covering two months of my life where I didn't know if I would even have a life in the future. "You...why did you...how did you..." She was in incredible disbelief. "I thought...oh my God."

"I almost died, Rory." There, it was out there. "I don't like talking about it because it's in the past. Something I don't like to dwell on."

"But, what happened? How did this happen?" She searched for an explanation. "Honey, I never knew." She held onto my hand and I could see tears begin to fall.

I could easily take a hard line and tell her that it was absolutely none of her business and she didn't have any business asking about it at all, lock up the albums and have her go home.

But there was no way I could really do that. A part of knowing me was knowing that story. I can't hide the past, no matter how blunt and harsh it was, especially with someone who wants to love me for who I am.

I stayed silent, wanting to gird myself for the story. I remember telling it to Birnbaum once when we were establishing our patient-doctor relationship and leaving the office through the back because my emotional state was nearly broken as my father held me in the car and told me that it would always hurt him also.

I took the album and moved towards the bed, asking Rory to come with me. She sat next to me and I asked for her to hold my hand as I looked down, not wanting to see her emotions as I went through the entire process.

"Please, do not stop me," I warned. "Because if I do freeze up...I don't know how I'll continue this." She nodded with understanding and I began to free my soul.

"So, as established by the album, I was four. It was Memorial Day evening, 1989. I was looking forward to the next year, my second in the gifted kindergarten of Chilton Country Day, while I only had a few days yet in the existing school year. I was concentrated on finishing the year on a high note, and..."

_It was ten in the evening, three hours after my self-assigned bedtime. I was excited to go back for the final part of the year with Mrs. Coughlin (or as I called her, 'Missy Cough Land') and was in the middle of a dream. It involved the Care Bears, a rainbow and somehow the Transformers invading Care-a-Lot and trying to impose their form of martial law upon all of the Bears and the Cousins, and inexplicably because I had watched them earlier in the days, the "Beverly Hills Teens". I blame Tristan's overly-imaginative scenarios with his robot toys for making sure my dreams were Hasbro-sponsored back then._

_Suddenly, I felt myself roused awake. I heard laughing in the background. Drunken laughing. Voices filled with false accents and mounds of insincerity._

_At the time my father was in the USSR, taking advantage of glasnost to sell his company in the slowly opening (and soon to be relaxed) markets of the communist East. That left me alone with my mother, and despite my father's insistence, she had given Francisca the entire weekend off after he left, explaining 'I don't need you'. I had spent nearly the entire weekend stuck in my bedroom playing with dolls, only brought out to be shown off or to eat things which my father had the good sense to avoid feeding me and to parade around the women of the DCW._

_I looked forward to the last two weeks of school. An advanced project that was sure to knock the socks out of the rest of those simpletons in my kindergarten. This was going to be my time to shine. Francie Jarvis was a big meanie-head for pushing me in the sandbox and I was going to show that dumb curly-haired girl who was boss!_

_But I couldn't think about that. I was awake now and hearing unfamiliar terms to me. Women talking about something I made out as 'cock size' and 'impotence'. I heard the latter term in a pitch for a drug my father rejected out of hand, as he prided himself as running a family company. They kept me awake and then I heard..._

_"Shit! We're outta wine," my mother proclaimed. "And rum. I thinka needa get more! Fran, watch the brat while I go--"_

_One of her friends broke in. "Shar, you sent that dirty woman home for the holiday."_

_"I did, right? Fuck me!"_

_The next few moments were a blur until I heard heels come down the corridor, and then I closed my eyes. I was used to this by now; occasionally she'd run out of whatever her choice drink of the week was and when Daddy wasn't home, she'd drag me to the liquor store with her to pick some more up._

_Usually she was not very drunk. Just enough to get by in the days before MADD got .08 approved. But she opened the door._

_"PARIS, YOU LITTLE BITCH! GET UP, MOMMY NEEDS SOME MORE HENNY!" I tried to fake sleeping, but then I suddenly found myself roused awake._

_By her pushing me off the bed. I felt the impact as my head hit the nightstand. I felt a little woozy but quickly recovered, though I'm sure it didn't help. She dragged me up by my hand._

_"Mommy, I'm sleeping!" I cried. "I got school in the morning and Daddy says a good night's sleep, it means a good day!" I looked into her blood-rimmed eyes and knew immediately that reasoning wasn't to come this evening._

_"Fuck him! Never mind, a Russian hooker's probably doing that for him!" A bad laugh at her joke and then I sensed this was going to be a scary journey as she dragged me out, not even letting me change, much less put on shoes. "Renee, protect the house," she said to her friend. "Momma's gonna be back with a party pack!"_

_To this day, I wonder why the three women in the room never questioned her state. I never saw them again, probably because of what happened later. I was pulled out by my now sore left arm and thrown into the front seat of my mother's Audi 80 roughly. I don't remember most of the details except I was in fear of my mother in that moment. I was also slapped for the mere suggestion we put on our safety belts. Though it was dismissed with a "Whatever, you little snot," she still did and I did, thank God._

_I remember bad singing to what was playing on TIC, a Phil Collins song by her. How fearful I was when she took turns way too fast. How I was too small to take down the windows and cry for help._

_What I do remember is her taking the turn from Main onto Farmington to get to the store at full speed. How she then took another turn and decided to head to another store and headed towards the feeder ramp towards Route 84._

_In the wrong direction. At what I remember by feeling and a speedometer glance, was 97 miles an hour._

_I remember screaming, crying, trying to do anything a child my age could do to get her off the path, to slow down. Only to be shouted down that she needed her 'fix'._

_Horns honking. I peeked up. I could see that we were nearing the 'big road'. I was a mess._

_She continued and then I felt an impact. I felt my center of gravity shift away from me towards the dash. My mother? She was completely unaware._

_I was. I felt my head collide as what I knew later was a contractor van collided with Mother's car. Then I was thrown back. Then I felt my arm break. And then...and then..._

_Another collision with the dash. God knows what would have happened without that seatbelt, but my doctor told me when I was older I was the luckiest little girl to have survived such a thing._

_Survived, being a relative word. The impact was so severe that it took until morning rush to clean up after everyone had been run to General. I don't remember much of the week after that, until I woke up to my father, concerned for me as I opened my eyes for the first time since the crash._

_It did a number on me. Glass in my head. Broken arm. Bruised lungs and a couple of cracked ribs. My upper body took the brunt of it all. For a child of my size to survive all that NOT in a car seat, was amazing._

_I took the brunt of everything. My mother? A few facial injuries from the glass and a sore forehead from slamming into the steering wheel. She was out within three days._

_My father still is haunted by the accident, which is why he authorized on-duty chauffeuring 24/7 for me from that day on. My mother lost her license for seven years. But this was in the days where DUI's were still treated somewhat humorously by the media. Despite putting me through a year long hell of rehab and causing me to motor through staying caught up at Country Day, all she got from the courts, despite all she did?_

_Thanks to her high-paid lawyers, somehow she wormed out 300 hours of community service, AA, a large fine and a slap on the wrist from the judge. My father pleaded with the judge for jail time. My entire paternal side pleaded for justice, but money talked._

_Their marriage was fractured for a year, Fran taking more care of me. Mother still lived in the house but was not allowed near me. I still heard her voice that night, all of those names. My father swore that he would protect me, always._

_He has. But he still loves Sharon deep down. Thus, by eight she was back in my life full-time, PTA meetings and all. She thinks I have forgiven her. Fuck, sometimes I swear she thinks I completely forgot about that dark Memorial Day night where she almost killed me. I still fear her whenever I see a drink in her hand._

_AA never took. She treated the entire exercise as a weekly session to try out her 'stand-up act'. The court considered it done and she moved on despite God knows how many rounds of rehab my father tried to get her in, and eventually it was one of the issues that finally pulled him to push for the divorce._

_An issue that was 'proof' he was 'controlling' of her 'lifestyle', thanks to the smart talk by her team of lawyers._

_I still remember that accident. Almost every fucking sickening moment of that impact. I get cold chills thinking that the woman who borne me into this world and was supposed to protect me from everything in the big and scary world, instead almost took me out of it._

_That's why I have to cling to Dr. Birnbaum as the only sane woman outside of the Gilmores that I can trust implicitly with my life. Why I hide my heart deeply. Why I'm a daddy's girl. Why I cannot love without being scared that it could be taken from me in the blink of an eye._

_I'm still that scared little four year-old girl inside, still scared that I'm going to feel the back of my brain splatter against my skull one day even in the middle of a building._

_It's also why Memorial Day is my day of hiding from the world and why I insist on being stone sober except when I'm absolutely sure I'm not about to grab any keys, and why I man the soda table at parties._

_It's also why rejection from Harvard is not my biggest fear._  
   
My mother is. 

__I told all of this to Rory, wondering how she would react. If she would patronize me. Or pity me. I admit, telling her that story, took nearly an hour and a half to tell. I also cried and broke down too many times to count, and had long periods of silence as I struggled to remember every detail.

She kept her word. She didn't say anything. She just listened. Understood. Processed and focused.

I went into that night thinking we were going to make deep and endless love to celebrate the victory. But it all changed in an instant.

Rory held me when I needed the support. My hand, my head, anything. She helped me through the first telling of my story since I first saw Birnbaum. My face was a mess and my chest hurt as I felt my voice become raw going over details. Finally, I finished, and she did all she needed to do for me.

She cried with me, held me, and then laid a simple kiss on my lips, touching her forehead to mine, and then pulling back my hair slightly. From the memory of my story she parted my scalp to find the only visible sign I had ever been in a horrible wreck fourteen years ago, on the left side of my head, veiled by my hair. It has faded over the years into a thin pink line, but I still feel it there. Every day I still know it's there, the glass cutting pretty deep on impact. She kissed the scar and whispered how she loathed that anyone could ever hurt me in that way. We just held each other, up close, her helping me through the returning emotions and guiding me through them.

We did make love this evening, but not in the fun way. It was more a comfort that I needed, and she was slow, promising me that if we could find a way to get back here, we could have our 'fun night' tomorrow night or Wednesday. We looked at the albums a little longer as I worked through our emotions before we cleaned up for the night, put the finishing touches on our work and headed upstairs to my bedroom.

"Love you," she whispered as she helped me undress. "Paris, I will love you no matter what has happened to you in your life. I'm not going to leave you easily at all." I shuddered as she was sensual and quiet with me as we fell into bed.

I needed no release this evening. All we did was undress, hold each other and contemplate how far we both had come in the last month. I pointed out to her where the rib had jutted after the crash, the only sign a little white indent just below my breast. I no longer felt as if I was vulnerable and easy to bruise. Rory was treating me as if I was human, with full emotions that actually exist within me and who loves me, no matter the emotional or physical scars I might carry upon myself.

There is one sad thing, however, that I'm finding quickly about this relationship.

I can no longer sleep well without her. Or the sound of her voice. The night before I barely had three hours altogether.

Tonight with Rory wrapped around me, it will be a full and deep eight. The scent of her skin, the way she whispers sweet nothings in my ear, reminds me that what I did will be forever remembered by future student body presidents...

I was prepared for a fight that was easily losable. If I inserted my opinion into one part of my appeal for the vote, it was lost. If I commended someone too much, that would have been a death knell. I had to get through this, but it wasn't my battle to start with. It was Rory's. I was just the Powell to her Schwarzkopf, the one not actually on the battle line, but who had to shepherd the plan of attack. I took the responsibility of saving the funding, but it had all of Rory's hallmarks. That is why I ceded to her arguments and did not argue for her. She had to push this across the line with her own declarations, but it was all in my hands after all the speeches were done.

I still can't believe I got a 10-5. I know we wanted 11-4, but at best that was a stretch. A 10-5, from Lemon. Fucking Lemon, the lackiest lackey that ever lackied. She gave me the vote I needed and used it to break off from Francie's hyperbole to make herself her own woman.

We did it. We saved the funding.

Fuck, we got them **more** funding. And it was still approved. I still don't know how to feel.

Mainly because I have no feeling left in my body.

The memory would have been a rightful reward enough, a defining characteristic that will cement my Chilton legacy. I can be proud that when the archivists look back, they'll see me as the savior.

Only in record though. This was mostly Rory's victory. Nora knows that, along with Ms. Peters. We will reveal that in due time, but for now I will bask in the afterglow.

Laying in my bed with my girl,  after a night of confiding in her about a past I could not even bear to tell Tristan, I finally feel at some level, I do relate to Rory's younger years. Her mother struggled, yet was strong and guided her well.

My mother had no guidance, but I had a strong family and servant system to help me see the way. If not for Francisca, I would be a lesser woman.

As I slide against Rory and take her tight against me, rubbing her stomach through her camisole, all I can think is I'm relieved that we no longer must hide in fear of our sexuality, at least in one room in our school.

But the battle will go on. I have so many students who still need to know where Rory and I stand, but that bridge is still far away. Closer by is my mother's reaction to my sexuality.

With Rory supporting me through, I have no doubt that she will ease any pain I might have about coming out.

But, it's the pain from Sharon that I now must begin to worry about...  


* * *

**_ To be continued... _ **   



	22. Mother...It Might Not Be Right For You, But It's Right For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paris finds herself in a situation she never expected to be in and finds her world shifted off-axis by her mother's actions towards her.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-Two | Mother...It Might Not Be Right For You, But It's Right For Me  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory and Madeline/Brad, mainly with Paris POV along with Madeline and Lorelai POV's.  
 **Spoilers:** None, unless you consider the existence of the month of December 2002 in general as a spoiler.  
 **Rating:** R (profanity, homophobia, and domestic violence against a child)  
 **Disclaimer:** None of this is really mine. I know, you'd think it was, but _Gilmore Girls_ is the property of Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions/Amy Sherman-Palladino, Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television. All products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied, nor are the implications about private investigators made in this story.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, RalSt, femslash.net, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Paris finds herself in a situation she never expected to be in and finds her world shifted off-axis by her mother's actions towards her.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** Well...I got a chapter done in nine months. That's less than a year, so that's better than a year, right?

Again I do apologize for the long wait between chapters, but life and other things have been in my way; let's just say my real-life work has become more hectic lately and that my jumps to other fandoms have made writing this story a little tougher, along with my interest in Paris/Lorelai becoming more than this one (not helping are the badfic authors continuing to insist that Rory has the IQ of a gnat and no intelligence about birth control and continuing to make Paris a 'meanie' cockblocking her from Logan). Hopefully this chapter more than makes up for it; I admit it took longer because it had to move along the story in ways which forced me to write Paris in the way I hate the most; in pain. It was tough to put her through all of this, and I hope you'll forgive me for having to do this in order to put this through.

Also, this is going to be back to how the story started with alternating viewpoints between Paris and Rory. So next chapter, we see Rory's view of things. And here, additional views from Madeline and Lorelai which I do encourage you not to skip over because of how things build up (I know there have been a few readers who are jarred by my Madeline POV's, but I feel they're important, and sorry, but she spent more time on the show and was much more important than Stephanie, who could be played by any blonde in Hollywood).

My thanks to everyone who has given me the patience through all these years of writing, and to my closest ladies, Danielle and Marieke for sticking by me.

FF.net'ers...you know by now. Don't like ladies together, there are so many other stories for you to read out there. Also, this chapter meets TOS in their form unedited. Title inspiration is from a lyric from the Sarah McLachlan song "Elsewhere" which has stuck with me since I first thought of this chapter set all those years ago.

Finally, please review, let me know how you enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) the story. I try to work hard on my writing and a review of any form does make my day and tells me my effort is worth it.  


* * *

 ** Paris's POV, 11:00pm **

****All of my life, I've seemed to get my way.

I've been told by my counselors before not to take classes because they might jeopardize my grade point average because of their difficulty. I was told point blank that if I took an advanced chemistry class that was out of my Harvard wheelhouse that I could say goodbye to them. "If you fail this, Paris, you will end up behind by two tenths of a grade point," she told me.

But I blew past her advice anyways. I did quite well. And my GPA? It **rose** a quarter of a point.

Once a few years back I wanted to visit the Museum of Natural History after hours because I have a fear of big crowds. There was an exhibition I had wanted to check out for months but that because my father was in merger talks and my mother found taking me to anything that didn't have "Mall" or "Galleria" suffixed to the end, I didn't get a chance to. I was told nobody **ever** got into the museum after hours. Especially an eleven year-old girl who was lightly supervised.

Cue my smug laughter as I tottered past a security guard examining a mammoth skeleton up-close at 10:30 in the evening. The Gellar name will get you anything if you press far enough.

Four years ago I was bound for an uncomfortable four-bunk situation for an entire summer at camp. And one of those girls just would happen to be Francine Jarvis. I surely could have stayed home and been quite comfortable at the Manor all summer.

Instead I was able to kick back in my own cabin after convincing the heads of the camp that surely a girl with my amount of false allergies and true sleep maladies would prove to be a hindrance to my roommates. So I lost socialization points. But I gained a whole lot of space and the ability to get in half of my extra credit work for the next year within that cabin. I was very happy.

There are other small examples of how I have been able to control my own life. Times of getting a library to myself. Influencing Charleston to gain some important public speaking role at Chilton. You might of course be familiar with the time I happened to give Ms. LaCosta $1,000 to get the studio for the _Romeo & Juliet _rehearsals. Oh, to deny the Stars Hollow Jazzercise club their time was the highlight of that month.

I always get my way.

Except when it comes to Sharon Gellar.

The woman who is supposed to be my mother. Who was supposed to raise me as her daughter and whose legacy I was supposed to carry on. Who in normality should be my role model.

But a storm was brewing. Since the divorce I began to see the snow job she blew over all of the staff and my father. She was able to keep it hidden from me for so long and now I knew why my father had to stay away on business trips for so long.

It was for his own sanity. And I can't say that I have to think that in this case, maintaining the 'ignorance is bliss' adage probably saved him so much heartache and turmoil.

Personally it hurts me to feel this way about my mother. I shouldn't think this way about her. I should love her and respect her, no matter what she does, and be there for her, always.

After this morning however, I cannot hide my true feelings for her anymore. I've never said these three words in public to anyone. Not even when I learned a year ago that she had a doctor prescribe easily abusable drugs under **my** name, forcing a pharmacist to call my father or my lawyer every time I need to refill my skin medication or sleeping medicine. Everything in my life has to be protected. My money is in a Canadian bank. I have duplicates of my identification papers and cards in a safe deposit box in Boston.

Hell, I even have to password-protect my Blockbuster account! Yes, imagine my surprise when I attempted to rent _The Affair of the Necklace_ , only to find myself having to explain to Jenny the clerk in the blue shirt _The Affair of the $356.21 Rental Bill_. My mother apparently thinks that you get to keep the videos as long as you want, without charge, and that your daughter won't care her credit score took a twenty point hit because of it.

Well, after this morning, I'm done. There is no way, outside of a deep apology, that I will ever be able to face my mother again.

I hate her.

I hate Sharon Gellar, and there is no turning back from that opinion. She made it abundantly clear that I do not need her in my life, and she will never do another goddamned thing to ruin it ever again.

Nursing my wounds, I'm in a place I never thought I would be.  I would have never pictured two years ago that this is where I would be.

In Rory Gilmore's bed. Voluntarily. Not for a sleepover, either. As her mother keeps coming in to check in me, I feel deeply emotional, because this fine and funny woman actually cares about me.

Rory isn't even here. She's still up in Boston, fighting her own battle. For the Saturday before winter break, it's been about the most emotional day I have ever lived through. A whirlwind of emotions goes through me and I still feel like I'm in a dream and I'm going to wake up in my room. It's Monday, September 25, 2000, and the name Rory Gilmore have never been in my vocabulary.

But I'm here. Saturday, December 14, 2002. I'm her girlfriend.

And now, I'm going to be her roommate.

This is going to be tough. To think, four days ago I confessed what hurt my mother caused me fourteen years ago in the accident.

Nothing will ever hurt more than the feeling of a mother abandoning her child. This is going to hurt to recall, I know...  


* * *

 ** Paris's POV, 4:30pm **

****"Good morning." I was still waking up at 9:30 as Rory called me from the Acela as she went north to see her father in Boston. She had called me on my cell and interrupted a delicious dream I had of the both of us deciding to take a trip to Kitty Hawk and spending the day on the beach. "You awake yet?"

"I am now." I laughed as she told me about the excitement she felt riding on the train. "You nervous?"

"More for Sherrie than anything," she admitted. "My dad, I can sweet-talk him. But you know her, she'll be so nervous when I come out. I think I'll be fine though."

"Rory, you psyched yourself up for this Thursday night and I'm sure you were practicing last night too." I broached the nervous topic. "How was it...last night anyways?"

A deep sigh. "Unfamiliar. Like there was a hole in the evening. Even Mom is so used to Friday in Hartford and I could tell Luke was sort of discombobulated to see us both in there at 7pm, eating dinner. It's not the same."

"She'll come around eventually," I told her. "You know Emily. She's a proud and stubborn woman."

"Yeah, I know. I just don't want it to be for sixteen years like her and Mom. A month, maybe?" I nodded. "But...you have plans today?"

"The Yale library. Have to do research on that syllabus I have planned for psychology. I want to get it just right so it sparks the right notes when I present it in a month." I smiled into the phone. "I was planning to do _Franklin_ work at school but..." I paused as Rory filled in the line.

"Babe, Angie is not even going to be there today."

"I know, but when Elise came in on Wednesday afternoon, it was odd. I think she was looking at me." Suffice to say that being out to those two has indeed been interesting. Ms. Salmon in fact seems to have an actual jealousy about my hair and spent some of the time after school trying to dig out my secrets. "I still feel a little weird about them being together."

"Trudy's a cutie pie though." Yes, that day they also brought in their daughter. "Really, I see why they're together."

"Well...I suppose." I smiled; indeed, Trudy is a chip off their old block. "You're good with your homework though?"

"Yup, almost done into holiday break," she proclaimed. "So I just have to visit Dad and I'll be back home Sunday night."

"I'll miss you," I said, feeling really happy. "Take care of yourself, hon."

"I will." I could hear her rustling some papers. "Shoot, gotta go. Almost time for the coffee cart to roll by. Damn me for not getting Luke's this morning." A pause. "Love you, Par."

"Love you too." It's as natural as breathing now to say that.  "Have a great weekend." We said our goodbyes, and thus, I would be Rory-free, sadly, for the remainder of the late fall weekend.

This is something I used to enjoy, but now it doesn't feel right. Not having a weekend with Rory isn't right any longer. I mean, we sometimes don't see each other, but there's still the texting and IM'ing. We couldn't do it because of her visit so this was all I was going to have. It made me feel down a bit.

But the research would make up for it. Even if I loathed Yale, I still loved that the resources of their library were but an hour away from me. I had made my arrangements with them last night to have everything ready for me that I requested. Soon I was showered and dressed. A cold day, I chose an argyle sweater vest paired with dark corduroy pants, under a dark blue blouse. I wanted to scream intellectual, and I certainly would in this. I felt great. All was good with the world and the push towards vacation would begin at a rapid clip.

And boy, was I psyched. Since my eighteenth is coming up, it's going to be a fun one. Voter registration first of all, allowing me to finally have the ability to throw the bums out if I wanted to. Then, I was going to file my Selective Service registration.

"But Paris," you say, "that's only for males. You don't have to do that." Yes, I don't have to. But it sure helps with the feds when they give out grants. Besides, this is a country where us ladies beat out the gents, and damned if I'm going to let something slide by because it's 'just for guys'. I'm getting that card and I'm gonna have it proudly. And if I get drafted, I'll suck it up and get my Private Benjamin on.

Besides, as my good teacher shows, everyone loves a military woman.

So many plans. So much to do. There was nothing that could stop me as I threw my messenger bag over my shoulder and headed down the front stairway towards the garage to start my journey.

At least that's what I thought. Until I saw my mother waiting for me at the landing.

My first observation as our eyes connected was that this was very rare. My mother never was up on a Saturday morning. She either slept in or was already gone on one of her society jaunts.

Secondly, she looked displeased. Angered. And upon seeing me...

"Good morning, Paris. I have something I must discuss with you." Her lips were pursed in a defensive manner. "Come downstairs to the parlor."

First strategy with Sharon; evade. "I'm sorry Mother, Yale is expecting me at the library. I must go--"

"Young lady, they can wait. Please come downstairs." Now I was growing nervous. She was never this abrupt. "You will not leave until we talk about this matter."

"OK." I gathered myself and finished the steps downstairs until I hit the bottom landing. "What's wrong, Mother?"

A grimace. "I'd rather not discuss it out here, Paris. Please accompany me to the parlor."

I wasn't going to let her do this. Francisca was out in the dining room, a couple of butlers in the front. If she got me alone in a room she could lock she could heap words of hate upon me. At least if I'm out in the great room it has to be muted. I crossed my arms defiantly over my chest, facing down the woman who only had a couple of inches on me.

"No, Mother. Whatever is going on, we can discuss it here. I have to get going soon--"

And then, I was stilled. "You will not be going anywhere at all. Paris Eustace Gellar..." I flinched as she invaded my personal space. "If it was up to me, you would have been in that boarding school in Colorado Springs that is associated with Focus on the Family. However, your insolent father voted me down because your friends would miss you." She sneered at me. "What friends, exactly? That blonde slut and her lackey?"

"Excuse me?" I didn't know what to say. "Where is this coming from?"

"Oh, lovely. You're a smart young lady deciding to play stupid with me!" She began to pace the room. "From the moment you were born you were a pain in the ass, always wanting to learn and find out new things. I tried to keep you away from things but you and Harold would always find a way around me! It infuriates me that you can be such an insolent little bitch and I cannot do a thing in controlling you." She began to head over to a table near the door. "I have provided you only the best in opportunities to be social and raise your standing in life, Paris. Found you the best men to date--"

"Mother!" I scoffed. "You told me to take my cousin to Winter Formal a couple years back! My social standing almost died!"

"Jacob is your second cousin and you would have--"

"Absolutely not! Come on!" I groaned. "Look, I know the end of this conversation already. I promise I'll try better to be social and make more friends, Mother. I promise you. Now if you'll excuse me--"

I was ready to leave, get out of this nonsense conversation. I could just leave right away and ignore her easily.

But then...

"When I told you to make friends, Paris," she stated haughtily, "I didn't tell you to become a dyke to do so."

The word came out of her mouth like it had barbs upon it.  I turned around to see her with a manila envelope in her hands and walking towards me. Then she gave me the envelope with a shove of it towards me. I was completely silent and stunned.

I could feel my world coming down upon me.

"Tell me, Paris. What the fuck possessed you, an intelligent young woman, to consider Rory Gilmore an acceptable sexual partner? Or even to be your best friend? You know her mother, her reputation. Please, regal me with why you would spend one minute pursing the girl you're trying to make sure never steps foot anywhere Harvard." She gave me a stern glare. "Please, open the envelope."

I did, nervous about the contents. I felt everything seem to spin around me. There was nothing I could do, at all. No warning. My phone was in my bag. It was just my mother and I, five feet between us as I opened up the envelopes as she told me she knew.

How did she know? There was no hint at all. I had my hand completely closed and there was no way for her to find out...

However, as the contents of the envelope came into view, there was no doubt that she knew. Or how she knew.

Remember how I said I thought I was being followed and that there was someone watching over me, even if I couldn't pinpoint it?

There, in living color, via the finest telephoto lenses Nikon can offer, was proof that there was someone following me. My stomach immediately sunk down against my abdominal cavity as I examined what exactly what it was.

I could recognize exactly when the pictures were taken. Throughout the entirety of the last two weeks, since the call from the school office telling them I was late after our visit to the forest. My one slip-up in attendance in fifteen years of schooling had come back to bite me in the ass.

The pictures were arranged chronologically. None within Chilton grounds, thank God. But plenty from the parking lot of Rory and I just talking. Going around town. On Thursday night in Stars Hollow as we were at Luke's, a zoom into the plate glass window.

None of Formal or the Gilmore home. But there were more of the last couple weeks at school and out in public. Many of them in moments we thought we were in complete privacy. And then the night we came out to the Gilmore grandparents...

Irrefutable proof. I grew angry as I looked at one of our most private moments on their front drive, Rory and I kissing before we left, violated forever. I began to boil over as I paged through more pictures of us together in the car on the way to and from school, stopped at various intersections with the picture zoomed into the cabin of the Jag.

In any other context, the private investigator would have been the main target of my anger. But at this point they were just the hired shutterbug. I didn't give a fuck about them right now. Besides, you look past the invasion of privacy, and many of the pictures got my good side. Some pictures like the kiss in the driveway and a few in Stars Hollow I could strangely see framing them for decorations, like a studio photographer got us in a moment unawares.

But there was nothing cute about this at all. My mother had so little trust in me that she hired someone to follow me?

"So...what do you have to say for yourself?" she sneered. "Are you proud that you're dragging the Gellar legacy through the mud to pursue this...thing?" I kept looking at the pictures, quaking in fear and feeling violently ill. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Paris? How could you do this to me?"

"Mother--"

"Shut up!" I looked straight at her. "You hid this from me. You think I'm happy with you right now?"

"No ma'am." I was going to hold back on a shouting match. "Mother, I meant to tell you--"

"Tell me what? That you're fucking your so-called best friend?" She made her way to a table where she had a rum and Tab made up off to the side, and took a swig from the glass, slamming it down hard. "How am I supposed to explain this to DCW? I was ready to offer you up for initiation, but I can't now. How can I do so when the rest of the girls have to be afraid you'll hit on them?"

"You don't understand, I love her--"

"You can't love her, Paris! What you two have isn't love, it's disgusting!" She came towards me, heels clattering hard against the parquet floor. "Now that Jamie boy, he was more than acceptable. But he called me angry the day after. Something about how I made up the last four months."

"That's because you did!" I said clearly. "I did not want any further contact with him at all. He was mortified to learn that you've been trying to set us up against our wills!" I paused. "Boy, did I think that was the worst thing you could have ever done to interfere with my life. Now I'm very mistaken!" I began to feel my anger boil over. Despite running my fingers on the inside of my palms like I had been taught to calm myself, there was no way it was going to work. "You followed me, Mother. You violated my privacy--"

"You have no right to privacy," she stated angrily. "You are my child, and as your mother I must be concerned for your welfare. And obviously I have been slacking, because you decided you don't want to be a proper woman and take up a relationship with a man." She moved towards me and I felt intimidated. "Well, that shall end, now. For until January, you are grounded to your bedroom, and you shall take the final week of school off."

"No--" I shook my head.

"You have lost your computer and cell phone privileges, so hand me your phone, now!"

"I will not," I said firmly. "I told Daddy, and he was OK--"

"Fuck him. He's not your parent right now!" She moved closer. "And you might as well say goodbye to Chilton. You will be finishing your education at Blackwell Hall in Milo, Maine." I knew exactly what she was trying to do. "It's a wonderful boarding school with a good Christian point of view about how you should live your life, and corporal punishment swept under the rug to keep DCFS off their asses through plenty of good bribes. Well away from that corrupt cunt you call your girlfriend."

"You can't do that! You have no control of my education," I reminded her. "The divorce settlement--"

And then, she did something I never expected from her. At all. Even in the worst dreams I had about coming out, this was never in the picture.

Sharon grabbed me roughly by the ear, making me immediately wince, and then with her other hand open, she slapped me hard across the face. I dropped the envelope to the ground and immediately cried out in pain.

"Right now I don't give a shit what anyone says at all, Paris." She grabbed me by the neck of my blouse, popping the top button and winding the collar tightly so that my breathing was inhibited. "You have disobeyed me for the last time, and no amount of smart talk is going to change that." I tried to grab for her hand but then found myself subdued as she put my hand behind my back. "All I wanted was a good girl to raise in my image, but it's obvious you won't be that. I can't believe my daughter ended up a dyke. Not with a pretty girl at least. Instead, she got with a small-town whore who lived in a shed for the beginning of her life." I could see her eyes burning with so much hate for Rory. "That's who you wanna fuck? That dirty girl?"

"Mom...let...go...of me..." I felt my windpipe begin to compress. She was in a place where I couldn't cry for help as she pushed me into a corner of the room. "I'm sorry!"

"There's no being sorry!" She spoke so harshly that spittle flew into my face. "You went behind my back and befriended this girl. I told you to stay distant from her, but God forbid you do that, you lonely little bitch."

 _Oh God!_ I felt that pain from when she beat me over the contract picture return. She was holding my wrist, hard, and it was beginning to flex towards breaking. "Mom!" I was deeply sobbing, barely able to form words. "Stop it!"

"No, I won't." Her voice deepened. "I knew it was a bad idea for you to room with her in Washington. You never did show interest in any guy but Tristan. If he wouldn't have fucked up--"

"It...would've never worked!" I gasped out. "We tried...it failed."

"Because that slut dressed you up in her mom's clothes!" I shuddered and then felt another bit of violence as she used her foot to stomp on mine to punish me further. "You're always gonna be a loser if you go this way."

"Hellllp..." My voice was small as I felt my chest compress. "Fran..."

SLAP! This time the left side of my face. I cried harder than I ever had in my life.

"You know what I should've done with you when I found out I had you?" I had no way to defend myself. Even with my self-defense training, she had me cornered. I felt scared as she kept the blouse collar so tight against me that I struggled for breath. "Disposed of you. Never told your father. I knew for a week before I told him and that would've given me time to go to New York for 'surgery'. He would've never suspected. If there was a way to find out you were going to be gay, I would've never had you!" Her words were getting to me.

"Mom...no...please!" I felt my vision fogging from tears, and then suddenly she pulled me back by the front of the blouse.

Then....

"If only that accident had taken care of you," she told me, nothing but disdain in her features. "If I knew what I did today, I would've added a little more speed when I rammed that van."

She then let me go.

By shoving me into the wall. Hard. I collided with it at the corner and my head whipped forward as I slid down it in a heap, my breath heaving as I began to feel air fill my lungs again.

I screamed out deeply in pain. That was finally enough to get the staff out, Francisca running into the room like a light. I was wailing by the time she came in.

Every word she said was meant to damage me more than the abuse she had heaped on me in those mere two minutes. To shear through the walls I built up to defend myself from her barbs through the help of my father and Dr. Birnbaum.

It had worked, and as Francisca came in I was compressed in a little ball, looking up barely as I was afraid Sharon was going to kick me while I was down, literally.

"MRS. GELLAR!" she shouted. "AWAY FROM HER, NOW!"

"This does not concern you, Francisca, please tend--" That didn't stop my nanny at all.

"The fuck it does not!" The older woman got right between her and me as I tried to hope my rotator cuff still rotated. "I heard you just now proclaiming Mistress Gilmore was a slut. I am afraid that is incorrect, for she is a kind girl who loves Paris with all of her heart."

"So you knew too." Francisca nodded. "Get out of here, you're fired!"

Fran tilted her head and squared her jaw, as if to challenge her. "I'm in your ex-husband's employ. And as Paris's nanny I am asking you to leave her alone, now!"

She pushed the woman out of the way, or tried to, as she purposefully fell to keep protecting me. I sniffled and cried as I tried to avoid my mother from beating me further.

"Get away from us, this is--" Everything became a cacophony as bless her, Fran defended me with all she had. The proud woman widened her arms to keep me protected.  She gave me a glance once she fought off the woman far enough to give me an escape berth.

" _Minha menina, ficar lá em cima! Trancar a porta!_ (My girl, get upstairs! Lock the door!)" I immediately took her advice and limping on the foot which was quite in pain, fled up the stairs and ran down the hall until I was able to get back into my bedroom and quickly locked the door.

It was just in time; my mother made good time in heels as she quickly began to try to open the door. I felt extreme pain in my face and in my arms as I made a grab for my bedroom phone. First a quick call to the police with the basics of the situation; I knew the address would flash up right away at HPD so I kept it short and sweet.

I was breathing hard as I slumped down on the bed. Thankfully I had a second lock on the door, more to ward off burglars and rapists more than anything. It was going to be hard for Sharon to get through that second lock, triple reinforced with tempered steel.

There I was in a full panic as I tried to figure out who to call next. But I knew one thing.

It couldn't be Rory. No matter how awful this coming out was, I had to hold back on turning her into an emotional mess. She already had one thing to worry about, and it couldn't be what was happening with me.

So it was a call to my father. I shivered as I waited for the phone to ring. Three rings later I was incoherent as I described everything to him in as much detail as I remembered. My head throbbed as I tried to make sense of everything and I ripped off the blouse and sweater, stuffing them under the bed as I knew I never wanted to see those articles of clothing again in my life. Thankfully I had on the tank top Rory gave me a couple weeks ago on beneath; that would suffice just in case Sharon wanted to try to choke me again.

Daddy tried to work me through it. "Paris, don't panic. Just try to keep calm--"

"She tried to kill me!" I shouted. "God knows what she'll try with Fran! She had me followed, even to your apartment!"

"Unbelievable." He didn't know what to do. "Honey, I want you to gather some things and get out of there."

"What about...about the school in Maine? She told me--"

"And I was warned well in advance," he reassured me. "There is no goddamned way you are leaving Chilton, not by her hand. That awful school knows you will not be there in January, or they will be sued." I shuddered, thankful that was fine. But I knew I was in danger right now.

"Where am I gonna go? I can't stay here."

"I know." I heard him leafing through papers. "I'm going to get you a room at the Capitol Hilton. I know it's not the best, but there's no room here for you to overnight." He paused. "I'm so sorry, Par. So, so sorry. I never knew she was going to do all of this to you."

"I didn't even know!" I cried. "I had no idea." We talked more as I heard her curse through the door while Fran tried to push her away. This was a nightmare I never had pictured in my mind. I could feel the old tics I had before I went into counseling come back, including biting my nails. I was scared she was going to break in and kill me.

"Come out of there, you hateful mistake!!" she shouted through the door, pounding on it as hard as she could. She still didn't make a dent however as I desperately scrambled for my largest suitcase and threw in every piece of clothing that I could fit into it, then packed up my laptop bag and everything else I'd need for at least a week away.

It was getting rough, to the point I threw on my headphones and blared music as loud as I could to muffle my mother's judgments against me. I could only hope that the police could come for her soon. The sad thing is I knew that there was no way she'd be staying in jail for too long. I was shaken as I knew her big-money attorney could manage to get her out on any charge with only an overnight stay at the latest.

I wasn't going to stay in the Manor. I had to leave. I whimpered, protectively doing what I hadn't done in years and years.

I held my Grumpy Bear as I hid beneath my computer desk, crying deeply. The stuffed toy that kept me protected from the dark and sadness when I was younger had been up on a shelf for years, collecting dust as memories of my distant childhood. But now the purple animal my father had bought for me when I was three was shielding me again a few days outside of eighteen, trying to help me through the worst half-hour of my life. My body was in pain, my head throbbing, foot pounding. I hadn't even been able to bear a look in the mirror, knowing Sharon did a number on me.

"Please come," I pleaded to myself, hoping the police got in. My father stayed on the line. I was no longer the mature girl well beyond her years and able to use a witty aside to push aside confrontation.

I was defeated. Hurt. Crying. I would not wish this experience on anybody. I struggled to breathe, wheezing from the stress of having my airway closed off for at least a minute while she tried to knock me out.

But despite all of this. All of the abuse. The hurt. The hateful words from my mother.

There was not one thought of taking my love for Rory back. At all.

Not even to ward Sharon off did I think to lie and say I'd break up with her. I faced up to her and tried to tell her I was a lesbian. If I got bruised because of it, it would still be worth it. That girl will be the love of my life, my mother be damned.

Soon I heard a rustling against the door, and then rough voices. I took off the headphones and heard people trying to subdue my mother. Cursing from her.

"Arrest her!" she said. "If that bitch hadn't come out as a dyke you wouldn't be here! Get the fuck off me, now!"

It didn't happen. It took at least two minutes to finally subdue her. Somehow her drinking had numbed her to any attempt to spray a chemical agent to subdue her, so I think they had to resort to some other means to calm her down. I heard the sound of handcuffs.

I held the stuffed toy tightly. I wasn't ready to come out until she was gone. I didn't say a word, letting the police do their work. I felt powerless and hurt.

Eventually, I heard a knock on the door. Then, the words I had wanted to hear since this nightmare began.

" _Paris, ela está no carro da polícia. Você pode voltar para fora._ (Paris, she is in the police car. You may come back out.)" I was still averse to leaving the bedroom, but eventually my shivering form made its way across the room. Slowly I opened the door, whimpering as I opened it up, hopeful not to see my mother ready to attack.

I did not find her. But I found my nanny outside, her uniform torn and looking like she had just taken Sharon to the limit. She looked deeply exhausted and I really felt for her, as she opened up her arms and welcomed me in for a very thankful hug as I wept openly, thankful it was all over. I clung to her, hurting and feeling in extreme pain.

She asked me if I needed to go to the hospital before going to the hotel. Usually I'd probably be stubborn and let my wounds heal.

After what I had just gone through, I couldn't do that. All I could do was nod as a friendly officer took me aside and took my statement as Henrico prepared the town car. I sat down in my room describing everything that had occurred, including the pictures and her threat to send me to Maine before her abuse. The woman nodded and took down every detail as I spoke precisely, calming myself to say what I needed to while one of the butlers offered me a thankful cup of wintergreen tea.

"Miss Gellar, I will have to take pictures," she told me. Though there was a side of me that still wanted to defend my mother somehow that was pushed aside by all of this pain I felt. I slipped off my shoe and sock, expecting only a bruise.

Both the officer and I were taken aback. I had held back the pain of the stomp until that moment, when the mental block dropped down. If not for my disdain of heels or 'feminine' shoes, I knew I would've faced much more injury that I would have imagined. I almost had one of my toes smashed in, while the remainder of it was an angry purple color which I knew would leave me to walk differently for the next couple weeks.

I continued to tell her details as she took pictures of me. Profile, side, every possible position and injury. It was mortifying and hard to get through, and in that moment I knew that I was damned lucky I had the staff I did. If not for them, I wouldn't even be conscious enough for these pictures, much less standing.

Soon, it was all over. I was given Officer Clayton's card to keep in touch with her, and it was highly suggested I seek an order of protection from Sharon. Even the police knew they wouldn't have a lot of time to have my mother there once her attorney arrived. They left, and I was alone with Fran, trying to recover as a butler voluntarily packed two more bags upstairs for me before my unexpected departure.

My first stop before the hotel though was St. Francis for a quick check-up. Fran held my hand all the way through as I spent an hour being looked over by my personal physician, Dr. Merton, who actually brought me into this world. Her reaction when I came in was utter shock, and she spent plenty of time going over everything.

"She could've done worse," she told me as she examined my wrist. "All this because of..." I nodded. "That's unbelievable." The woman concentrated as she then examined the injury to my foot. "I would not have done this to my daughter at all. Who you love is your business and nobody else's."

I sighed deeply. "I didn't even expect it. If I had time to explain, maybe she would've been easier on me." I could only really listen to myself for now as Dr. Merton told me I came through all of that abuse better than it appeared on first glance. I would have to take it easy on my foot for the next week, but thankfully there were no fractures to the bones at all. However I could feel that my face was swollen and was advised to ice it constantly and take some pain killers until it calmed down.

My next step before I left was to call Dr. Birnbaum's emergency number and ask for an appointment on Tuesday. I expected a machine, but was surprised to hear her voice.

"Paris." She was shocked herself; she had never been called by me on a weekend before. "What happened?"

"Sharon found out," I said in a whispered. "She had a PI tailing me for two weeks and confronted me with everything. Just getting out of the hospital now."

I could tell immediately that this went beyond the usual relationship between therapist and client as I could hear her push down her anger at hearing that I was in danger in any form.

"How exactly did she abuse you?" I took a deep breath and repeated what I had gone through in detail once again, feeling like it was becoming a sad sort of folk tale at that point. It was a struggle to stay composed as I had to relive it one more time. By this point I wanted Rory's microcassette recorder so I could just record the damned thing once and move on from there.

"So...that is what happened," I said, finishing it up. If I thought Dr. B couldn't get angry at all, I was mistaken.

"As this doesn't go any further than between us..." A pause.  "How she treated your coming out is appalling. You were taking the right course by easing into it, but she obviously did not want that. Following you?" She sighed deeply. "Paris, I'm going to ask you right now; are you OK?"

I nodded, remembering the conversation I had with my father. "I...I don't know." I stumbled, the waiting room seeming to spin around me. "My father assured me that the PI would be dealt with, though they can't really face charges because of public right-of-way rights and all of that. But I'm not pissed at the guy, it's just his job and he did what was required of him. I'm not worried about being followed at least. But Sharon..." I grew quiet as I felt the tears begin to wring out from my eyes. "Can't be around her. I hurt."

She took in some more of my observations, including about how I felt alone. Dr. Birnbaum processed everything and gave me what she thought I should do as I fretted about Rory up in Boston.

I had forgotten one option though. "Your friend, Madeline. You have told her, Paris, is that correct?"

 _Of course_. I took in a relieved breath. Though I couldn't stay overnight because she had a date escape planned with Brad to a theater in Stamford later in the evening I wasn't about to interrupt, I knew I could go to her. "You're right." I was grateful she was the first friend I came out to now. "I just don't want to weigh everyone down--"

"Paris." Brusquely, she cut me off before I could formulate yet another self-putdown of myself. "You aren't a drag on anyone at all! Especially not today. After all of the strings Sharon has pulled to try to make you hew to only her, I still find it unbelievable you didn't have a hard rebellion against her." The woman then set me straight. "I want to see you Monday evening. With Rory."

"With Rory?" I was surprised. "But you're not treating her for anything."

"You need her support and I don't want the appointment to become a '101 Reasons We Hate Sharon Gellar' rehash. We know your mother is not good right now, but your girlfriend will keep you calm."

"But..." I paused then, realizing that if I didn't have Ror there I probably would not make much progress to fix the trauma I've gone through once we got to the end of the appointment. "Well, I suppose I can agree to that." A quick thought about my schedule and then...

"6:30 Monday evening?" We talked a little more and made the official arrangements as I felt relieved that I would be able to get some good therapy in this week at the time I needed most. I thanked Birnbaum for being there for me when I needed her at my worst.

"Please take care of yourself, Paris," she implored. I nodded and wrenched myself, knowing I would have to go back out soon.

"I will." Saying goodbye to the doctor I then got up, wincing from the pain I felt in my foot and groaning as I knew I would have to get used to this. I was in no condition to go to Madeline's, but I knew I had to talk to someone, anyone who could understand what I was going through.

As Henrico gingerly guided me into the towncar with Nanny following behind me, I still had in the back of my mind how Rory would react. But for now, I had to figure out where I stood. I called for the destination and knew she was going to be surprised.

But if anyone could cheer me up it had to be Madeline.

Well, as long as it didn't involve watching one of those odd cheery Japanese anime series with too much pink she invests way too much money into purchasing.  


* * *

 ** Madeline's POV, 7:00pm **

****I can say I'm usually a very happy person. I've always been an optimist. There always has to be good in people.

That's why I'm friends with Paris in the first place. Even when she was younger she was quite intense and targeted on nothing but her studies, and there were so many other kids who told me to stay away from her when I got to Chilton Country Day. They'd tell me she was scary, freaky. A couple of kids had a rumor that she actually emigrated from the Soviet Union when she was three already at an eighth grade reading level, honed on lessons from parents who drilled her until she knew the material.

Once I got to know Paris though, somehow we ended up good friends. Not in the way where I was required to be her friend...

Actually, that might not be true. When I got there, the principal had her give me a tour of the school to find my way around. She showed me everything and barely let me talk in any way. I tried to ask a question about what she'd like and she'd go into a lecture about some boring teacher she fawned over like Socrates. Then her mom made her befriend me so she could be more open and social.

It was in the sort of way that suggested she tolerated me more than wanted to be my friend. Lesser girls would probably try to ditch her and talk behind her back. Louise even does that.

But if I can be truthful, I have not an ill word to say about Paris Gellar. Once you do finally get to know her like I do, you get to know her as more than _Le Pitbull_. Behind her iron heart and steel will, lays a young woman who is just like you and I. You have to find that vulnerability in her within the little moments that others can't find. With Louise they were raised pretty much the same and found their nits and nicks in preschool; those two are always gonna bicker and fight, but come back and hug and comfort each other when they feel at their most friendly.

Paris and I though are more complicated, but somehow it works out. If anything, being with Paris has helped me to prove my own in the world of Hartford society. Her demeanor makes any Chilton bully look like they're playing house. Without her expressing her finding me annoying at times, I don't know if I would be the happy girl I am today.

But I also balance her out. She always compares herself to Louise unfavorably, for instance. Always thinking she's not that much of a looker, that she deserves the fate of dating the Vances and Jamies of the world, the ones who are 'acceptable' only in appearance and not in talking or...other things that should not be mentioned in polite company. While Lou can proclaim all of her attributes in checklist form, Paris thinks of herself only as a researcher and someone who has to stay away from relationships. She saw what the divorce did to her father, and you can't blame her at all for just finding the entire concept of romance something she didn't want.

I've done a lot of thinking about her in the last few weeks and how she's been. She's still confident and headstrong as always and you can count on her to scare the wimpy and the stupid at Chilton, no matter what.

She's also scared, though. The vote almost undid her once Louise voiced her nay and I could tell that she was still in shock over it. I could tell it took her all she had to get through the vote. Every little thing lately has affected her, and she has moved around judiciously, her every move designed to avert that her and Rory are in any kind of relationship beyond that of best friends. She keeps looking around, scared there are spies ready to report back her every move.

Paris should just be able to be happy. I always wish that for her, to find a little bit of relief in the world to be who she wants to be.

That relief didn't come today.

I was getting ready for Brad to pick me up around six to see a road show of _Aida_ in Stamford. It was a little farther than I'd usually go for a date, but I kind of had a feeling that he really wanted to impress me this evening. He was apologetic for not getting me tickets for the show in Manhattan, thinking I preferred that, but I had to remind him I was just glad he was a thoughtful gentleman in the first place.

"I mean...I know how excited you are, but it's just not the same." I shook my head as we both got ready on the phone and I played with my bra, frowning as I felt the black push-up wasn't showing me off just right.

"Hey, I don't care!" I smiled and laughed. "Brad, you're taking me to a show like this and putting in the effort with the dinner beforehand...it's very nice! You're not doing everything at once like some guys I've known and just easing into things. I can relax in Stamford because it's not 'the big date'. It's just us in a small movie palace taking in a show that's just as damned good as what they're putting on in Broadway." I keep shaking my head as I scoffed silently at how I looked in my mirror.

"I...I know. I just didn't want to come off as, well..." A pause. I sighed as I knew exactly what he was thinking about.

"Sweetie, I know how tempting it is to use your name to score us free tickets, but I don't need that. You're not a gloater at all. You're just a sweet guy being chivalrous and kind. Really, I'm gonna love it."

"You are?"

"I am, I promise." I kept hearing his 'sex voice' in my head, whispering some things into my ear when we had nobody looking around at us. Bless his heart, he's proving to be a fun guy. I mean last night, we were able to 'accidently' meet under the bleachers at the basketball game and have a little alone time since he works on the sports crew that cleans up the gym after the game. It's like this small little space where nobody usually goes, where the old uniforms and balls are put when they get taken out of service. He snuck me in and we...

Well, he actually helped me out with some tough chemistry homework to start. We got to some steamy stuff later, but to have that boy hover over my shoulder and breathe on my back somehow kept me on a little bit of a fun edge. He would occasionally nip at my shoulders and whisper my name, clasping his hand around mine while we figured things out with my work.

Our dates have been so small. We don't do much in public. But the way this boy is making me feel...it has my stomach all twisty. He is still the same little nervous guy most of the time, even when we're alone. Always nervous, hoping the night goes right. That nobody pops out and all the sudden, he realizes I've been dating him as a big joke.

Mmmm, would last night be a joke at all though? Getting to see your guy cleaning up the discarded cups, popcorn bags and nacho trays from the top tier of the bleachers in the balcony and giggling because he has a different way he walks that night because his lovely cock got a little bit of fun attention back in the equipment room. I think I really enjoy how I get to play with and tease him, do a little playing with my teeth and how he just gets off to me holding him back. A little sweat builds on his brow, he makes this cute little whimper and a funny face as I make him feel like he should actually be treated...

"Madeline, are you still there? Hello?" I suddenly realized that I was blanking out on him over the phone and...well...

Yeah, it was obvious my underwear wasn't gonna work now for certain dampening reasons, and I was cherry red in the mirror.

"Oh, I'm here," I seductively mentioned. "Just thinking back to last night."

"You moaned my name, I could tell," he observed. "Still a little tender, to be honest."

"So worth it though. Can't wait to present my report on Monday from what I learned and adapted into my paper. You really did a good job on helping me and I feel that there should be positive reinforcement for that." I sat down on my bed, bouncing a little. "You get to help me out a little more with theater tonight."

"Like you did last Friday by shopping for me? I still feel weird about actually knowing my true sizes for clothing."

"You actually enjoyed it though. I never thought I could take a guy out shopping, but you were amazing, just being patient, even if you were checking on your Game Boy sometimes." I softened up a little, remembering how Paris's 'evil plan' to distract Sharon from knowing she was going to come out to Rory's grandparents worked just as well for Brad and I. "Though it was strangely put away once we got to a certain little store..." I heard him cough a bit.

"Madeline, um, I'm taking you out in one hour. A proper gentleman does not think about his girlfriend in that matter at this time!"

"You're flushing right now, Braddy. I can tell." I walked into my walk-in closet, shrugging off my ruined undergarments. "A gentleman you are, but a boy with hormones you are too." I slid open the drawers lined with velvet where I kept my intimates (not my choice; my stepmother says silks and satins should never rub against wood). "Your girlfriend needs a little help though."

"I don't know..."

"Remember, you helped me out plenty that night, eager beaver. What would be proper attire to go to the theater with? I want to feel comfortable, yet have you wandering your eyes occasionally my way."

Other boys would ask me to surprise them or argue that they didn't care what I did wear. But Brad is particular. A few meetings in the quick change rooms with other actors and actresses has made him very familiar with what girls wear underneath their costumes, and he always seemed to be impressed with how prim I looked, even in jeans and a t-shirt.

"The...violet one with the thin straps?" I nodded, finding it right on top, along with its matching sister. "You don't have to--"

"Good choice, my dear. An eye to detail because you know it flatters that cute mole above my left breast." I lit up as I heard him gasp. "The rest shall be a secret until you get here though. A woman never ruins the surprise any further." I hummed as I slid right into the seductive boyshorts with a wonderful material which really flattered my tummy, then tightened them against my bum. "That does feel nice. You know how to choose well."

I heard a cough over the phone. The poor guy really is shy about way too many sexy thoughts. "T-thank you, Madeline." I chuckle as I slithered into a cute skirt and paired it up with a sweet pair of kitten heels before sliding on the bra and a top which matches well with the skirt.

We continued to chat on the phone as I got ready before he finally had to take off and pick me up. It took a long time for us to hang up, but eventually the phone was put down and I was applying the finishing touches to my makeup around 5:30pm, making sure I was both seductive and relaxed. Fancied up enough for the theater, yet comfy if we hit the Lakeside Diner off the Parkway for pancakes and doughnuts beforehand, which was what I was looking forward to more than the musical.

I had just finished up plucking my eyebrows when I was startled by a sudden squeak from the intercom. I popped up in my seat and squealed as my stepmom came on and I began to feel a scramble. _Did Brad speed through town to get here?_ I worried. It was still a bit odd to know that my stepmom somehow liked Brad and considered him a good guy like my father did also. Usually we can't even agree on most stuff, not even fashion.

"Madeline, your friend Paris is here to see you," she said. I didn't pick up the worry in her voice at all as I looked for my jacket. "Should I send her up?"

"Can you tell her to come back later, Terri?" Another thing that would never be reconciled; my stepmother was never going to be called Mom. I just could never do it at all, and my father and her understand that.

I responded as I stumbled around the room slightly. "Brad's coming in a half-hour. If it's about the exam, I'll make time for her tomorrow!"

"She says it's important. Too important."  My stepmother's voice suddenly went to a whisper. "Mads, please take her in. I don't know what happened but she doesn't look well."

"Huh?" I didn't catch the clue right away. "Terri, what's going on? This can wait, right?"

A nervous pause. The woman and I share a relationship where we may not be Rory and Lorelai, but we get by. But I knew when my stepmom was using her serious tone of voice regarding Par, it was scary.

"It can't. Prepare yourself, please." It was short, and to the point. Terri never told me to prepare for Paris. And not in the tone of voice she used except for the gravest of circumstances.

I didn't know what to expect at all. I clenched my fist slightly, prepared for some conflict. "Send her up." I finished getting ready, thinking I was probably going to meet Paris in some kind of wound-up panic about scoring a 1599 on her SATs or another smaller issue, like what she was going to do on winter break. I expected something small, something silly that would I could just soothe her back to normalcy with a pep talk and move on.

She knocked on my door and I prepared for her usually dramatic and blustered entrance. I opened the door wide, preparing for her to sweep in.

Only she didn't. I stood off to the side waiting for her to come in for a few moments, surprised that my cheerful "Hi, Paris. What's up?" wasn't answered at all. Another few moments.

Nothing.

Eventually I turned around into the doorway to face her...

"Paris, my room isn't that appallingly mess..." I suddenly paused. Froze in place. Her eyes met mine.

As best friends there was nothing to say. There was nothing that we had to communicate to each other in words.

My 'protector', as I called her when I was ten, needed protection herself. I reeled back to see Paris Gellar, the strongest girl I've ever known in my life. A girl who I swear to God could slay Hitler in head-to-head debate, at the worst moment she has ever faced.

She was unrecognizable. Her face had a hounddog gaze upon it, as if there was nothing left for her to contemplate. Her impeccable sense of style, no matter how dull and practical it was, was not there. She was in a pair of jeans she only wore during Rebuilding Together and a grey worn-out tee over a tank top I didn't recognize, but even in the awful situation, actually flattered her.

The blonde hellfire I knew was a lost soul in that moment of time. Her eyes were filled with deep emotions, tracks below them suggesting tears that hadn't ceased for awhile. Her posture was off, her hair was out of sorts...

Her face. And then her neck. I finally found myself looking at them. They burned an angry and deep red, and she blinked in front of me, afraid to talk. I saw what I thought were imprints of hands in both spots.

Then her hand was grasped deeply against the side of my door.

"C-c-can...I...c-c-come in?" she asked, just before another crying jag began.

This wasn't a panic over a grade. Nothing silly. Harvard hadn't rejected her.

Paris was there in my bedroom for only one reason. One I knew.

One since that evening in the Armory, I had been dreading with everything in my soul, and in other forms, for years. With Rory in Boston, there was no doubt.

My mood went from cheery for Brad...

...to wanting to beat the shit outta a certain woman who we all disdain so deeply.

"Paris?" I needed to know. Even if she couldn't say it, I wanted to have that confirmation.

"Sharon?" A minute. She stayed still in the doorframe. Then I saw the slightest nod of her head, confirming it.

When that bitch of a woman forced her and the guy from Princeton together for Formal, I was mad. Never would Terri have done that to me, at all. She knows there's no way Brad is being pushed out of the picture anytime soon.

I had expected the worst Mrs. Gellar would deal out. I expected some fireworks. Some anger. The post-coming out Paris I had expected would have been infuriated, fired up, determined to make this all work, Sharon be damned, coming into my space for a half-hour rant and my nods of her points to fire her up to keep the flame burning.

But I would have never guessed that Paris would be at my bedroom door, in tears, having survived being on the brink of death as her own mother tried to snuff out the flame of her life for a second time.

I might not be the smartest girl. Hell, I'm most definitely not going to be competing with Dr. Birnbaum for Paris's services, ever.

But I'm a damned good best friend. I don't give a fuck who you are. If you're even Paris's idol. Doesn't make any difference to me.

You fuck with Paris, you fuck with me, and I will defend her to my death. I would deal with those feelings later though.

At that moment, I had something else to focus on. Paris was hurting. My best friend...

Oh God, I hate recounting this, but I must.

All I could do was hug her. Offer up my hand. She didn't say anything at all. She walked around the room as if she had just been surprised tactically at the last minute. She was half her height as she felt completely lost while I got what I could about the morning out of her.

It wasn't fun. I was patient, but coming off that, there's no fucking way you don't have an extreme reaction to what happened.

She was just five days off her biggest impact ever in Chilton's government. Five days earlier, she had spearheaded us into adding RTS funding. Without a single word about her sexual orientation, she helped that horse into the stable.

Now off that excitement? Her mother had found a way to take the wind completely out of her sails. To see her in that state, that crushed, pushed out of the closet in a way that was just offensive in every way possible, I couldn't handle it.

She wasn't just pushed out of the closet by her mother. Paris was blown out of it, completely against her will. As I heard her go on about those hellish minutes where her mother attacked her for the mere crime of loving another girl, I cried with her. I hurt and clenched at her shoulders, holding her against me and feeling the relaxation she had felt the last few weeks after releasing the burden of her love of Rory to me leave. Her back was tight all over again, the pain too much for her to bear as she continued to process that her mother had in all but words disowned her as her daughter.

 **Disowned.** From what Paris told me, she had no chance to even build a defense or have a neutral situation like she had with her daddy. At least with Lorelai there were the funny things like the slinky top failing her and her _Oz_ fears. But there was nothing but bad here. Being followed, almost forced to give herself up to a guy who had been hoodwinked into dating her? Paris never had a chance at all.

"I don't know what to do," she said as she wrapped herself into a hoodie I gave her when I saw her shivering. "I'm pretty sure I passed out. It was like the night of the accident all over again." Her tears kept coming. "Except I'm almost an adult. I could've stopped this, but she got to me."

I shook my head and stated my side. "Par, you won." Before she could respond, I told her why. "You were stepping around her. You were ready to come out on your own terms. I remember what you said a few days ago at school, that you were willing to get out there before your birthday and gather your courage. But that woman did the worst thing a mother could ever do; she violated your trust."

Paris shook her head. "No...no. I was asking for it, you're wrong. I was getting too cocky. I didn't say a word, but I was begging for a confrontation and...and she was justified--"

I had to step in. I knew when Sharon's fucked-up psychology was rooting in Paris, and this was just about the time. "Paris, she had you followed! She had a skeevy guy take pictures of you from a distance and was too chicken to even ask for a heart-to-heart with you like regular mothers do!" I groaned deeply and cringed. "What kind of mom does that?!"

"She was just concerned for me." I was taken aback as I knew this was her time to punish herself. "I...I should--"

"Absolutely not!" I was stern with her, my gaze cold as had a feeling about what she was going to say. "Your mother beat you for being a lesbian, Paris! There is nothing you can do to fix it yourself! If she is so fucking backwards that she needs to take you within an inch of your life to send a message..." I paused. "And think about Rory. Your **girlfriend** who loves you deeply and gave you the most treasured thing she can ever give to another person!" I became impassioned as I got up from the bed and threw my arms around to make my point. "So you and Rory are unbreakable and there's no turning back now. You are a girl in love and Sharon needs to understand that!"

"Madeline..." Her voice broke, hard. "She's in jail 'cause...'cause of me." I nodded.

"Not because of you. Because her heart is closed," I said in a whisper. "You were going to tell her. On your own terms. And she broke that single trust you demanded of her." I settled her down with a hand on top of hers. "Paris, listen to me. This is not right."

"I know...I do." I saw her mussing her hair and playing with cuffs on the hoodie, retracting her fingers in to pick at cuff pills. "But now Rory's...gonna leave me 'cause I broke her trust like that. God forbid if she had the guy follow us into the park and took pictures of that!"

"But he didn't. He stayed in public. Maybe he did give you as much privacy as he could get, but had to hit a certain point to get paid by your mom. He was paid to do what he had to do, but judging from the pictures you told me about, he went nowhere near Chilton." I thought more about the clues. "And the driveway? It was within sight of a public road. So really, he stuck to public places where he could blend in. The guy wasn't stupid enough to ever follow you into the park or onto Manor grounds, and the Gilmore's neighbors are always suspicious about cars they don't know."

"I suppose you're right." She though back to the pictures. "And despite the privacy infringing nature of them, they were all innocent shots, really. From what she told me, that's all she got." A pause. "Still sucks she didn't trust me at all though."

"I know..." I felt a pang in my stomach as she went over the day, which was very tough for her to do. Recounting everything I just wanted to hug her forever. She even grabbed my plush Mr. Plufflehuffle hippo just to have something to hold onto and cuddle.

The poor girl. With Rory distant, she just didn't feel like herself at all. Par was so deeply sad that I didn't know of anything to lift her spirits. She kept saying she didn't want to call Rory and burden her on her big weekend with Mr. Hayden, though I had a feeling she'd be fine to hear what ailed her girlfriend. But she dealt as she could the way she knew;

Silence and calming. She looked over some of my homework on the desk and nodded as she went over it, then unexpectedly called me over. I awaited whatever she was going to say about the formulas I had done.

Instead, she turned to me with a smile and pointed at one of them.

"You did this worksheet all by yourself?" I looked it over again, awaiting her usual lecture.

But it never came. Instead she got up and gave me a glance I usually saw directed more at a lab partner or Rory. A glance which made anyone feel accomplished.

"Amazing." That's all that had to be said.

"Really?" I lit up, feeling relieved to have a little push-away from the big elephant for a bit. "I mean--"

"You do still need to cut the hearts over the I's and J's, get the cursive writing a little less...Judy Blume and dear diary, and maybe write in something other than pink, which doesn't photocopy well at all. Other than that, this is a fine example of scientific formulae. I'm impressed."

Yes, that is what in my world you would call Paris complimenting me. I squealed happily that she was able to check my work and didn't find an actual error. "It's actually going to be part of my big report I'm going to do in a few months. I actually had someone from the University of Washington look over my studies. She said if I get a nice-sized project done, I could be considered for scholarship at their environmental college. It's something I really want to go for, you know?"

"They came up here?" I could tell Paris was glad for the distraction.

"Actually one of my old friends in Seattle helped me get a contact in the registrar's office. At first they were apprehensive because, come on, I'm just jumping into this and I'm not like you with a three-ring binder full of references. But I was able to plead my case and near New Year's, my father and I are going out to look at it." I was glad to get this out to someone besides family. "I'm also getting interest from Evergreen State in Olympia. That might be nice, but I know you have concerns with non-traditional campuses. Plus, Olympia, a little far down the Sound from Seattle."

She gave me a glance and listened carefully to clues that I'm not serious about this. But I truly am. I want to do this and all my cards are in the Northwest right now. A few blinks. I was relieved to get her distracted from her mother.

"Look at U of Seattle too," she told me. "I'm not usually the type to look into those private schools but you might do well in a smaller setting. UW of course, if you can get it, go for it. But there's so few schools out in Washington State you have to at least give a consideration to them all. My Uncle Ira went to Marquette in Milwaukee and swears by it despite the Catholic roots it has, and Seattle is just about the same as they are."

There was just those kinds of thoughts, batting things around as I took a few notes from her. I looked up occasionally to note she was having a nervous glance, but this was the best thing to do to get her mind off things. I was still stewing in deep anger about what that...that...that meanie did to my friend though and wondered how there was a way to keep her from further interfering with them.

Yes, I said further. I wasn't about to say anything to Paris at all about it, but I knew she was about to be pushed out even further. I felt it in my gut. Just the fact that Sharon knew meant that I had to figure things out behind the scenes before they set foot in Chilton on Monday. If I even hinted to Paris and Rory about what could happen that day, there would be panic.

I had to be careful. Figure this out. If I went ditz-brained on whatever I had planned, I could never forgive myself.

While I tried to calm down Paris though, I had managed to somehow forget a very important detail as we talked to keep her mind off everything. Around 6pm I heard a knock on my bedroom door and then...

I stilled as the door opened. I knew who it was. Paris stilled on the bed as the door opened up and made its weird squeak.

I was darning my 'open door' a little hard right now as I somehow forgot about my big date.

Enter Brad. My lovely guy walked into the room looking as if he was yanked right out of a Frankie Valli backup band. The guy knows how to dress and his hair was gelled back slightly to keep it in place. A nice suit with a green tie he picked out to match my eyes and a blue dress shirt.

He was expecting to walk in and sweep me off my feet. Which he still did. But as he greeted me, he darted a glimpse at Paris.

"Madeline, are you read--" He cut himself off as he took in Paris, reeling back as if she was discovered to be impure.

Usually, her anger would come out full-force at poor Brad. This is a girl who jokingly suggested she'd knock his rabbi out 'cause Brad wasn't man enough and who did all she could to keep him away from our projects. I cringed, wondering what she would do to lash out.

Brad already had his fight-or-flight on within moments. "Uh, Paris...ma'am." He noticed the bruises along her neck. "Are...are you OK?" He looked towards me. "Obviously there's something wrong, I should leave--"

But at that moment, Paris did something I never would have thought she'd do. She got up and moved towards Brad. He moved back and thought he was about to be reamed out.

"Brad," she said softly. "I...I need your help too." She took a few unsteady breaths. "I am not going to do anything to you. I couldn't bear it."

"Paris? What's going on?" Some more silence. I could feel the fear in her heart.

"Something...scary." Her voice broke slightly as she unzipped the hoodie and revealed the scars and bruises left in the aftermath of Sharon's reaction to her 'news'. She slipped out of it and began to feel emotional again.

"I apologize for you having to walk in on this and ruining your date, Brad. I just did not have Rory to go to and--"

He did another thing I never expected.

Brad **interrupted** her. "Paris...oh dear." He took in everything and when I thought that he should fear her in her condition, he dropped every preconception I had of him. "What's wrong?"

I knew she didn't want to relive this again, so I asked Paris if I could just summarize what she had told me.

Her usual non-answer was weary. "I guess." She slumped back down on the bed as I brought him into the closet and told him all he needed to know about the situation. I felt like my words paled in comparison to her description, but I knew it had to be done.

I found myself emotional repeating it. "...so, she found out about everything and her mother almost choked her out of consciousness." I cringed just saying it. "Wonderful, right?"

Brad shook his head. "I wouldn't say wonderful at all." He looked over towards her direction. "She got pushed out?"

"By her mother? Yeah." His features grew serious as he took in the sight of his biggest bully kicked when she was down. "Brad, I know you're scared--"

"Scared? You really think I'm scared right now?" He raised his hand up. "How the hell did her mother get custody of her again?"

I reeled back, a little stunned by my boyfriend using what to anyone else was a mild swear, but to me was like hearing Buzz Lightyear programmed with curse words. "Hey, I know it's shocking."

"Madeline, we grew up with each other, you know? We weren't really in the same circles, but I know of what she went through. I remember the accident, my parents taking me to visit her to give her time with a 'friend', even if I wasn't at all." He shook his head and his hands were shaking. "That woman never treated her well at all. I went off to New York for theater after third grade and came to Chilton sophomore year, but I knew her back then and...she never recovered from it. And this? To be almost beaten to death and nearly shuffled off to a school that would've spanked her back into the Paris we knew before Rory came into her life?" The boy was deeply emotional as he went on about how he felt for a girl who needed all the love she could find right now.

We never talked about the accident. I only knew about it from Louise, and what little I could get out of Paris. But I knew enough that it took her through trauma that she is still trying to get over, all these years later. I can't imagine what she's going through right now, how it feels to be so blindly hated by your own mother for choosing a way of life different from hers. Brad held my hand as he continued to react.

"Remember how I told you we have to support her, no matter what she goes through?" I nodded, knowing the promise we made after Paris told me it was OK to tell him after the Formal, albeit of course with the usual silly body part removal threat. "She's going to need both of us more than ever. I know she has Rory, but if there's one thing that I don't want, it's for her to end up back with that woman. She's going to be out soon, right?"

I nodded. "That's her biggest fear right now. She's scared to death that an order of protection won't stop Sharon from making any kind of contact." I looked back in the bedroom, where Paris sat blankly on the bed, continuing to play with the hoodie sleeves. "She says she's got a room at the Hilton because her father isn't allowed to have her overnight."

"What?" Brad was confused. "He never did anything wrong."

"Money talks. She got full custody in the divorce settlement and Harold only got an apartment big enough for himself since he can't get back into the Manor until Paris turns eighteen. Technically, Paris could be considered a runaway right now." I still was boiling angry about how much of an advantage the judge gave Mrs. Gellar thanks to the influence of her attorney. It was so screwed up, despite how much Paris plead for the judge to be even in his ruling. "She's got plenty to live on, so I'm not worried about her financially. Just the thought of her living out of a suitcase is making me sad."

Brad looked back out into the bedroom himself. I could tell that no matter what Paris did to him in the past, it wasn't real bullying, just being a thorn in the side, like she was with Rory. Francie is a bully, period. But I've known Paris so long that I could never see her being so cold-hearted. I mean yeah, she's competitive and of course, the file thing when Rory got in. But she never has threatened physical violence on the girl, and I never expect her to do anything to Rory ever again.

It's the same with Brad, and with Par, it's more to build his character than anything else. And it worked. Hey, we're a couple now; if not for her challenging him all the time he would've never taken the risk at homecoming of going with me.

We kept looking at each other and back to Paris, wondering what to do. Brad nervously ran his hand through his hair to straighten it back out.

"Does she have other family she can go to?" he asked. I thought for a moment before realizing she really didn't.

"Just relatives on Sharon's side. We don't want her to go there at all. And her father would've been able to line something up if he could, but most everyone's in Florida, the Apple, or Illinois at this point for their Hanukah trips." He gave me a glance. "I can't take her in since we have Seattle family coming in Monday and she wouldn't ever accept it. Burden thinking."

"She isn't," he confessed. "Her mother is the burden right now." That was pretty much the sad truth and we hugged close together, hurting for our poor friend. "Nobody should ever have to face this," I told him.

"I know a lot of friends who have," he whispered. "The theater scene is so close-knit and insular, when someone doesn't accept you, we all feel it. We're family." I nodded, calmed by how Brad was about as calm as could be faced down with something like this.

"You're not mad, are you? I mean, the date, the theater. I probably ruined it." He kissed my forehead and softly let out a few tears.

"Madeline, you're the best friend any girl could have. You did what you had to, and we have many more nights to go see a show." He took me at my shoulder to bring me back out. "Come on though, Paris needs us much more." I looked up at him and let him lead me back out, as Paris moved up her eyes back towards us. She looked so defeated, it seemed like she was a ghost of who she usually was.

Brad stayed to the side, knowing Paris needed me more as I took her into my arms. "I told him what I needed to." She nodded and clutched at my hand like a fist. "You sure you're gonna be up to going to a hotel?"

"Wh-what else can I do?" she told me. "I can't go to Louise. You've got your relatives coming and I hardly know Brad. I can live with it; I've got three square meals coming."

"Yeah, but it's a hotel room. Par, I think--" It's like she knew me, because she cut me off.

"No, that option isn't open. It can't be." She looked down at her hands. "It's enough I'm her daughter's girlfriend, the last thing she needs to worry about is having me live there and worry. That's a closed venue." I bit on my tongue, knowing it was the **only** option still open outside of the hotel. For two weeks this was going to stay a problem, maybe even longer. "I...I hate this."

Brad put in what he wanted to say. "Paris, if you need anything, you know you can call both of us, any time of day or night?" Another shaky nod.

"I ruined your date," she said, scolding herself. "I'm just the biggest date ruiner ever."

"Hey...nothing was ruined. Nothing was even started. We'll probably have to run off someplace locally, but Brad and I create our own fun. We're cool." I looked up at Brad's suddenly violent blush at the wording I used. "You know what I meant!"

"Um, well of course, but you say that and..." The boy could sense some dagger stares from Paris's direction, even if her eyes were too weak to shoot it far. "I apologize, Paris."

Paris shook her head, letting out the slightest of smiles. "No need at all, Brad. I...I actually did want to say thank you for being here, if only to view me crying my eyes out like a fool. You and Mads have made it work and I can't begrudge that at all." She shifted slightly towards the pillow. "At least I can trust you two. There are Chiltonians I wouldn't even trust with my student identification number."

"Not a word," he promised. "And for what it's worth? I'm glad you faced down Francie on Monday, even if you didn't say much. That is going to be what everyone will remember you for. Your legacy. I...I'm proud of you...ma'am."

"Thanks." Her voice was weary as she felt another tingle on her face which signaled a new icing while she cringed at her neurons sending pain throughout. "Fuck...I wish they could've given me some Novocain to numb myself whenever this happened." She reached into her bag and pulled out a fresh and cool cold pack she kept in a thermal lunch bag and applied it beneath a towel to her cheek. "SUCKS!"

I sighed for a moment before thinking of something to calm Par's nerves. "Want me to order out Berlin Fish? I could get you a large mac and cheese, extra burnt. Since we're not going anywhere for now." Brad nodded and Paris thought for a moment about my offer.

"Might as well. Going to be my last true meal until Monday at lunch." I nodded excitedly and prepared the order as Brad tried to calm her as best as he could. We both knew it wasn't going to come easily though, and she spent most of the time picking off more pills on the hoodie and trembling as we waited for Terri to bring up the food order. I sat down next to Paris and kept trying to keep her spirits up, but I knew it was going to be a long time before she returned back to normal.

When Terri came up she found Paris was calm, but solemn. My stepmother surveyed the scene and shook her head, knowing that Sharon was indeed, a woman with a dark soul who had gossiped about her as a harlot who took advantage of my father when they married five years ago. Which isn't true. My brother and I knew my father couldn't stay unmarried forever, and we can both handle Terri and my stepsister Valerie, who attends a boarding school in Pennsylvania (her own choice).

The rest of the time was quiet. I was thankful Paris ate most of her meal, only leaving aside the coleslaw based on a gut reaction it probably wouldn't settle well inside of her while Brad and I made sure that she would be all set to go.

But I could read Brad's thoughts. He was still unsure of how Par could handle living at a hotel. I could just read it in his eyes that he thought it not a very good idea. I agreed with him and tried to communicate that, though we weren't going to argue with Paris about it before she left, which came about a half-hour later after more commiseration about the next school week.

The both of were deeply concerned as we saw her back out to her town car. She was still in deep pain, but at least she could smile in the little moments before she left for the evening to head to the hotel. I hugged her close and told her to get out of her mind, at least for a little while.

"You'll have Rory to talk to when she gets back," I promised her. "And you can sort everything out with her. It's going to be OK, Paris, I promise." I let the tears fall freely, glad to have this small time with Paris to sort things out. She nodded at me and chattered in the cold, her jacket in the car.

"Thank you both...I-I-I don't know how to repay you both. Besides new tickets."

Brad shook his head. "I received them at a discount and I'm sure if I talk to one of my friends up there we can get in one of their later shows in the year. We'll be fine, I promise." A small little pause though... "If you could get the rabbi to ease up a little though on me--"

Paris smiled as much as she could. "Yeah, I suppose I could do that for ya, Langford." She held out her hand towards him. "And...I can't believe I'm doing this, but because of what you did..."

She cringed as she said the words. "In two months, you get first chair against Hotchkiss." She rushed out the words as if she was about to be forced to consume a rice cake, but there was still sincerity behind them. "It is a big one, but I think you can take it."

Understandably, Brad was floored that he was going to actually get to do something for debate. "You're...you're sure? But I know how you rule the roost, and--" Paris held up her hand to make Brad pause before he could begin a long ramble.

"Langford, please. Don't make me change my mind because of that. Get your diction up and be ready on February 18th to take those smug sons of guns down. I have a true feeling you can do it." She got in the car as Henrico opened it up for you. "I'll see you both on Monday. Hopefully by then I've healed up a little bit." My friend winced as again she had to apply the cold compress against her face.

Brad thanked her for the opportunity for the debate and we saw her off, the both of us still worried about what the future. He held my hand as we went back into the house, where Terri was waiting for us. She didn't need much of an explanation, but she was quite angered at Sharon for what she did and would hold Paris's sexuality in complete confidence.

She complimented me on putting aside my night for her. "You did good. Your mama would be proud of you," she said, and from how much my mother did love Paris from the short time she knew her, when my young friend was curious about cancer and death and she told Paris what she went through, I knew she was looking down at me and thankful that despite all I've gone through being Par's friend, I'm sticking by her through thick and thin.

Still, I cried, away from Paris and able to show my pain after she departed as my guy and my stepmom did all they could to calm me. Bless them both for keeping me away from the real dark thoughts I had in my mind at that moment.

I have seen Paris suffer under the thumb of her mother for so long. Saw her having to push off so many fun events and thinks just to go impress some old fuddy-duddy fundraiser at a boring society party. Told to push herself towards a guy who had nothing to offer but a fancy name and generations of inbreeding that would've screwed up the Gellar family line something awful. Even...

I still remember the dent in the drywall I made in Louise's entertainment room when I threw a remote at it after she told me her mom wanted her to reduce her boobs and get a nose job. Louise didn't even flinch, but that's one of the few times in my life I've shown so much rage. I scared Paris so much that it took a week to say sorry for how I behaved.

Though I never was. And now that bitch has the audacity to nearly kill one of my best friends and intrude so deeply into her personal life just because she loves someone who can do so much good for her?

I swear to God, if any one of Sharon's cronies in her club comes up to me and asks me to 'turn' her and encourage her to go back to boys? I will not be kind little Madeline Lynn at all. They **will** know how I feel and there will be no getting in the last word. I support those two lovely girls, and nothing's gonna come between them.

As for Sharon? She better keep her distance. If I ever see her again, she is in for a world of hurt. I hope her skinny and fake ass is shivering in a holding cell right now, and that whoever's in there with her sharing her cell is giving her hell.

Even better, I hope she's all restrained up by the staff and unable to move, just like she did to subdue Paris before she did her worst.

Brad shares a look with me as we finish up dinner, and somehow? I know he's thinking the same thing, even if he's the 'nice guy'.

Sharon Gellar made three new enemies tonight in this household. Somehow, I think Lorelai Gilmore is about to become her fourth whenever she finds out.  


* * *

 ** Paris's POV, 8:30pm **

****I hate feeling lost.

This is so odd for me, not having a home to go back to. I could, but I can't. Having to depend on a hotel to have a roof over my head and instead of grabbing a random box of Chinese from the fridge when I feel like it, calling for room service to sate a sudden midnight craving deep in a cram session.

It's a dreadful thought. All the way to the hotel I felt like I was being selfish just for wanting this relationship. It was wrong and uprooting so many things that I had taken for granted for years. It seemed like Hartford was darker than usual as Henrico drove west from Manchester, where Madeline lives. It didn't seem to have its usual dignified sheen as we drove in on Route 384 towards downtown. I held the icepack close with the layered towel between my cheek and the compress, still feeling a bit of anguish and knowing I would need more than a PM to get through the night. Thank God for my Lunesta prescription.

I wasn't ready to be alone. I felt a pressure on my heart which seemed to not want to let up. To be stuck in some hotel room in the middle of town, afraid to go out because I had to face the sights and sounds of a holiday evening in Hartford. The Wolf Pack are playing at the Civic Center and I'm sure there are carolers out. I should have been finishing my research at the library, on my way home for the homestretch before winter break.

Now I was alone. Rory couldn't come to rescue me this night, and I did not want to inconvenience Madeline any further on. I took in a deep breath as the merge onto 84 came up.

Even before I got to Madeline's there were thoughts that I should back out of this. Sudden thoughts that I was acting like a bitch and asking for too much and that perhaps, I should break up with Rory.

Madeline put those thoughts to rest as we talked things out. I wasn't asking for much from my mother. In fact, I was asking for too little, for so long. I mean, I've been forming myself around what she wants for my image for so many years, to the point where I thought 'what would my mother think' before I ever decided anything. She also reminded me that no good mother would pay somebody to ever tag them and follow them around.

In that moment though I was completely down. Looking down at my hands I sure didn't feel like myself. If only the other members on my dad's side of the family could take me in. But besides the many on vacation it couldn't happen; most of them were in small houses and a few made the choice not to have children. They had no idea what to do with me. I would also not go to Jacob's house. It still gives me the chills that he hit on Rory during that one Formal.

I thought about things as I brought out my cell phone, wondering how to break the news exactly to Rory. I kept laboring under the doubt that she'd want to hear from me. That's the last thing I want to do, leave 45 messages like Dean did and use up her text allotment. Besides, they're my problems in my life. They shouldn't have to be hers by proxy. I pawed at the device, staring daggers at it as I flipped it open and closed a few times to check the hinge. I did some controlled breathing techniques to keep myself calm, frowning as I looked over everything. No calls at all. Not a shock, really.

I scrolled down to Rory's entry, hesitating. I pushed the button to go to her entry in the directory, scrolling past her mobile to her home number. I began to build up a plan in my mind as I thought over things. Rory wouldn't be back home until Sunday, and I'm sure I could keep this as close as possible. If Lorelai could call her and I could tell her in few words that I was the Hilton, she could just let Rory know I wouldn't talk to her until Monday.

I mean, I had to say something. At least something. I didn't want to lay anything on Lorelai at all. It's enough that she has to tolerate my relationship with her daughter. I can't do anything more than that. Finding some courage, I dialed out the number and called out to Lorelai.

There was a small part of me that was hoping I just got a voicemail, that way I could just tell Lorelai not to call back at all. The phone began to ring as I looked out passed the Rentschler Field stadium site over in East Hartford. One ring...two rings...

I hoped there would be four rings. A third. My fingers were crossed, and I could begin to relax.

 _Yes!_ I reacted silently at the fourth ring coming and began to prepare for whatever insane thought Lorelai called an answering machine message this week...

_Click._

__And then my hopes were dashed. I heard a pickup...and then about fifteen seconds of silence.

"Um, hello?" I wondered why I wasn't being greeted.

Surprisingly, the innkeeper was a bit confused. "Err, hello Paris. Sorry about that." Her voice was friendly and bright, which is what I really needed right now. "When I saw your name on the caller ID I assumed that you wouldn't even let me get in a hello before going off into a three-minute tangent about how Ava has wronged you this week. So I didn't even bother."

I cringed; this woman and her daughter were growing to know me **wayyy** too well **.** "Well...she did, of course. But that's not why I called you this evening."

My mind focused on trying to make this as short as possible. "Could you tell Rory, if she calls that I'll talk to her on Monday morning next? Just pass along the message."

"Ahh, of course I can do that. You gotta heavy weekend of studying going on, don't you?"

I thought for a moment. "Not studying, really. Some unexpected circumstances have come up, so I can't get back to her until I pick her up. Sorry...I'm sure you understand."

"Yeah, I guess." I thought I was pretty well home free. Surely there wasn't anything I had to do further. "Hey, is there anything going on? Surely you could've just texted this to her."

I shook my head. "I didn't want to bother her, Ms.--Lorelai." Still having problems being 'chill' with her, as she called it. "She has a busy enough weekend with her father."

"But she wouldn't mind hearing from you." She took a few moments before bringing things further. "Are you sure you're OK, hon?"

I paused for a moment to compose myself. "Of course," I stated neutrally. "Just let Rory know, please." I thought I had told Lorelai enough and that would be it.

"Paris, what is going on?" I tried to hide what I was feeling by covering up the mic. "Seriously, I don't usually hear from you at all unless you're very insistent that Rory gets a message from you." I heard her grab a paper and some kind of instrument to write. "I'll give her what you need to pass along, but I would think she would want to know why you aren't seeing her until Monday. Which isn't a big deal, because that's when she usually sees you after a weekend."

I could feel myself beginning to wear down. "I insist--"

She stopped me suddenly. "And I hear something," Ms. Gilmore insisted. "You're not General Pattonette today. Something's off with your voice. Usually it's all Joe Friday and asking for the basics, but I'm hearing _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ in it, like you just delivered the disappointing sapling to the class."

"I insist that I am fine," I said in a clipped tone. "I...I have to go--"

Then I didn't expect what she'd say next.

"Paris?" I heard her 'mom voice'. The one she used in New York towards the girls when she found them in that party with the 'future of America' keeping the Solo Cup Company in business single-handedly. "There's something wrong. You sound like I did when my friends at school found out I was 'with child'. Though I know you're so not at that step, but something happened. I can just sense it."

Then she made it clear I was pretty well trapped. "My next call is to your dad if you don't tell me what's up. You know we talk through the PTO email list so he can keep up with stuff, so I'll find out one way or another."

"Damn it," I whispered away from the phone. She was right; she passed on what my father wanted to do when he couldn't get anywhere near the regular meeting. I couldn't really hide it much more than that, and when I had been caught after the bell-ringing ceremony Daddy somehow thought it was a good idea for her to become my emergency contact in case he was gone, Sharon was on some tropical island and Fran was off-duty. Lorelai readily agreed because 'your daughter is a fine role model, Lorelai', he told her at the time.

Drop four of those words and stretch out the fifth one? Yeah, those are words I think about telling her, but never will under threat of beheading.

"Paris..." Soon I was back to the phone, resigned to defeat.

"I...I..." I struggled for words. "I'm gonna be at the..." I whispered the last words. "The Capitol Hilton for awhile."

She took in what I said and wondered what was going on. "Why are you staying at a hotel? That doesn't make sense, even for you."

"Because..." I really felt myself bending to claim it was exams and I needed quiet.

However, if there's one thing you can't do in your life, it's lying to Lorelai Gilmore. It's enough to do that to her daughter, but behind Rory is a Momma Bear raring to protect her cub. By nature, both of those women are curious about everything. If I brushed it off with an excuse, I would have never been able to forgive myself.

I let it out, and without even knowing it let out an emotional whimper. "I can't go back home. My mother...she...she..."

My throat clenched at the thought of having to let Lorelai know I was fucking up her daughter's life by telling her she was followed. "She put a...a tail on...Rory and I. She..." I shriveled in the seat, ashamed. "...knows." I mouthed the last word, not wanting to get it out there.

I could tell there was confusion on the other end. "A tail? What's going on?" There went that thought that Lorelai was about to blow a gasket at me. "Paris, tell me."

I stayed silent for a minute longer. This was awful. Rory didn't deserve this at all. Lorelai certainly did not either.

"What did Sharon do?" she asked again. "Paris, I--"

Finally it just spilled out, like it was dammed in and I burst suddenly. "She had us both followed, OK?! I'm sorry and I know you hate me, but I didn't know. I didn't fucking know a private dick was on our tails for two weeks taking pictures and giving proof to my mom that we were together." I ranted on, breath be damned. "I know this is the last thing you want to hear and you're going to ban me forever from seeing Rory and pull her out of school even though that guy won't follow her anymore because oh my God, it's like the PATRIOT Act come to life to invade your privacy and I wouldn't blame you at all, so if this is the last time I ever hear from a Gilmore before you depart for Borneo to isolate your daughter, I apologize that I ever put Rory in that position. OK?" Finally I inhaled, my face a painful red and dotted with streaks of tears. "So yeah, I'm an awful human being--"

"Paris, stop! Just...stop." I felt her voice rumble in my ears. "Are you telling me that instead of giving you time to come out in a rational manner, like you did with Harry and my parents, your mother decided to pry into your life...and my daughter's, to find out you were together? That's what you're telling me."

I nodded, feeling at my lowest moment. "I don't blame you for being mad at all. I know you want to rue the day I ever butted into your life."

She scoffed harshly. "What did she do? I want to know."

"I can't say, I'm...too...scared." I cringed deeply as she broke through my walls.

"Hon...if it's too tough, just summarize. Short hand story, please."

I shuddered deeply as I recalled it again. "I can't say much or I'll be in a dark place. She found out, almost beat me to death and sent me to the hospital, and now I'm going to stay at a hotel until I take the deed to the Manor on my birthday when we can get her out." I felt a grim pause as I prepared for her for sure to hang up on me.

After a moment to compose herself, she came back on the line, and her 'mama bear' tone was on full volume.

"Beat you...to death?"

I nodded. "She tried to choke me and I'm all bruised up." I didn't want to talk about it any longer and I heard a very harsh breath through the phone.

"So what you're telling me is that not only did your mother violate your privacy, but when she found out she not only confronted you, but instead of talking to you like a civilized person about your sexuality, tried to **choke** you because you didn't follow her life plan."

I was getting quite scared now. Lorelai was never this firm to anyone and I was scared that I had hit a certain trigger. "She...did."

Then with clipped precision, she asked me one more question. "She is in jail currently, correct?"

Whimpering, I answered her. "Yes."

I thought for sure I was on my own. This was it. I was all alone. If there was anything in the world that would ruin my relationship with Rory, this was it. Lorelai was sure to keep her promise to break my kneecaps.

Soon, she told me what she thought about it all.

"Good." She then paused, and then with a flourish I haven't seen since my father saw Hilary speak at a party dinner a few years ago...

"She should be glad she has steel protecting her ass right now. If she got off with a warning for doing all that shit to you, I'd have dispensed a little eye for an eye to that nasty bitch." Her voice was so raw I could feel the spittle coming through the phone. "I know she'll get out right away; that's how the fucking backwards thing this state calls the justice system works with the Hartford richies unless they torched the State House. But I'm glad you're safe right now." I trembled, feeling a little fearful of indeed, ever doing anything bad to Rory with this woman defending her. "However, you're not going to that hotel."

"No, it's OK. My dad--"

"You can't! Your father definitely means well. I know how that joke of a thing they called your parents' divorce agreement that was so lopsided towards your mother it's pathetic says your dad can't even maintain a second bedroom in his condo! What lawyer ever advised him to ever accept it, when he was clearly in the right with you? But you can't be stuck in a hotel for what...a month? All alone in the middle of downtown Hartford?" A gasp. "Paris, you can't live in a hotel!"

"I have before," I argued. "I do it all the time for exams when things get bad at home!"

"I hate to say it, but attempted murder is much more than 'things that get bad at home'! You're not going to recover from that, not after your mother shoved you outta the closet onto hard concrete!" I could hear her anger burn through. "I can't accept that you'll be fine alone in some hotel nursing your wounds like that." I heard her go over things. "I'm going to call Harry and ask if it's OK--"

"No, it's fine," I argued. "Ms. Gilmore, you don't have to take me in. It's enough I put your daughter in danger--"

"Of what?" I heard her scoff sharply. "Paris, the guy just followed you. That's all he could do and I doubt he took the job for more than taking a bunch of a cash from a rube who does her helicopter parenting from Chopper 3 with Power Zoom! You didn't have any idea that you two were being trailed and I..." She paused and took a breath. "Paris, please. I know this isn't a good situation in any way. But I cannot as a good person just let you be all alone at this time of year. You don't sound like yourself, at all."

I sighed deeply. I didn't want Lorelai to do this. She didn't have to. It wasn't her fault because I dragged her and Rory into all of this. No matter that Rory had to force my feelings from me in the first place after so many months, because this was all beyond the pale. I didn't want this to happen, and Lorelai shouldn't have to deal with what my mother did to me.

"You don't have room for me," I argued. "You really don't have to take me in. I can just stay in Hartford."

"Paris, I can make room. You know the house does have plenty of room," she told me. "If things get tight I can always clear up a bit in my sewing room to fit in an AeroBed for you. But for at least tonight you have a bed in Rory's. She definitely would rather see you safe in Stars Hollow this evening than stuck in a bed where who knows what has happened and those icky, icky remotes. You know I actually bring my own universal remote with a code book for programming so I never have to touch one of those germ-infested things?"

I quirked my eyebrow, a little surprised at something we shared. "Wait, you do that too? And I thought I was all alone in the world."

"Let's just say there was an experience in Dallas on a business trip with horrible housekeeping and what seemed like an orgy. I bolted outta that hotel like the Blitz was just starting and bathed my hand in rubbing alcohol!"

"Guh!" I was glad I could laugh, if only for just the smallest of moments. "So...I guess I really can't say no to this no matter what reason I come up with?"

A sigh. "Sorry, kid. The idea of you living out of your backpack after what you went through is something I can't do. I'd offer the same thing to Madeline and Louise if the worst happened to them."

I thought a little further; if it went bad, the worst that could happen is I just had to find somewhere else to go. But I couldn't deny Lorelai was going to take care of me more than any concierge could ever do. She's a hotelier and knows how to treat a guest. I even remember stories from Rory about how badly botched wedding arrangements for a guest meant her and Babette had to bed two families of four in their houses because the ditzy bride overbooked.

Finally, I had to admit this was the best I could do on such short notice. "You're not calling Rory after this, are you?"

"Everything is for you to tell her, hon," she promised me. "I won't do that to you. But I know you probably need to prepare her for this."

"Of course." I could let out a breath as I felt my heart feel tight. "You do have to clear it with Harold because with my mother under the order he's my current guardian."

"I will, next call is right to him, I have his number in my directory." A pause. "Just in case--"

"Hey, I understand. He's a good guy and I know he'll be relieved he doesn't have to put me up. I just don't want to worry him."

We talked a little bit longer before I found the Bulkeley in my sights and I scrambled as I realized I forgot about something else.

"Gotta go, Ms. Gilmore. I have to tell Henrico that he's not headed into downtown." I began to roll down the divider as I felt relieved everything, at least as far as shelter for the evening, was coming together.

She squealed. "See you in an hour or so. Oh, need something to eat?"

"No...no. Not right now. I'm barely keeping down my fish," I admitted. "Maybe later."

"Anything you need," she promised, her voice soft with the care I haven't heard from my mother since a long-passed thought of her holding me at the Central Park Zoo when I was fifteen months old. "See you later." The line clicked and I pulled away the handset, closing it in my hand as I told Henrico my plans.

"Hen! Change of plans. We're going to Stars Hollow instead, Rory's house!" I could hear him groan as he had to do a spin-around since he was past the exit to 91 south already.

"Could've told me at the Cross," he grumbled.

"I know...Ms. Gilmore convinced me at the last second to head to her house." I winced, feeling a little guilty. My driver was always a little annoyed if I was a little late in a change of direction. Strangely this time he was more relieved than anything as he recovered from his annoyance.

" _Gracias a Dios_ , Paris." He turned slightly back. "I don't think any of us wanted you stuck in a hotel all alone." I saw him shake his head. "Stars Hollow it is."

I got a little more comfortable as he made the always fun turn at Market Street to get towards 91. Settling back for the 45 minute ride, I prepared myself for yet another bit of questioning from Ms. Gilmore as I just felt beyond exhausted and worn out.

It's been a long day. Too long a day. My face is still throbbing and I've been gulping water down my throat, thankful my mother didn't do anything to my larynx. My voice sounded a little odd, but I was sure to recover quick.

At least on that front. With my mother?

I don't think I can say I can ever heal from that.  


* * *

 ** Lorelai's POV, 10:15pm **

****I didn't think anything could top Emily's reaction to the girls coming out of the closet. Surely, that was the worst they would ever face, either one of them.  
I still shudder at the disappointment I felt from Mom as she stated her case.

Still, I understood her side. It wasn't expected of Rory. She was angered that all of her well set plans were falling apart. It's so par for the course with my mother that she'd probably hit a hole-in-one through the entire club ticking off the disappointments she felt.

The important thing though was there was no abuse of either Paris or Rory by her beyond vocal, and they were able to fight back and meet her word for word. There was malice there, but it was more self-preservation and protectiveness between my mother's barbs.

Frankly, it could've been a lot worse. I did expect worse. But I know she'll come around.

Maybe when a woman gets into the White House, but she will. If there's one thing I know, my mother knows she needs Rory just as much as Rory needs her, and they'll come to an understanding one day.

As for Sharon, well...what I pictured was for Paris's mother to be as crazy as she ever has been. Make a few disaffected cracks about her daughter, terrify her a bit and ground her for a few months when Paris is pretty damned smart to find ways out of it. The usual bluster of Sharon Gellar.

But I forgot for the longest time what that woman did to her when she was younger. All I remember of her accident was when Mom mentioned it at the Christmas party, and by then little Paris was well recovered and back at school, probably scaring little Louise Grant into being her friend. I didn't really think of Paris beyond being another society kid, and there were only a few rumblings that Sharon was drunk behind the wheel when she crashed. Back then I was just trying to survive with my own daughter and I forgot about the situation with the Gellars quickly.

I knew there was something wrong though. Paris rarely speaks of her mother. When she does, it's as if she's an obstacle she has to bound over. Then I remember the 11 o'clock phone call I got a year ago asking where she was on a Saturday night. The words 'plowing a guy' were used.

Rory then got on and told her that Paris was of course, studying at Louise's. The woman is so out of her mind that when I told her about how well-behaved she was compared to Madeline and Louise were in New York after the concert, she was more annoyed that her daughter didn't sneak out.

Wait, what was the term she used? Ahh, yes. Regarding her daughter's fine behavior, she responded that she would'nt 'sit through those fucking Bangles if she was paid to sit in the crowd. How Paris actually enjoyed that shitty music is beyond me. I thought I trained her well on only listening to smooth jazz'.

Sharon Gellar made a new enemy that night. Talk crap about me all you want, but you drag Susannah Hoffs into it you've gone too far. Thankfully it just rolled off and until this evening, I had no reason to really hate her beyond amusement and happy mocking about her being 'Mother Robot' and over-Botoxed.

Those days are over. So fucking over. Right now I'm thinking of ways to tell that bitch to stay away from a daughter she does not deserve at all. When I talked to Paris earlier I had been prepared for maybe a few scratches and her being a little shaken up from her mother's reaction.

I didn't expect a black eye. Not a swollen face. Nor for having to help her up the porch because of a pronounced limp that made her walk so painfully it physically hurt for me to see this girl in pain. I saw her get out of the car and I could tell that this wasn't a reaction.

It was rage. Anger. Cold hate that Paris had gone off on her own and in turn, taken Sharon off her game of thinking the girl was completely compliant to her, and only her. I shuddered as I had my first look at what a simple statement of saying she was in love with my daughter had done to her.

"Oh God," I said, out loud, almost in a shriek. I felt my jaw firm up as I got on the other side of Paris, as her driver helped her up the porch on the other side.

It was worse than when Sookie had to help me into the house when I broke my leg after coming home from the hospital. At least there I was pretty damned injured. Here, Paris was just slumped against me as her driver held her at her back and she limped her way onto the deck of the porch and eventually into the house.

"I...I need a bit of my cody," she slurred out as her voice was harsh and biting. I nodded but had to ask her help.

"When was the last time?" She answered when she ate at seven and I knew she was still too early to take her second dose of pain meds. "I'll get an icepack and tea; you can't be overdoing it on the pain meds, especially only for surface damage." She nodded and soon we had her slumped on the couch as her driver slid back on his fallen hat and I gave him a glance.

"Thank you." I was thankful that if Paris's family was cold and distant, the help that was paid to help her in the world treated her like one of their own. The older man gave me a glance and I could tell his deep concern for his charge. "Please promise me you'll tell everyone else at the Manor that Par's in good hands here."

He nodded solemnly. "Of course. I do trust you, ma'am. You have no ill bone in your body, according to Miss Gellar." Paris nodded in assent and then he told her something else. "I'll have one of the guys bring your XJ-8 over tomorrow so I can give him a ride home in the car."

"That...that's good," she told him, and then after we got Paris to sit on the couch a bit slumped over he said his goodbyes and left after some of what I thought were assurances in Spanish that all would be good for Paris.

I could feel her wincing and hurt as I locked the door to give her just that little bit more security. She looked up at me shyly and I knew she felt as if I was intruding on a deeply personal moment, hidden hurt she didn't want to go out into the world. I could see her wincing deeply as she tried to get comfortable until she placed a pillow against her back.

I headed into the kitchen to get her the tea while bringing out the ice pack from the freezer. It was awful to see the number Paris's mother had done on her. It certainly could have been worse for her and I could only hope that I wouldn't have to see Sharon for a long time.

After everything was made up I came back out into the living room to find the girl of the moment slumped over against the arm of the sofa, hurt and hobbled. I set the tea down in front of her on the table and handed her the pack, which she took thankfully and applied to her wound as soon as possible.

"Thank you," she said softly, her voice still ragged from the pressure put on her throat. "You...you sure you're OK with me here?"

"Don't even ask me that. This door is open to you as of now, always," I told her strongly. "Paris, you have no reason to feel any guilt at all. You were going to tell her--"

"It doesn't matter. Never would, never will," she said in a weary tone. "I didn't know how to go about telling her. Every time I'd think about it...I'd have a panic attack."

"That bad?" Paris nodded. "So you didn't want to?"

"Just push it off to a distant dinner and hope it didn't end up a complete disaster. But it did, and here I am." She curled up, taking a thankful sip of the tea and savoring it as I glanced more at what I would have to do for caring for her through the weekend.

I didn't know what I could really do besides being a sounding board. Mrs. Kim, despite all of her appearances didn't believe in spanking as punishment, and I've never had to deal with Lane running here after being punished beyond having a Foo Fighters CD discovered and smashed to pieces in front of her with a tenderizer. This was new, taking care of a kid after she's been abused.

I drew her out slowly, sitting next to her and finding out nearly what exactly happened. She held back some of the more vicious language used against her, but painted quite a colorful picture of what she went through as her mother punished her for her sexuality. That this could happen, in this age, was beyond shocking to me. I thought these kinds of things never happened these days, or in only the most religious of families. Certainly not in modern-day Connecticut.

But to hear this, I felt my heart sink so deeply. That a mother could distrust her child so deeply, as to invade their privacy in the way Sharon did through the detective...I just couldn't fathom it. That sounded like something my mom would have done.

Not really done, but thought about for a moment and stopped it because it was so absurd to even fathom carrying out in real life. If there is one thing Emily is, it's pragmatic. She only went to logical extremes to control me, ones she wouldn't be criticized for or vetoed by my father because they were too rash.

What I hated the most though was seeing Paris so broken. Usually she'd be making strong points, but her voice rarely even picked up over the television set playing an episode of _America's Most Wanted_ that was hardly being paid attention to. Her hands were deep inside of her hoodie and I could see her wince as she recalled every sickening moment of those short five minutes. There was nothing I could do but sit there and listen to what she had to say, knowing it wouldn't get any better for her for a while. To see her in this way, a shirking little girl where there was usually this powerful girl who couldn't easily be contained, was a shock to the system.

Paris whimpered and wept as she told of how her mother tried to choke her with only the collar of her own shirt, and I clenched my fists in anger, shaking them together.

"I couldn't breathe at all. I can still...feel it," she confessed. "Like another few seconds and...my brain activity would have begun to wind down. I looked in her eyes and they were completely vacant. Not a hint of any kind of sympathy or motherly compassion."

"I don't know what to say," I confessed. I really didn't. My mom at least couldn't bear the thought of raising a hand to me. Obviously Sharon was a different woman altogether. "I really don't. Except that what she did to you was wrong, and there was no right on her part to do that."

"Lorelai, she is my mother. She has the final say on how I should act. I pushed my luck too deeply, and--"

"And what?" I gritted out. "Acted like a normal teenager with all of these confused hormones spinning around?" I shook my head, trying to hold back my true feelings that I wanted to see **Sharon** in the hospital. "Honey, you can't defend this. There's just no way. Even when my mother was spouting off everything she said, she wasn't about to swing a fist at anyone. She reacted badly, but she didn't take it to the level your mother did."

She lowered her eyes down and clasped her fingers together, the oversized shirt covering them to her knuckles as she rubbed at the cuffs. "I was going to tell her. I was, but I wanted to do it right. But...but she found out and she said the worst things to me."

"An example?" I decided not to coddle her through this; I had to speak as if I was a teacher coaxing out forensic observation.

"There were multiple insinuations that I was a dyke," she stated matter-of-factly, though her voice still shook violently. "Which, of course, I am. But I just don't use that term. I couldn't bear it." Another few breaths on her end. "That I shamed my bloodline for feeling male companionship was unacceptable, and that Jamie would have been willing to push aside that he had been set up by her rather than talking to me after what was that one date back in the District."

She shirked down, looking towards the blanket on the back of the couch as I nodded permission for her to wrap herself in it. "There were a lot of things said. Even a threat to send me to an ultra-religious school in northern Maine which would numb me to death with Biblical proof I was one of 'God's errors'." I could see that Paris was struggling to stay composed, wrapped tightly in the blanket as she curled a tendril of hair back and forth. "I wasn't ready to tell her. Not at all. It was supposed to be...be...I wanted...and it..."

Her voice finally gave out, falling to the sobs that had bult up as her emotions hit the wall. I cringed at her sadness and immediately moved in to hug her. She was hardly the girl she usually was at all, tangled hair and bruised like she was, almost dead out of the worst of gay panic.

I couldn't even say how long I held her and rubbed her back, but it was more than five minutes for sure. She didn't...couldn't say a word and I could just offer the barest of soothing words for her. I didn't know how she felt. I couldn't. Even at the worst moment of finding out about my pregnancy, my mother was never the type to lay a finger on me, and wasn't about to start at that moment.

She was finally settled down and calmed as I released her and checked the clock on the VCR to see it reading after 9 o'clock. I let her go and saw her eyes were closed, trying to deal with the horror of this day.

"Thanks..." Her compliment was wracked with a quietness I never knew from Paris at all. She still didn't speak and I slid up from the couch, knowing I had to let her go. Her head was bowed as I brushed back my hair and hummed a little, nervous about leaving as I had planned before she came over.

"Hon, I have to get to the market," I told her. "Doose's is open until ten tonight. For some weird reason he stays open late during the holidays because he thinks people will give the gift of...food. Like someone's going to gift wrap a ham and put it under the tree. But that's fine, I have to pickup some things there." She stretched out on the couch as I could tell she was wanting extra legroom to maybe have a nap. "Umm, you need anything?"

She thought for a moment, clutching the blanket close until it was draped to above her neck. "Nothing with food." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a $10 bill. "I...I'm definitely in need of Chloraseptic. If not, my voice will be...a...(cough)...mess by..." She struggled to speak and cleared her throat one more time to finish out the sentence. "....Monday."

"Spray or lozenge, and what flavor?" I held up my hand to have her put away her money; I wasn't going to make her buy medicine when she was my guest.

"Cherry spray." She coughed a few more times as I grabbed my keys and my phone and grimaced, feeling Paris's pain as she looked up at me. I left her, hopefully so she could sleep off some of the pain she felt, though I knew her dreams aren't going to be kind to her at all for a long time.

"Bye, kiddo," I told her. "You can take your codeine before bed in about an hour, but make sure to have one of Sookie's snickerdoodles with it. That stuff's bad on an empty stomach." She nodded to not strain her voice, and I left, for once locking the door out of a lingering fear Sharon could possibly get out of jail and make a beeline for here.

Right now, I wander through the tight aisles of Doose's, very quiet and not really wanting to talk to anyone as I pick out my items. That poor girl went through so much today and I know there's not much I can do besides give her a shelter, and hopefully a good takeout breakfast tomorrow morning from Luke's. Until Rory gets home she's going to be a lost duckling looking for her way back to the path, and it hurts to have her so quiet and to have lost all of her drive and ambition, if just for one day.

Yes, I admit it; as odd as it sounds, Paris is more full of life when she's on all cylinders, and when she brings Rory into that mindset, it's amazing. She's come out of the shell she was stuck in for so long going to school here in town, and I can't help but be proud of her, especially on Tuesday evening when she went on about how she planned to bring the vote of the gay-straight alliance towards approval and how she strongly argued against Francine Jarvis's attempts to not only shoot it down, but bully her into giving up the fight.

I never knew my daughter to be so strong before. But with Paris in her corner, I'm seeing her finally lighting up. Beyond just having dreams, she now truly wants to live her life in the way she imagines. I couldn't see that happening with Dean, really, and he always seemed to want to confine her life to serve him.

As I take the Chloraseptic bottle from the display and put it in my cart though, I know that she and Paris are right for each other. I've grown to enjoy how she does love Rory and that she's opening up on her own because Rory isn't a friend made through obligation, but warm humanity.

She has to know that she's loved. I don't know with Sharon around if she's felt that enough, but she just has to. I don't think any of us want her to go back to having a cold heart once again and convince herself that Sharon was right. If she did, Rory would be devastated.

I did know one thing though;

If my words about Sharon's behavior tonight were tough, they'd pale compare to Rory's. Somehow, some way, I know that this is going to bring out the temper she inherited from Mom and Trix, for sure.

Sharon better gird herself, because when Rory hears about how she hurt her girlfriend...

Well, Francie already knows how that feels, and she got the light treatment...  


* * *

 ** Paris's POV, Midnight **

****I can't get over this pain.

I'm trying, but it's not working. I feel paralyzed, trying to move, but it's impossible. I'm not chilled by an injury, but fear. Fear that Sharon will find out where I am after she bails out. Stumbling around the house and hoping to God my drugs take effect and knock me out, my stomach is a mess, churning around and feeling so thrown off rhythm. I hide under the blankets, feeling lost as I have to be doubly protected by the fear I feel. Colonel Clucker to my right, Grumpy Bear to my left. The chicken at least has been clean; I swear that Grumpy hasn't been washed in years, collecting layers and layers of dust and still carrying drool from fifteen years ago.

But old germs, I can handle; my mother coming back for me is too much.

Inside Rory's room, I feel protected. At home. But I still feel alone. It's not my bed, not my place. This is all Rory, clutter and balky boiler and drafty windows and all. It's just her bed and I'm laying in it for the night.

I've cried more today than I have in years. My gym grade is gonna be shot to hell thanks to my mother's attempt at 'reforming' me. I can't use my luxury shower.

But right now, this is home for me.

I can barely move my foot and I'm probably going to ask Ms. Gilmore to run me to the hospital tomorrow for a second opinion and maybe crutches. It got worse, and my face is still swollen tightly.

I'm so lost. I didn't do anything to harm my mother at all. Whom I love shouldn't affect her in any way unless they decide to harm her.

Still, she almost took me to the light I hope not to see for years and years. I could see it approaching when Fran got her attention and forced her to remove her hands from the collar around my throat.

I don't know how I can really describe it, beyond knowing what my mother said was hurtful and terrible. That she would think what she did of Rory, I will never reconcile.

Coming out of this evening, I do know one thing that I didn't going into this evening;

I don't have to be afraid of Rory's possible future stepmother.

Well, that is if she even gets there. Right now, I'm a little surprised at how parallel the tracks both Rory and I are on this weekend have been.

I was laying down watching the news on Fox 61 when somehow, I found the Gilmore home phone wedged between my rear and the couch. How I didn't feel it was beyond me. But it was ringing in that moment, Lorelai was still at the store and I didn't know whether to answer or not.

Then again, according to Rory, that someone found the phone in that house is a miracle in itself. There are times they have to use their cell phones to find it in the first place with an incoming call.

There it was though, ringing. As it was possible my father was calling, I decided to answer, just in case it was him.

"Hello?"

A pause for a moment, and then I heard a familiar female voice that was a little jarred.

"Oh...sorry, Par. I guess I have the wrong number, sorry about that."

"Ror, no--" As quick as she was on the line, she had hung up under the mistaken belief she called my cell rather than home. "Oh, crap," I uttered, wondering if I scared her off.

Nope, as fast as I hung up the phone, twenty seconds later it rang again. I picked up again.

"Hello?"

"Crap, what is wrong with this thing?" For once this evening I could have a little giggle at what was developing into the worst game of phone tag ever. "Paris, I keep trying to call Mom, sorry again."

"No, I'm--" (click) "--here." Again, another twenty seconds, another ring. This time I was just going to cut to the chase as I hit the talk button.

"Gilmore, I swear to God if you hang up again I'll submit a report to the headmaster questioning your IQ," I spit out in my hoarse (but slowly recovering) voice. "You are calling home."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "This time I dialed out the actual number manually...wait." A pause. "Are you actually at my house, on my home phone?"

I rolled my eyes; at least I could have at least one light moment tonight. "Why else would I pick up this line?" I took in a breath, a little lilt in my mind from hearing Rory's voice. "Yes, Gilmore, I'm at your house."

"Oh." She held a pregnant pause for a bit. "What are you doing there?"

"I..." _Should I tell her? She's meaning to catch up with Lorelai probably._ "Um, do you want me to have Lorelai call you when she gets home? She's at the market."

Suddenly, what was a fully formed conversation turned into a struggle to speak between us both. After a half-minute of quiet, she spoke up. "I...I actually don't know. I did mean to talk to her, but you're at my house." Another long pause as I could hear her biting on her lip (at least I thought so). "I...I wasn't sure if I should talk to you about this or not. I expected to wait until tomorrow night, but...you're at my house. Why?"

What was 'this'? I could tell something in her voice once I was able to shake from my stupor. Usually there was that sweet tone to her voice, but at that moment, there was a little harshness I had only recognized from our arguments and her in full debate against Francie.

I stayed silent for a moment wondering where to go with this talk. We were both unsure of where to go, that much I could tell. "Ror, talk to me."

"You sound different," she said, finally taking in my voice. "What's up with your voice?"

I felt caught; I didn't want to be the focus. This was Rory calling in, and surely she didn't want to hear my worries. "Do you want to leave a message for your mom or not?" I said, trying to remain neutral, but knowing who she really wanted to talk to. "Rory--"

Suddenly without warning, she unloaded on me. "I would, but I'm still too pissed to reconcile how I feel!" I felt myself coil up when she dropped the rare mild profanity. "I was ready to go into a long rant with her like I always do, but you're on the line, I didn't expect to talk to you and...crap."

"Feel about what?" I didn't know what to say. "Are you mad at me?"

"God, no! Of course not," she said in a rush, which immediately calmed me. "I'm mad though. Very mad."

"What happened, did Harvard email you something you didn't like?"

"I wish it was that." A pause, and then a sigh. "Maybe I should just tell you know. You can calm me down enough to talk to Mom without going into hysterics."

"About?"

One more pause, and then a bombshell was dropped.

"My dad just pretty much disowned me." Her voice hitched. "The jackass paraded back into my life two years ago, and now all the sudden the idiot is blaming Mom for 'screwing me up'!" I heard nothing but unabated anger. No crying, no wounding.

This was hate.

"What?!" I felt the wind taken from my lungs. "The hell? Rory, what are you talking about?"

"I told him about us a couple hours ago. I came out to him. Thought he'd be supportive...but the first words out of his mouth after I explained my love for you were 'My daughter is a fucking dyke.' I went from elated to seeing him to wanting to..." She drew herself away from the phone for a moment. "I'm so sorry to be swearing right now, but after being told I was a 'regretful mistake' by him, I'm not exactly sunshine and goddamned flowers!"

"Whoa, hold on!" My voice continued to strain. "OK, Gilmore? Before you go further, pause and tell me. I...I'm surprised right now. Think, process, focus."

"Oh, I'd like to process alright...that I think of him as a mere sperm donor now! He's not 'Dad' any longer!"

I had to talk her through calming down, which for someone who had gone through what I did today was quite hard. Focusing on her, I was able to block out my pain for a moment and hear her tell me about her day. Not seeing anything on her end, I had to go with how she talked about the afternoon.

Everything started great for her and Christopher, of course. But then they apparently got home and after sitting down to delivered pizza and chicken, she came out at the table after he noticed Rory had something to say. Sherrie was there, of course, seven months pregnant and on medical leave due to her pregnancy being a little rockier than she expected.

At first, Christopher thought Rory was joking, but as it became clear that she was telling the truth about being a lesbian, apparently it went downhill, and fast. Without warning he began to attack Rory's morals and her feminism, and asking how she could be attracted to a girl with a 'stick up her ass' like me. As she tried arguing her points, then it degraded to a hateful criticism of Lorelai's parenting and how he suddenly wished he would've been there to put a little masculinity into her life. Rory had eventually been backed into a corner of the apartment and was scared for her life as her father whined about trying to be a good provider and proving himself through his many dot-com and working failures, telling her that Lorelai was a 'stupid bitch' to have turned down his marriage proposal two years before.

However, where I had always cringed about Sherrie, it soon became clear that she was the reason that Rory escaped from having actually fists thrown at her.

"I was about to take a hard slap to the face and be told that I was an awful human being for becoming gay..." A deep sigh.

"Thank God for Sherrie Tinsdale. Thank...God."

"Wait..." I paused. "The woman who we've been annoyed at for months? Who keeps bugging you? That woman?"

"Paris, she stopped him. Chris forgot that Sherrie's brother Devon is gay, has been in a committed relationship for twelve years and has two children. She waddled out of her seat, stood up, and just...man, I still can't get over it!"

The perky and hyper lawyer I thought of as an _Ally McBeal_ reject suddenly was as big a hero to Rory as Fran was to me earlier. Even pregnant and deeply incapacitated, that woman told him where he could stick his homophobia and made it clear that he's probably out a girlfriend, as he refused to take back repugnant views I know his awful excuse for parents share with him.

"You should have seen her. He was shouting in her face, and she never even withered. Even when I told him to stop shouting because it was stressing Gigi out, Sherrie just shrugged it off. 'I can take it, and she can take it', she said. She stood up to him for me, got in front of me and told him if he wanted to beat me for my sexuality, he had to abuse a pregnant woman first."

"Holy crap." I couldn't believe it. Eventually, she chilled Christopher out completely.

"She told him to apologize or find a different place to sleep for the night. He laughed at her threat at first, but soon she had the phone in her hand and was ready to call the police to have him arrested for trespassing. Isn't it funny that after all this time, my father still has never contributed a cent of rent? The lease is in her name."

Christopher tried to pull out the last card in his deck and as Rory described it, I was in awe. Trying to play the new father/man of the house card he tried to claim that if he left, poor old Sherrie would be left alone in her apartment and not have anyone take care of her without a big, strong man.

I could hear the smugness in Rory's voice as she described her put-down. "Cut the bull," she told him. "You really think I'm that stupid? Without your dumb ass not realizing that you should never trust a condom machine in a Southie bodega, you would've never given me a glance again if I didn't have your child." She said she refused to raise a kid with a homophobe and threw him out until he could spare an apology. "So right now he's with one of his bar buddies in the South End laying on a horrible couch and hopefully regretting what he just lost."

"Wow..." I was shaking my head. I always found Christopher Hayden a smug son of a bitch (literally; Francine Hayden rivals my mother in pure cuntiness) and wondered how Lorelai could have ever imagined having a relationship with him. He's like Tristan, only more insufferable and with less consideration of his female lovers; at least Tristan always had a fresh Trojan on-hand before instigating a conquest. "So Sherrie? Not a...blocker?"

"She's on our side, Par. Her brother and his guy are coming by tomorrow to get some chores and errands done with me. She um...had this kind of odd squeal about having her intuition right. Heck, she even apologized to me for ruining our victory night and feels terrible about getting in your way!"

"Past is the past, what's done is done," I answered. "I'm...I'm just glad you're OK. You are, right?" I hoped she hadn't taken any harm at all.

"Outside of the idea I won't have my father joining PFLAG any time soon and my dream of Mom and him as a couple is completely dead, I'm just fine. Really."

There was a bit of silence as I knew what was coming to a head. I girded myself, clutching the phone tightly and sliding beneath the blanket. Taking a few steady breaths I played with my palm, hoping to remain calm. I'm sure that I could, but still...this was tough to get through, no matter the circumstances.

"So I guess the question I should have for you is..." A purposeful pause. "Why are you at my house? And why does your voice sound like you went through a carton of Newports?"

Here it was. I audibly cringed, took a deep breath, and despite all the warnings I might break down in my mind, went forward. "Not for fun, that's for sure." Immediately I knew I wouldn't get through this without tears. "Rory...um, I don't know how to tell you this. Or how you'll react. But..."

"...I'm going to be here awhile."

A few seconds of silence. She could hear the hurt in my voice, I knew. "What's going on. Awhile?"

I looked around the room, hearing the beat of my heart in my eardrums. "Par, tell me."

"I...I knew this was...I should go..."

"Paris, what's wrong?" I began to feel the anger and hurt well up all over again. "What--"

"Sharon found out," I said, my hand forming into a fist beneath the blanket. "She found out and..."

Then for the third time that day, but the first time in true detail, I told her. Everything. All I could remember, of being hurt, the photos, the slurs against her. I could feel my voice going, breaking up, and I spent the next ten minutes on the phone just repeating the day. Just like when I told her about the accident, she had no interjections, letting me go on and on until I had everything out. I could feel my cheek swell up once again and had to grab the ice pack in the cooler lunch bag next to the remote to calm the pain down.

I had to tell her. To have her come back tomorrow evening angry was something I couldn't handle.

"...and now I'm here," she said. "And I'll be sleeping in your bed tonight. That is, if you don't mind. Otherwise I can just--"

She finally broke in. "Damn straight you're staying in my bed." I darted back suddenly as she let herself go. "If that woman lays the merest glare of hate upon you when she gets out of jail, she's gonna find herself without a functioning gallbladder when I rip it out of her with a rusty knife."

"Oh my God!" I was flabbergasted by her reaction. I would've gone more with a 'that's horrible, I hope she stays away from you.' "Rory--"

"I mean it. She hurts you, she hurts me. I might not be known for inflicting much pain and being a nicey-nicey Mary, but when it comes to that bitch..." the word fell like acid from her lips in that cute voice. "She just made a very pissed off enemy."

"Calm down, I'm out--"

"I can't calm down! My father's ditched me and your mother almost **killed** you for being in love. With me! Jesus, Par, I'm less threatening than a poodle! Sharon really thinks I'm a corrupting influence?"

"Well, you kind of are," I said wryly. "Obviously though she would've done this even if I fell for Megan Mullally."

"I...I can't help but feel bad I wasn't there."

"Don't. I'm glad you weren't. If you were there I'm sure it would've been a lot worse." I couldn't even fathom her double-teaming us. "I'm glad you were in Boston, even if you still ended up with the worst result possible. I'm really sorry."

"We've taken it on the chin from three relatives," she said. "Surely the Chilton gossip mill will be nothing if we managed to get through those three." I nodded, clenching my teeth, knowing that the big one was the classmate reaction soon to come. It was undeniable; the moment my mother got out of jail, her first stop was to spread dirty gossip about Rory and I.

The worst thing was Madeline would be powerless to stop it. But to save on the already overwhelming angst of the night I bit my tongue and averted away from the topic, asking how our new surprising friend was holding up.

"Until my dad blew up, just fine. She's very obsessive about pre-natal vitamins and beta-carotene. And she has this idea that if she plays nothing but classical music Gigi's going to have more brainpower than Hawking and Einstein combined. But anything to be the best."

"I can tell you from experience it can't hurt." I gulped down a little water, still feeling down but somewhat better. "Can you apologize for anything awful I've said about her in the past? I...I didn't mean it. It was just all lost opportunity and all that."

"I will let her know. I think she'll be relieved," she said. "I think she's a little glad to be stuck in the apartment, actually. Her friends wanted her to gloat up to the last day about the pregnancy and do plenty of showers, but she's a little bit different. Scarily calm. She's doing pregnancy yoga too."

"How is that possible?"

"Paris, Paris, Paris...have you forgot the lessons from our marketing unit and the locker kit already?"

"In the wise words of your grandfather, 'everything has a market. Everything.' How true that is, even with exercise during pregnancy." Finally we were moving away from the ugliness and towards the destination we wanted to be at.

Tomorrow.

"Are you sure you don't want me on the next Acela south? I can do it," she insisted.

"No, no, I'm good." I shook my head. "Get to know Devon and recover. We can catch up tomorrow night when I begin to sleep on the couch--"

Her voice suddenly turned a little stern. "Paris?"

"Hmm?"

"You're getting an air mattress, at minimum, and you will sleep in my room, even if I have to fight Mom on it. You're my girlfriend, not my cousin Trey crashing on the couch before heading for the Adirondacks."

"You have a cousin named Trey?" I asked.

"On Chris's side, we don't tend to talk about him that much. Mainly because he's ultra-weird."

"I don't even want to know."

"I haven't seen him since I was ten, that's all you need to know." After going off on the weirdest conversation detour I've ever known we went off on a small tangent, getting towards schoolwork and how I was pissed that I didn't get my Yale library time.

Yes, even after all I went through, I felt like a total fool for welching on my study time. I'd have to explain eventually to who I was able to book the time with, but for now, I was just glad to be safe. And breathing.

Soon, we were ready to close out the conversation as I desperately pined for my Chloraseptic and Lorelai to get back. I cringed as I felt the raw feeling return and couldn't wait for the numbness to return with a few throat sprays. But I had to let myself let Rory know how much she meant to me.

"Gilmore?"

"Yeah?"

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and with the last of my voice this evening...

"I'd give it all up for you. I love you, Rory, and...nobody will stand in our way." Again, I cried. I'm sure my tear ducts haven't seen this much use since my terrible twos. I choked back deep sobs as on her end, Rory showed her true emotions for me, content to know she'd rather have me in her life than a man who could barely muster a thought about her unless it came to using her to score with her mother.

"I'm coming home for you," she told me, full-hearted emotions on display. "You better be ready to cuddle and let me comfort you when Mom picks me up from New Haven tomorrow night. And when we see your therapist on Monday night I'll be there to see you through."

"I love you, Par," she declared. "And I'm ready for whatever the hell gets thrown at us by Sharon."

She knew I could say no more, and wished me a goodnight before hanging up the line, telling me she'd call her mom back after I went to sleep. I said a soft and whispered goodnight myself, barely whispered, the comedy of our first phone conversation's goodnight pattern long gone. My heart hammered as I slid the phone onto the coffee table, wondering if it was going to be all worth it.

Both of us had seen the harshest of rejections by parental figures today. Truly this was going to be a day that would be my worst ever, even compared to if a certain place starting with the letter H would somehow mistakenly send a certain letter I would dread receiving. I had gone through so much, while Rory had the final sign that her father only cared about her in the white picket fence sense of fantasy, not the reality of her as a strong and independent young woman looking to turn the glass ceiling of journalism into glass chards with a baseball bat.

Eventually Lorelai got home, and was relieved that Rory and I were able to talk somehow, though I decided to just leave it at 'we talked' and not mention her troubles with Christopher just to keep my nerves calm. I thankfully took a few spritzes of Chloroseptic into my mouth and felt the pain in my throat subside, if only for a little while. I couldn't have asked for better support this evening, and was glad to check my cell phone for a response to my message for Madeline that I was safe at Lorelai's. She had been able to get a little time to respond.

_Bless u & bless Lorelai 4 taking u in. B safe & OK P, TTY @ school Monday - Mads_

__For once, I was glad to read Madeline's horrid text speak. Even if she wasn't able to give me a room tonight, her and Brad are on our side and a true friend. I can tell that behind her teddy bear front there are claws ready to come out if anyone dares to tell Rory and I that we're wrong.

Soon though, I began to flag. The long day wore on me, and though I wanted to avoid the fearful dreams that were sure to come in slumber, my body needed it. I had already avoided Dr. Merton's advice to sleep right away when I settled down enough for so long, and thankfully it was time to get in a nice dreamless Lunesta sleep to send me deep into slumber. I eventually headed into the bedroom, feeling odd for being in Rory's space without her in the same state. I kept the room dark and slipped into a sleep shirt and shorts, hoping I'd be able to get some sleep without the comfort of my high thread count sheets--

OK, I need to stop. I can't be petty at all. Where would I rather be, safe and sound in Stars Hollow, or scared that one of Sharon's DCW cronies bailed her out and was ready to help her beat the gay from me?

There's absolutely no choice. I do have the protective order I filled out, but to the Hartford richies it might as well be on the same paper as Confederate money. I have to stay here. If I go back to Sharon, there's no telling what will happen.

I know I've set up an awkward living situation, and Lorelai is probably fretting about how she's going to take care of another girl for the time being (and with my long hair her water bill's about to take a big hit). Of course I'm going to help her and Rory out monetarily with my expenses, no argument there.

None of those extraneous items are important in any way though. All I know is I don't have a mother any longer, and for now I cannot go back to the Manor. I sigh as I look at the small pile of things I retrieved before leaving the house, thankful I'll have my uniform and other important supplies tomorrow, and that I have assurances that my bedroom door will be locked with an immediate lock change so Sharon cannot go _Mommy Dearest_ on my belongings.

I slide up Grumpy Bear to my cheek, and somehow, I feel warm just for having Rory's stuffed chicken behind me. Even with all I went through on this day, I learned I am protected on all sides, and not alone in this world. Even my own therapist would take a bullet for me, Hippocratic Oath be damned.

I don't know why. But even in a cramped little twin bed far away from my own, in a small town I could have never imagined as my safe haven, and with my girl not here...

I feel at home for the first time in a long time. And even though I'm wise beyond my years, holding a blue stuffed bear with a raincloud on its tummy doesn't feel stupid at all to me.

I came through hell, and my intentions are to be happy, whatever the cost. I am Paris Gellar, not Sharon Gellar, Jr.

Hopefully in that jail cell tonight, Sharon realizes I'm done playing her games. I'm done living for her.

She will not strip this happiness away from me like the other countless times she has, nor will her new scars hurt me like those from the past. Her words of wishing for my death will bounce right off, and hopefully one day I can look her in the eye and tell her straight to her face that she lost. She lost me, but also a whole lot more the moment she laid her hand on my neck.

I guess that chestnut of wisdom is right. Home is where the heart is.

My heart, for now, feels right in Stars Hollow. And hopefully my heart will be able to beat against Rory's tomorrow evening, as she calms me from the rages of this weekend.  


* * *

 **_To be continued..._ **  



	23. Releasing a Burden, Tossing a Lifeline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory's trip to Boston to see her father and the mother of her sister hardly goes as planned as she confronts new realities about a man she thought she knew. She also works through other complications.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-Three | Releasing a Burden, Tossing a Lifeline  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, solely Rory's POV for this chapter.  
 **Spoilers:** No spoilers except to say as I have noted before, "Take the Deviled Eggs" never took place in this story, and we're in the middle of December 2002 at this point. In fact as you will see, none of the characters outside of Sherrie, Christopher and Rory appear in Boston in this story at all (explanation later).  
 **Rating:** R (sexual situations, homophobia, threats of violence, profanity, and a months-too-late joke regarding _50 Shades of Grey_ )  
 **Disclaimer:** The show ended five years ago. _Gossip Girl_ is getting creamed in the ratings by ABC Family and has ratings only the outdoor channels would love. Yet, there's Warner Bros. Television still telling me _Gilmore Girls_ isn't mine, along with Hofflund-Polone. Oh, and Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions/Amy Sherman-Palladino is over there giving me the side-eye, like 'don't profit off this, bub'. No fears, guys, money shall not be made off this at all. All products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied.

Note that I have tried to research Boston "T" lines as much as I could to Brookline, but the MBTA's website might be one of the most complicated sites I have ever known, so apologies for any errors in routing or such (and if there is an easy train or bus there, we can call the scene dramatic license). Thankfully the Amtrak site has an easy PDF to follow the Acela route, so that was much less a problem (outside the likely schedule tweaks between the last ten years). I used a website named "celticsbeagle.net" to look up the actual scores and rundowns of the Celtics games mentioned within this story, and thank them for helping me because I'm a stickler for accuracy.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, RalSt, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Rory's trip to Boston to see her father and the mother of her sister hardly goes as planned as she confronts new realities about a man she thought she knew. She also works through other complications.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** Can it be? Will I get a chapter out in under five months for the first time since the early portions of this story? Yes, I have finally found some good encouragement to help this story along, the most important being the purchase of a new laptop to replace what was literally my old laptop bought four years ago coming apart at the seams. I had already shipped it off once for repairs, but now with it coming apart, I used duct tape to keep it together as long as I could. With that, writing was discouraging and my current work situation had not been conducive to writing. But that has changed, and now I'm writing more thankfully (though that's more to forget about work, but I digress).

Thank you to everyone who's stuck by this story for years, and those who keep following me through every social media channel. Without you, this story would have ended long ago.

There are more author's notes, but as I don't want to ruin anything, those are at the end of the chapter (no peeking...hey, hey, move your fingers away from the End key please! Don't ruin the surprise.) Also, ff.net, 23rd time...ladies are in love, if you hate it, why have you been reading it for so long? Isn't there some _Vampire Diaries/Beauty & the Beast 2012 _crossover where Katherine tells the new Beast guy "Uh, yeah, you have a scar dude. You're not a beast. Get over yourself and get some sunlight" out there to read (and if there is...we need more English funding in schools because _BATB2012_ is terrible)?

Finally, 'Sherrie' is spelled the way it is because that's how her name was rendered in the closed captioning of the season two and three episodes we saw her in, not the later show spelling of 'Sherry' in other online sources. Because I started this story so long ago and revising it in each place I have posted it would range from complicated to impossible, I have chosen to retain the 'ie' spelling for consistency and simplicity, along with the aesthetics that 'ie' looks better than 'y' in reading. This is the same reason the spelling of Paris's last name of 'Gellar' has remained across all of my stories despite it tilting to 'Geller' in later seasons and after the end of the series; I write how I experienced and interpreted the show as a fan, not how the studio did after it ended.

Chapter title inspiration partially from Sarah McLachlan's "Home" and a connecting thread that seemed perfect to title the chapter. Again, she comes through with the title inspiration!  


* * *

** Rory's POV, 1:00am Sunday **

****Coming into this weekend, I thought I knew everything about my father that I could. That he was a good guy, just a little misunderstood, someone who tried to find his niche but just wasn't able to because he's like a vagabond, a guy who just travels on and on until he finds something he loves.

I thought one day that my dream of Mom and him marrying would come true, that I would be able to say I have parents rather than just one parent who raised me, and another who visited when they could between projects. I had brought myself into the kind of thinking where my dad was just this being that existed to show that yes, I did have a father, he was cool and though he wasn't around, he loved me for who I am.

Sure, he got his credit rejected for trying to buy me a huge dictionary. He must've just had a problem with his card he could work out, right?

Yeah, he didn't come to my birthday parties or send me a card because he was busy. No big deal, because Christmas was two months away and he could make it up then.

Of course, so he got a few suspensions in high school for being a bully and mouthing off at his teachers--

Hold on, that's not a good thing. That isn't, right? Mom and I have gotten by our entire school careers without much trouble. I served detention for my ill-advised revenge on Samantha and learned from it; that I never want to be that bored in a classroom after school again.

I also know that despite the annoyance I've shown to my girlfriend at times, I've never been to the point of....how did he put it?

Telling her to 'get the fuck out of my way'.

Nor do I parade in after 1am coming back from the Red Sox or Celtics game with my buddies, stomping in and having a few beers while his beloved struggles to sleep, nor do I treat my book collection like the true love of my life instead of my lady.

How is it that Sherrie is pregnant with his child, but he gets angry and annoyed at her when she decides to dust off his CD and vinyl collection?

Which is all encased in jewel cases and cardboard sleeves? At least they're protected; the only thing keeping Sherrie from early labor is a bubble of fluid surrounding my future sister.

Oh, and he could carry on trying to delude my mom into thinking he was unattached when he let Sherrie go and leave her heartbroken and Sherrie stuck having to father his child? And not telling her about it at all?

As you can tell, I'm not happy with Christopher Hayden at all. I was excited a few short hours ago, but now I'm just clenching my fists and wishing I never came up here.

I never thought the words 'shit list' would ever come to my mind. Or as a lover of lists, I'd never had any names contained on said list. Because I love everyone. I'm able to find the good in everyone I've ever met.

Heck, I found good in Tristan DuGrey. Tristan, who pretty much admitted to pleasuring himself to me daily in his teasing! At least he's still young and if I swung in his direction I might like him to ravish me like a rich millionaire who--

Oh, God! Mom had this terrible romance novel with S&M she was reading and I keep coming back to it! God, I hope something like that never becomes a bestseller.

But yes, Tristan is good. He stood by Paris. When someone put her down, he would fight for her honor. Or mine. Despite how much of a jackass he was, there was still a little light in his soul that I hope has expanded in North Carolina.

Otherwise, right now, yes; I do have a 'shit list'. Dean of course, #1. Never going to forgive him, and to rub salt in the wound, guess who's visiting from Chicago over the holiday season?

I'll give you a hint; the name starts with 'B' and ends with 'eth, that stupid whore who stole him from me and thank God because she can have that boring idiot'!

No, I'm not bitter at all, why do you ask?

Anyways, he was the only one who had ever earned that honor. A list of one. One I could easily maintain and forget.

As of 2am on Sunday morning, December 15, 2002, there are now two other names on it. And if I had this written down on a yellow legal pad, this is how it would be written angrily with a blue Papermate pen;

_#1. Dean Forrester. Cheating bastard, chauvinistic dimbulb, pretend reader of great fiction who couldn't even get through Ramona Forever without getting bored. Also, his friends make Spicoli look like a Rhodes Scholar._

__And now; two new entries;

_#2. Christopher Hayden. Claims to be my father; now in my mind a mere sperm donor. Disowned me for my sexuality, told me a little masculinity in my life would have kept me straight. His parents regard me the same way they do The Elephant Man; an abomination that ruined their perfectly planned lives. I would rather drink battery acid than inherit one penny from them. Also, continues to try to get my mom long after her interest in him is gone. Mom now considered 'cockblocker' in his eyes. Also really doesn't want to be a father a second time and treats the mother of his child like complete crap._

__Finally, we get to the part of the night I'd like to call the 'thank God I wasn't there' setting. The one where I uttered multiple obscenities after I got off the phone. The one person on this 'shit list' I would be willing to take a lethal injection for snuffing out their acrid excuse of a life from this earth.

I'm kind, they say. Chilton's "Mary". Wouldn't hurt a fly and dresses with birds in the morning.

Guess what? Dorothy killed a witch with a house. A **house**. And the film showed she brushed off the guilt eventually of killing said witch because it ended up for the public good.

Trust me, a house wouldn't be enough here. I'd drop the Empire State Building on this one. No guilt, no fucking remorse for doing so. I would click my heels three times and unleash hell if it got rid of them.

Here we go, before this written record is used against me in a court of law;

_#3. Sharon Gellar. A worthless excuse for a human being. Cares only for herself. Would've aborted Paris if she hadn't discovered her pregnancy later without a care to her husband's opinion, or splattered her against a Jersey barrier when she was four, shit-faced drunk. Criticizes her daughter for every imperfection. Hates that she is a strong-ass feminist. Probably has had more work than Joan Rivers. Snuffed out her daughter's sexuality via a private eye. Called her a dyke for being in love with me. Tried to kill Paris for who she was in love with. Has my girl scared for her fucking life. Has me looking up the state's self-defense laws and praying the 25th comes soon. Lower than plankton on the food chain. If she dares come within my personal space...she really doesn't want to. Just trust me. Bitch. Cunt. Heartless._

__Yes, that is in my head. I, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore have thought this, obscenities and all.

And there's gonna be no 'take it back and grovel' like I did after I got back from New York. This...this is truly how I feel about her. After having to hear all that Paris had gone through this morning and to know this strong woman I love, who I know could make the Headmaster wither and my grandfather reel back with her acumen for everything...that she was reduced to just this small shell of a girl, retracting from her strength, hiding in a corner of her room holding a Care Bear tight as if willing it to come to life and protect her.

If you were telling me a few months ago that I was going to feel like defending Paris Gellar from her mother as if Buffy Summers was holding back her friends from a horde of vampires, I would've looked at you as if you were crazy.

But now, I know I love her. When I said those words to her in Miss Patty's, I still felt a little unsure, scared, shocked that in the space of a month I had gone from just dancing with Paris, to being her partner in all aspects.

I love her. I love Paris.

And also, I love Sherrie Tisdale for being here for me tonight. From showing me that I should stick to my guns and whatever happens, it is good. Soon, she's going to give me a sister I get to guide through life, and now, God willing, I'm going to have a reason to go to Boston for more than a school.

I'm proud of what we did tonight. She stood up to a man who had been trying to take her down silently, nitpicking her and abusing her in not a physical, or a mental sense, but in a questioning manner that almost made her regret ever telling him she was having his child.

I also did the same thing. But I did more. I stood up to the mythology he had built up in my head for so long, of this 'good guy' who had just caught some bad breaks in life. Never mind the abandonment of my mother. The brush-offs of requests to come home to Connecticut for more visitations when I was younger. For just a mere letter once in awhile. And of the phone calls my mother hid from me, where she was told no birthday present was coming my way because 'he was a little short'.

Too many things to deal with tonight. The Rory of two years ago would have just crumpled up and ran away, or went silent.

All I want to do is go home. To give Paris the comfort she needs. But she knows Sherrie needs me here too, to make sense of everything.

I look at this woman who has somehow come into my life, a perfectionist and compulsive like I am. She planned to have a child at 38, not 32, when she made partner. She would have chosen a better father.

But now, like me, she's in unexpected circumstances. Planning to be a single mother if Christopher doesn't come back. Doing all she can to assure her kid gets the life she deserves, no matter the bigoted views of the child's father and its paternal grandparents.

Somehow though, I think we'll hang in there. It's going to be long and rough for both of us; her with Georgia, me with Paris. But if my mom can make it to manage an Inn, I can definitely be just as strong.

I'm going to get this all out, but whatever the case, I know my father is wrong.

Because this 'fucking dyke' is going to prove him and the Haydens wrong. I don't need his help.

And I certainly the hell don't need Sharon Gellar either...  


* * *

** Saturday, 12 Noon **

****It had been a long day. After getting off at South Station I had been very hopeful for this visit. Sherrie was stuck at the apartment on doctor-ordered bedrest, which left Dad to take me around town before getting back to his apartment. I felt pretty good, a cheerful conversation with Paris before I left keeping my spirits high when it came to my girlfriend, and my mom being thankful for a nice weekend being able to trust me all alone again. I was relieved; after the bus trip to see Jess I thought for sure I was going to be grounded from going on this trip, but I promised Mom deeply that I wouldn't do anything to upset her.

"So you'll stay on the train? You're not going to run off with some guy you meet on there, right?" I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, because I'm sure Paris would love that," I returned back. " I'm going to be too distracted to do anything else."

"Wait, not even a glance out the window?"

"It's a two-hour train ride through the boring part of Connecticut. I have too much to do," I argued. "Besides, I had a dream about Par--"

I laughed as I knew Mom's reaction; a cringe and a quick wave of her hands. "I need not know the details of your dreams, young lady! You just keep that to yourself!"

"See, I have plenty to distract me."

"And that's what scares me," she said, quickly coming back. "I still can't believe I grabbed her bra Thursday night after you two made out while I was gone. I really thought it was yours when I was getting the laundry together."

"Well it's hard to take off and--" I stopped myself, not wanting my mother to know how I manage to do things with Par even with my bedroom door still open. "She knows now, remember where it is! Boy does she know."

"Aww, my daughter is so cerebral and brainy when it comes to planning a makeout session," she said, teasing me as we got into New Haven Union Station. "How'd you talk her into it?"

I scoffed. "I'm not telling you that!" I raised my eyebrows. "Geeze, I thought having a **girl** friend would reduce my sexual scrutiny."

"Oh, Rory, you should know by now, I'm going to me a nosy woman forever, man or woman." She laughed as I shook my head, all the while my brain filled with the image of Paris in the Stars Hollow High gym class t-shirt required for that godforsaken hour of hell where the aftermath was the girls in my class leering at me for being plain and abnormal. I bought it in an extra large size as I had no intention of showing off my body to the pervs in that school. Worked quite well, but after I left I had no use for it at all.

That is, until I saw it on my closet on Wednesday night trying to find my 'Thursday night home date' outfit, for the 'night of fun' I promised her. Suddenly, the wheels in my mind turned and before I knew it, I had a way to bring us back from the sadness of our Monday night post-RTS debate...

_Mom was still at the Inn, stuck for awhile there while she had to deal with the rush of filling out the reservations, which had opened up to lottery for Christmas and New Year's weeks for the few that had cancelled out their trips because of other circumstances. I had everything planned as Paris came into the house, putting down her messenger bag next to the bed as I got in and got off my blouse as soon as I could._

_"You really will never like the blouse, will you?" she observed wryly as I tossed it into the laundry, leaving me in a blue cami purposely picked out to make my eyes stand out. "One of these days you're going to be cold and keep that on once you get in your room."_

_"Well, tonight's not that night." I smiled at her, sighing as I felt the lovely chill of the pre-boiler kick in give me that lift I needed. "And now you need to change out of your uniform." I wagged my eyebrows, knowing I'd receive a huff and an eyeroll from Par. "Come on, I have something for you."_

_"No...I have clothes in my bag," she said, pointing at it, and reaching for it before I slid to get in her way. "Rory, I do."_

_"I mean it, Gellar, I picked out...something special for you to wear." I lowered the tone in my voice, and grabbed at her hand. "Come on..."_

_"Oh, God. Rory, I refuse to play 'Fashion Plates' with you," she said. "My style of lesbianism is serious, not meant to emulate that which would be comfortable being sold by Caboodles or the Deb Shop."_

_"Well, we'll see about that," I argued, closing the door to the absolute limit I could get away with and drawing the shade. "Now..." I pushed her towards the closet on the other side of the room and pulled at the tail of her blouse to untuck it. "Tonight, I'm not gonna feel you up in a turtleneck. I wanna see your neck."_

_"Oh...kay." Her brown eyes slitted. "You're kind of scaring me here." She looked down at my chest. "And...you're wearing your black bra."_

_"I...am?" I looked down at the lovely article which flattered my breasts the best beneath my top. "Well, look at that. I meant to wear something else today."_

_"No wonder you were so perky and vivacious," she cracked, still unnerved at how she knew that Blackie always gave me a little more...ahem, 'bounce'. I let my fingers linger along the skin lining along her skirt, feeling an immediate retraction of her stomach inward. "You're not going to dress me like a hooker, are you?"_

_I licked my lips. "Paris, Paris, Paris. Do I look like I would ever wear 'hooker garb'? I'm not Louise."_

_"She once said you had a perfect stripper name. You never know."_

_"The only stripping I do is with you, Par-Bear," I said soothingly, moving my lips to meet hers and loving the little cringe the nickname forced in her. "You have the better stripper name though. Paris sounds classy."_

_"Well, it was, until you told me that." I began to unbutton her blouse excitedly, taking it from the bottom part until I undid her collar and tossed the tie aside, continuing to kiss her a few times as I got her undressed. "Rory, the rules..."_

_"Oh, I know the rules", I demurred, giggling in delight that she had made an additional sojourn to a certain store I made a lovely adventure to on Black Friday. She took off the shirt, blushing deeply at wearing a crimson lacy bra that was displaying her in a way that had me crossing my legs slightly. I bit down on my knuckle. "But again, there are plenty of loopholes. Especially when my mom isn't around."_

_I could tell I was making her nervous, but in a good way. "You know, for a Mary, you're acting more the Magdalene than the Blessed."_

_"Hey, I never acknowledged what type of Mary I was," I admitted, wrapping my arms around her slowly. I giggled lightly, bending down to kiss at her neck. "Anyways, the Blessed Mary train left the moment you got down to your skivvies and thought of me in Washington."_

_"Oh God..." she shook her head. "Let's get away from the Biblical references before I have to sit Shiva for every shred of my innocence."_

_"Mmm, love it when you get into the Hebrew." I felt odd saying that, but it was enough to calm her down a little. I bent down to kiss her, peppering her face and then licking around her lips to stimulate and plump them. She was quick to react and soon my fingers were along her back, rubbing in circles as I soothed her into the seduction I had planned. Pulling at the band holding her French braid at the back I found a little resistance._

_"Nobody touches my hair," she warned._

_"I do...all the time," I corrected, picking at the band lightly with my fingernail. "You seem to love it."_

_"Mainly because you don't bitch about my lack of bangs." A little smirk. Finally I was getting somewhere. "And your fingers know it better than most everyone I know."_

_"I'm undoing your braid," I said. "Then I'm taking off your bra. Then your skirt. Then your socks and your shoes. And I dare you to say no."_

_"Oh, are you?" Suddenly I felt her lift up my undershirt, and I quickly complied to get it off to leave me in my bra. "You can't resist me, Gilmore. I know you can't; when I brushed your knuckles at lunch when you gave me that cookie, I could feel your hands shake."_

_"It was more than my hands shaking," I suggested coyly, undoing the braid like I promised, and starting at the top of her head to unlace it, earning a deep moan from the pull of the hair. Once I finished it, she did a toss which caught my heart as her hair came loose, a slight bit of static causing the hair to stick up a little, but shield slightly against her bra. "You're beautiful today."_

_"You're just saying that because it's Thursday," she joked, shaking her head. "Maybe I did dress up a little because of that."_

_"And now...I'm going to dress you down," I whispered. I brought my hands to the band of the bra to unhook it, her usual shyness flagging up._

_"Umm, don't I have to be dressed?"_

_"Yes, but I plan to dress you in my own way, which requires a dressing down."_

_"It requires the lack of a bra though?" She shuddered. "Are you sure?"_

_"As long as we're dressed, we can do all we want. And we are changing out of our Chilton clothes. Mom just didn't say how long it had to take to switch between school and home clothes."_

_I earned an eyeroll with that one. "You should be an attorney."_

_"Only if I could kiss Calista Flockhart," I said, feeling no shame as Paris slitted her eyes. "What? That show made me feel lesbianism was a valid life choice."_

_"It also had on-and-off writing and a character with a throat flesh fetish."_

_"Paris?"_

_"Hmm?"_

_I gave a sly smirk. "This bra is coming off, whether you like it or not."_

_"Part of the plan?"_

_"Oh, yes." I laughed and slid it off, loving the usual 'bump' as her held-in breasts came down. I tossed the article backwards towards the door not caring about my aim and gave Paris a once-over before getting the skirt off, leaving her in a pair of maroon panties that were leaving little to the imagination._

_I had Paris Gellar nearly naked in my room. Still within my mom's rules. And she wasn't going to be back for another hour._

_As long as Babbette and Morey didn't walk in, and they wouldn't due to the locked doors, I was free to give Paris a makeout session to remember._

_We began a slow progression, Paris slowly getting over her nerves as she began to work me out of my own clothes. Her fingers slid against the catch of my skirt and she teased me slightly by my thinking that she was taking down my underwear with my skirt, undoing the catch and then dipping a finger against the top of my cleft before letting the plaid fall to the floor as she took in my reaction._

_"Mmm, you're mismatched again," she whispered. "You gotta stop violating the uniform code, Gilmore. Everything has to match." I shuddered at the stern schoolmarm tone. "And these panties are cut too short. I can almost feel your slit from the waistband!"_

_"I've been...growing?" I said, trying to make an excuse for the thinness of my underwear._

_"You're wearing them a size too small. Gilmore, you're going to get a--"_

_"Par?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"If the next words out of your mouth mention something cured by Monistat, the mood is ruined."_

_Expecting a reel-back, instead she smirked. "I was going to say a bunch of affection from me. Let me finish my sentences, Ror." A little chuckle from her and I was blushing. "You always assume the worst."_

_"This from the girl who told me to suck an Altoid before a sudden play scene was sprung on her." I felt overwhelmed with the passion I felt for her. "Now...I think I get to tell you what you wear."_

_"I've been dreading this," she surmised as I headed over to the closet to grab the old gym t-shirt from its hanger and tossed it over to her on the bed. She looked at it for a moment and raised her eyebrow._

_"I can't wear this," she argued. "I've never gone to school in Stars Hollow, so it would be erroneous to declare myself as such."_

_"But it's a shirt I wore for two years of hellish physical education. I sweated in that every day. I thought it would be sweet," I said, as she went over the fabric and took in the scent of my perspiration and pheromones that still overwhelmed it despite who knows how many washes. "Put it on."_

_"What if it doesn't fit?" I shook my head._

_"If it doesn't fit...well, I have plenty of other things to have you wear from my closet. I just wanted you to have a piece of me if you decide to sleep clothed one night." I smiled. "Try it on for me?"_

_She looked at the tag and let out a small groan. "Don't tell me you picked this because you connected the size of the shirt to the size of my breasts." I laughed softly at her wry tone._

_"A complete coincidence. I didn't want the boys at the high school to earn a gander at me," I admitted. "Wasn't really easy to be in a gym class when you wanted to be anywhere else but there."_

_She sighed. "How do you explain your proper sizing at Chilton then? When we were doing the field hockey unit I had to catch myself from pulling your shirt off."_

_"Well, that's different. I'm more comfortable there. Less awkward. Yes, I change privately like you do, but there, the stakes are higher with a suspension, so the girls keep to themselves. It was 'she said-she said' in the SHH locker room." I felt nervous admitting all these fears, thinking they were all in the past. "And he said-she-said in class. I had a junior boy on the baseball team get away with a boob grope when we were doing a flag football unit.'_

_I could tell just from the word 'grope' Paris was interested to learn more. "I hope you gave him his own squeeze which...wait, this is your old high school." A cringe of recognition. "No, he'd like that."_

_"I just didn't say anything. No need to. My teacher didn't care because I put in very little effort in the class to begin with. Although..." I pointed to the remains of what had been a floor burn just near the top of my right thigh. "I once played volleyball and went for a serve too fast. The floor there isn't wood, but that bouncy rubber stuff they have on the practice court at Chilton. Hurt for a week." I winced remember the slide, and how I completely missed the ball in the end._

_Paris nodded, understanding again why only our passion seemed to bring out our sporting sides. "I can understand why then." She slid her finger onto the burn, which now was represented by an odd dime-sized scar that had healed over into a white patch of skin..._

_Like her accident scars. I sucked in a breath, feeling a sudden bit quiet. "Do...do you still get, um, the phantom pains?"_

_"From the accident?" Her brows loaded as she twisted around her lips. "I don't talk about it a lot. As in, at all. But if this is just between us..." She then looked up at me._

_"I still do get some pain. If I sit too forward I will get a shock through my nerves that throws me off because there's this small bit of my ribcage that's chipped and they never were able to locate the shard in surgery. I've learned to live with it, but it's a lingering reminder. Some headaches too, it seems like my hairline scar also gets in a bit of anguish." She continued to rub at my burn. "I haven't even told my doctor I feel it, ever. If it had gone into my permanent medical record, even when I was young I knew there was no way my dance school would have taken the risk on letting me in. I wanted to dance as a challenge to myself, to prove what Mother did to me was only just a hurdle to get over."_

_I nodded, feeling so much empathy for my girlfriend for sharing all of this. That I was given this information was more special. But I had to know more. "I guess I'm amazed by you. That you went through all of that, yet you're in the peloton of the valedictorian race...it's heartening. I'm glad you made it."_

_"I also had to wear a back brace for six months after," she said. "It was a very long process. All through it I still did my schooling, but only if I could match my peers. I don't do home school. That's for weaklings and the lazy. I was still on top of my kindergarten," she proclaimed proudly._

_"Isn't that like celebrating being a preseason champion, a little presumptuous?" Paris shook her head and narrowed her eyes._

_"The 1972 Miami Dolphins were not perfect, unlike the narrative the NFL would love you to believe. They were 1-3 in the preseason. Yet they still get this 'perfect season' bullshit. You get on your game early and often, and you'll be a champion. I don't care if you're playing Savannah State or the Lions, or God forbid, the Jets, you just keep scoring and leave them in the dust. Even in K I knew if I put on a sob story and got sympathy, it wasn't going to get me far when I healed completely. So I stepped on the pedal that first day in August 1989 and never looked back." She continued to look at me, completely serious, but I could feel that she was quite warm to me. "You never stopped even when I raged at my worst. Even if you had a ridiculously late start at Chilton and all of the crap you dealt with involving the schools here, I think you're the same."_

_I was surprised by how authentic she was. It was rare for her to give me these kinds of compliments, and I felt my throat tightening at her monologue. I stumbled, feeling a little odd about how a mention of a minor burn turned up this way._

_I stared at her, bringing my gaze from her breasts and up to her eyes, hooded by tendrils of her hair. I felt my breath catch at the sight of her talking like this._

_Even more, without the pretense of clothing. I had nearly forgot she was just about nude in my room talking about her injuries. I breathed through my nose, taking it all in._

_I also forgot the shirt, still draped in her lap. I could sense between us that we needed some kind of break before I just pushed her down to the bed and..._

_'Geeze, I'm not better than Tristan', I thought to myself, knowing my mind had wandered a bit too much._

_"Paris," I mouthed, barely able to vocalize her name. "I...I'm...I..." I felt a blush against my skin as her fingers moved up along my thighs. Eventually my hands. I shuddered from the contact, and how I was examining her down to the freckles she had wanted to hide on her nose, but I couldn't help but find one of the sexist things I've ever known._

_Then she slowly released me, grabbing the shirt at her side. And then..._

_She smiled. An honest to goodness, not sardonic or sarcastic smiled. Lips curled upward, teeth bared, her small form standing on her lithe legs._

_"Well, the way you're looking at me..." she curled, the sex dripping from her ragged voice. "I guess I shall partake in your fantasy, Farm Girl."_

_The name used to be hated, an insult to living in a small town from an insufferable prat of a girl who lived to see me unhappy. Now though, she held the grey tee with red and white lettering in her hand and did another hair toss._

_She turned around to show me her back. Curved beautifully, this petite hellfire was a work of art. I saw her sharp shoulder blades, the curvature of her spine and multiple moles and marks peppering the dark flesh she never revealed to anyone at all. And then to complete the picture, her underwear pulled down just enough to give me a little view of the split of her peach-shaped ass._

_Pulling up her arms she opened up the shirt at the hem and then slowly ran it down her body, smoothing it down her torso. She turned around just before she began to slide it below her breasts. I panted like a dog at the sight of her in that way...blatant, sexual. She wore that little sideways smile, her mind definitely saying that this was going to stick with me during Russian Novels for sure, that I will know every part of her and see her clothing as a hindrance._

_She then makes the shirt fall down and straightens it and her underwear, being seductive all the way through._

_Yes, I just said it. Paris 'I'm not genetically set up to date' Gellar is seductive. And very dateable._

_And fu--_

_"So, Gilmore, how does this fantasy play out?" My mind was broken as I took her in this...this shirt. A school shirt that's sized for a linebacker or a very shy intellectual. 'Stars Hollow Physical Education' across her breast, and my name in the little white space in laundry marker between the two lines. Which I can block out. She came towards me as I lay slightly on the bed, feeling very, very hot._

_Also, very wet. Certainly I didn't expect to be this wound up._

_"Um..." Here came my shy side, as I bit on my knuckles, my voice seeming to be so lost I think it was back at Luke's. "I...I actually didn't think you'd put that on. Or that you...um...shoot, I know um, isn't an answer, but um..." I shook my head. "Sorry to swear here, but...fuck."_

_"Good fuck, or...the other kind?" She had that nervous giggle going on as she moved back towards me. The shirt was a little looser than expected, hanging off to one side and drooping off her right shoulder, while I could tell that the boiler was taking a long time to cool the room._

_I think. Or Par was just that turned on, because her nipples peaked against the fabric. Unconsciously I tucked in my legs closer as a surge of warmth caught between my thighs._

_I've seen Dean shirtless. I learned about how to feel good from a ravishing redhead of mystery down at the pond. Yes, I've even ogled Jess a few times._

_None of those experiences compare to seeing Paris in my old gym shirt, casual and caring for me._

_"It depends...on your interpretation of those words," I suggested with a knowing smirk._

_"I think I know what it is, judging from your blush, Gilmore. You're like a tomato right now." I bit on my lip as she came closer. "Just a question though; do you have matching shorts with this?"_

_"Umm, I do. And sweatpants. But I don't know where they are." I felt a bit embarrassed for a moment. "Shoot, I'm sorry, I didn't know if--"_

_"Not for now," she whispered, coming closer, her legs bared for me to shamelessly ogle. "Later, when your mother gets back so we can skirt the 'clothed' rule as close as possible. For now though, I'm still technically changing." She moved onto the bed, her right knee first as I suddenly found myself moving towards the headboard. "Said changing may involve a bit of touching...caressing, a little accidental brush of fingers against your flesh. Or a leg." She laughed in that way that gets to me every time. Damn, she's getting smart about this. "And of course there's that hand which may wander where it doesn't usually go."_

_Oh God, I couldn't believe it. So Miss Overregulation didn't mind getting in trouble if it benefitted her. She moved in closer...closer. I could just smell her so deeply above me, those brown eyes focused on one goal. I panted deeply, wondering how I could put myself out of my misery..._

_Then she did it for me. Laying straight on my bed, head on my pillow, I whimpered as I felt contact with her thigh against mine, my other leg still beneath because I could feel the pressure warming me, building like a tea kettle._

_Her left hand slid up my right thigh. I gasped, knowing I needed this...some kind of release. I closed my eyes, feeling her bear down on me as the drape of the shirt touched my stomach._

_"You promised me fun tonight," she whispered, her lips above mine, breath buffeting the small hairs just below my knows. "Fun we shall have." The hand purposefully drifted to the side of my mound, brushing past it before cupping my breast from below. "My oh my, Gilmore, you're so wet. And you're shivering. You're going to catch a cold in this damp lingerie."_

_God, she was using the 'mocking voice'. Another trigger that's become a turn-on. I shuddered at the lightest of contact with her fingers. "I should remove it."_

_I flirted back. "But then I'd be in violation of the rules and my mother would ground me for a week," I said weakly._

_"Yeah...there is that." She kept circling her thumb around my nipple as she 'thought' about what to do. Her tongue poked out against her cheek, her nose wrinkling cutely as she sighed._

_"Bah, well, I don't want our playtime here to be terminated because we broke the rules." She smiled. "I'm going to go get something to drink while you go change into something...more comfortable." With a small kiss, the moment was broken up for a little bit. "I'll be back in a couple minutes."_

_She left the room and for the first time in about twenty minutes, I could breathe again. I sat there for a few moments, stunned that we were this way. In this relationship we've jumped over nearly everything that we've established in our own heads about timelines, romance, our sexual fluidity. Everything. It was amazing, but at the same time, it was scaring me._

_How was it I was soaking my panties just at the sight of her in my shirt? I didn't understand it. I don't understand plenty about my attraction to Par, except that it's become all-consuming. I think about her all the time. It's not just that silly crush any longer; this is all real and human and everything about it..._

_I don't know. I just don't. But Paris...it's amazing with her. I feel a shudder as I get up from the bed and quick slide down my underwear and toss off my bra._

_Then out of the corner of my eye, I see that somehow I've left an actual wet spot on my bedspread. I damn myself and try as fast as I can to throw on a thin tank top with a matching striped pair of blue panties which I had originally worn God knows how many times for date nights with Dean where he never got the clue._

_'Paris has to be different', I thought to myself as I flopped back onto the bed as Par came into the room with two bottles of Poland Spring, still looking seductive and come-hither to me. She smiled in appreciation at my new outfit as she tossed me the cold bottle._

_"Wow, and I thought the panties you wore today were daring. You barely have a waistband there," she cracked as she flopped down next to me. I shrugged._

_"These are just...I only wear them on dates," I demurred. "Though you're the first to see them on me at all."_

_"Now I feel special," she purred, running teasing fingers along my thighs. "You consider this a date?"_

_"Well, I guess it is. Sort of. I mean, you did just bring me a drink." I sipped the water. "Paris?"_

_"Hmm?"_

_"I...I guess I'm a little nervous. I left a spot on the bed and that was just from talking." I tried telling my brain to shut up; secretion of fluids does not make for a conversation meant for sexual teasing! "I guess I'm a bit more turned on than I thought."_

_"Then we're doing it right," she said, her fingernails scratching against me. "I should admit I needed more than water out there. The girls were getting a little scratchy from not having a bra or silk against them."_

_"They did look kind of tender and aroused," I observed. "Scratching your nipples, not very sexy."_

_"It's not your fault though, I'm glad to wear this. To get my scent all over it and make you feel good and happy, like it's a private thing that has you smiling," she told me, still grinning, still touching me. "I love that I get to look at you and you're not feeling shy at all." Her gaze wandered to my stomach, where the tank rose to bare my belly. "Stop it."_

_"Stop what?" She sighed._

_"Stop having that cute little knot in your navel!" she confessed. "Besides your eyes and your loving spoonfuls it's the thing that sticks in my head the most!"_

_"We're calling my boobs the loving spoonfuls now?" I quipped. She rolled her eyes._

_"I'm trying to create appropriate euphemisms so I don't have to repeat 'breasts' or 'boobs' or the T-word too much. That's beside the point however." She smiled, moving her fingers along the ridge of my belly button, causing me to gasp deeply and then make this whimper I've only remembered making a few times when I've felt the need to...you know. "You're also showing through said loving spoonfuls in that top."_

_I looked down and found a blush building furiously across my cheeks. I had forgotten that it was a top I had worn for years and washed so many times I could never wear it anywhere but in my bedroom, as even looking down I could see the outline of my nipples pretty darned well. "Oh God. I uh, didn't intend to--"_

_"I know," she stated deviously. "I know real well it wasn't in the plans. I just threw the great listmaker off her seduction plan a little bit." With a little laugh Paris slid a few of her fingers along the most sensitive part of my abdomen, making me gasp. "However...I don't think that top fits you." Then as I tried to say it did (barely)..._

_I was stopped. She pushed over me, pawing up my side, pulling up the top slightly so it was over my stomach and just barely along the curve of my breasts. I felt all my blood flow rush southward as I saw this woman just become a whole different kind of being. Somehow she was putting all of her passion into making me feel good instead of doting over a project._

_Now I know that when I crashed into her that first day, breaking the castle might as well have been on par with orgasm denial!_

_Her right hand teased at the underside of my breast as she let her bare leg move just above my knee, providing non-sexual friction, nails scratching and fingertips pinching, sending me into a mess of shudders, 'Oh God' exhalations and begs of her to do more of that. Her eyes scanned me as if she was silently taking notes as to what makes me feel good. Paris's left hand was barely idle at all, cupping my right breast and taking in the consistency of the thin cotton while at the same time testing just how far she could send my nipple erect with slow tortuous circles around the outer periphery of my areola, moving inward to scrape at the edge of the tender bud that was my nipple._

_I make a shrieking noise in an octave I didn't know was possible. She applied more friction against my leg, teasing me by knowing I wanted it closer to my trunk.  I began to lightly rock with her movements, gasping as the triple sensations were managing to scramble my mind beyond what I had expected. I really did expect lovemaking, but not this intense, even to start._

_Her hand slid beneath the flesh under my breast and that was nearly it for me. I didn't even feel comfortable touching it because it was overly tender in my experience, taking the worse of underwire and harsh fabrics rubbing against it every single day._

_Paris though made it feel heavenly. She just seemed to know where it always throbbed the worst for me and soothed away all the still lingering pain of wearing Blackie all day. My lip trembled as her left hand eventually moved to rub at the flesh until it was like a full breast massage. 'This is new', I thought as she slowed down the tempo, just for awhile and reduced down her rocking slightly to just a relaxed push and pull that brought down the pressure._

_Her eyes remained above me, nothing but amazement within those deep mahogany pupils, amazed that she had me catatonic to her in a way that didn't involve academia._

_I was indeed, all hers. I don't think I could've moved from that spot at all. The massage, just two fingers, circling softly around my breasts._

_It felt amazing. But I knew it was hardly the only thing I'd be doing on that bed. I shuddered as I really hoped that envelope I was pushing was made of strong rubber--_

_Oh, who am I kidding? I didn't give a damn about the rules at that moment, I just wanted to have Paris take me like she never had before!_

_She began to move her knee up a little more, slowly inching it up until the best part of her thigh was up against me, and she clutched the bottom of my shirt to begin to get me off. I clenched my jaw as I began to build up a rhythm, mewing as I tried to hold myself back and then..._

_Suddenly I felt pressure against my breast. Unexpected pressure that I never really knew. It was like...like..._

_I didn't even know what was happening until I looked down to see that Paris had pulled down the top for not only leverage, but to bare skin just above my nipple._

_Skin that she was suckling and nipping at like she couldn't get enough of me. But I didn't pause. Didn't even flinch. I just grabbed her by the neck and encouraged her on. There were no words or permission to be had and I knew that the top was becoming a flimsy excuse to keep the rules up._

_Very flimsy, as I heard it tearing as she yanked one of the shoulders down below it and then  claim my breast in an animalistic manner for her own to a unshielded shriek._

_I could feel the bed begin to rock, something I hadn't done since I was eleven and jumping on it for the first time. One hand at her neck encouraging her, uttering phrases like 'mark me' and 'ruin me'. I couldn't feel anything. I felt her apply suction against my nipple and I snarled that I needed a bruise there. I couldn't believe myself, how I was getting, but there I was, too far gone to turn around and go back to just necking in the back seat._

_Soon I had my shirt pushed up, all ceremony gone. A check of the clock; still plenty of time for us. Thank God there was plenty of time. I felt myself building, almost ready to burst, my eyes closing tight as I felt light-headed, demanding to come. I needed this, wanted this, like a target to attain. I could feel her nails down my back, holding me tight as I pushed against her thigh with all I had, panting heavily and hoping for relief soon. I was getting there, getting there..._

_Almost there, oh God..._

_And then suddenly I felt the wind knocked away from me as she brought everything to a halt. A sudden and just jarring halt. She broke apart, kissing my lips and giving me this serious look that chilled me suddenly. I had been in bliss but suddenly it was pulled out from under me as she stopped, her eyes looking down my body._

_I was uncharacteristically mad at her. "What the hell?!" I bellowed. "Par, don't stop, come on!" I was feeling anger inside at not being fulfilled as she took away her thigh. I pulled at her to come back but she didn't and now I was stuck needing and wanting her. "Come on!" I whined._

_She just tut-tutted and continued to look down. "You wanted me to ruin you, is that correct?" she said in that tone I remember from her Shakespeare intimidation. "I can't ruin you this way."_

_"I was pretty damned well there!" I crowed. "Fuck, Paris! Please, get back to it!" Yes, this was my new low; begging Paris Gellar for sex. She just shook her head and poked out that damned tongue of hers. "Please!"_

_Yet her eyes kept looking down. I didn't know why. I could feel my eyes burning with desire to get this done. Another tongue-playing game, this time a lick of her lips._

_"If I'm going to ruin you," she said, her voice steady as a rock. "I am going to do it in a way where the words 'Dean is hot' cause your brain to trigger a vomit reflex. Or the idea of any man in love with you." She narrowed her eyes. "Pretty much, you're going to think of them as a cheap thrift store bike with no brakes."_

_"I'm like my Ducati," she suggested, the confidence in her voice so haughty I could hear classical music in my mind's background. "because once you ride me, you don't go back. The hum of that engine, the impact of small insects hitting your facemask at 140 mph and brushing off like they were never there...the clench of your thighs as that Harvard crimson 996 holds 122 horses between your legs...let's see the Deanmobile try to do anything but reenact a fucking crash test video without the dummies flying two miles off target!" She continued. "Oh yes, I've done 140 on the test track. Good feeling. Still, not like making love to you in any way, which is why I have something to ask you."_

_I rolled my eyes. "Well, you're acting like DuGrey right now, so the--"_

_"Oh, Gilmore. That's so cute, comparing me to Tristan. He's not here, remember? I am. And I'm about to fulfill a wish that if you grant it, every guy who likes you has wanted since you decided to start dating. Only they aren't getting it now."_

_Now I was chilled. Threatened. Feeling a smidge intimidated. "And...and if I don't?"_

_"Oh, you will." God, her voice...I was tempted just to self-fuck to the sound of it, yet I kept in control. "You want it. I want it. It's the holy grail between us."_

_Then with that damned secret smile, she stated it._

_"You know what I want, Gilmore."_

_"Uhh, your Xanax? You're a little off here," I barked. She shook her head negatively._

_"Of course not." Her eyes lowered downward, lower....lower..._

_Then in a barely perceptible whisper..._

_"I want to know how you taste."_

_That screeching sound you heard somewhere there? That was the last of my child-like wonder which somehow stayed fully intact until Tristan started his banter at sixteen, completely breaking apart as I realized the eyeline of where Paris was staring._

_The simplest of geometry, scale and an 'as the crow flies' line suggested where she was going with this._

_Into her mouth. Licking me. Sucking my clit. Stirring out the little woman in the canoe. I went down on her a few weeks ago, but this is different; I'm the one being taken, in my room this time!_

_Her gaze was...down below. It felt odd; she had seen me naked and worked me both with fingers and friction, so this...this..._

_"This is my bedroom," I mouthed, with my shyness somehow butting in. "If Mom finds out--"_

_She used her index finger to close my mouth at my chin. "I'm dressed. You're dressed--barely. The door is not closed. We are following every single rule she has given us. Except she is not home to mete what we can and cannot do. For all she knows we're discussing how we shall replace the ass-backwards Electoral College with a more equitable system of voting by the 2008 election cycle. She will not know."_

_I shook my head. "This is my bed though! In my bedroom!"_

_"Ahh, so Farm Girl can dish it out but she can't take reciprocation?" She knew we were flirting, just having a fun little argument where we both knew the inevitable. "You told me we would have fun tonight. Well, I choose that going down on you is fun." She stated it as if it was an indisputable fact that I did too._

_Which was true. But my mind was in control then over my heart; I had to fight to bring it in control._

_"Umm, I am--"_

_"Rory, look at me. Don't look down at yourself or anything else. Just me." I did, feeling a little adverse. "If you're uncomfortable with this because you don't feel ready, I understand completely and I won't do anything you don't want." Her voice filled with concern, I did look at her direct, pushing hair away from my eyes and whimpering because I had to confront this._

_I knew where I was. In my bedroom with the door barely cracked open and still trying to be in the bounds of rules I agreed to so Paris was never caught again compromised with me. But I knew my timing. I had more than enough time. The day had been insane, filled with too many close calls around the school. I remembered her giving me this glance when we were at the lockers between third and fourth, a stare in her eyes she had never directed at me before, just for the mere act of giving her a compliment of how she handled a complicated question in first period._

_Paris has always been intense. It's a fact of life. But there's this focus on me where I can feel her undressing me with her eyes. It has me throbbing all day and salivating just looking at her, knowing she's mine. With Dean, I never felt that sense, especially after Beth's return to his life in retrospect._

_She may still be combative in class and argue me down from how I think the paper should go. But she sees me as an equal in so many ways._

_I knew though that the most intense sexual fantasies and dreams I had since my first feelings for Paris arose have been of going down on me. I wanted it. My pussy pulsed when I imagined nesting my hands within those blonde locks, guiding her mouth, hitting me right there, where I felt it..._

_"Fuck, Par." I unconsciously let out the words in my mind as I pictured her pleasing me orally. I panted, thinking she was already getting the lay of my...situation, shall we say. "I...I..." My eyes looked at her._

_Then I admitted the one fear I had. "Wh...wh...what if you don't like it?"_

_"Like it?" Paris eased my fears. "You're being a little ridiculous. I've tasted you before. In front of your family. I have the same parts as you do, though with a little less projection than your catapult of a vagina." A pause, and then with full seriousness in her voice..._

_"I am going to love eating you out. I dream of it. I am so far in love with you that nothing at all could ever make me stop experimenting further." Blatantly, she eyed me up again, looking me over from top to bottom, then at my crotch again. "Besides, I think your pussy is begging for it."_

_"Huh?" I looked down a little at the attention she was giving me, and..._

_She was right. My lips puffed against my panties and a thin stripe of arousal built between them. I never understood how I could only get this way with Dean a few times when we were together. Now I have a much heavier pile of whites at the end of the week._

_"I wouldn't say begging," I corrected. "More I think it's yearning for attention." She began to move down to the foot of the bed. "It's strange. What happened to 'Ice Age slow' for us?" I laughed nervously. "Now it's just 'anything goes'."_

_"Behind all of our refinement, charm school ways and quality educations there's just two girls in love with each other," she surmised calmly. "And I could have never known you had this raging idea of me as a girlfriend floating around for so long."_

_"That's true." She was right; I could've been how I was with Dean around her, but what would be the point then? I loved her for who she was and how she got my hormones raging, not just because it was convenient and aesthetically pleasing._

_"So..." She seemed to probe for my attention back. "Do you want this? Or, we could--"_

_I was surprised by how fast I answered. "Yes!" Paris was even startled by the speed as it seemed like my inner vixen took over my body, opening up my legs._

_She gave me an odd glance. "I never know where you want to go, Gilmore." She got onto her knees and hooked her feet at the board to give herself some leverage. "Remember, I've never--"_

_I sighed. "You're going to be fine. We'll learn together and...come on. You do 180 WPM. That's about...340 movements of your tongue per minute if I'm calculating right."_

_Leave her in that moment to poke her tongue from her mouth, making me gasp at the very sight of it. "I don't plan 340 movements of my tongue per minute," she stated confidently. "Wouldn't want you to explode all over the room." With a raised eyebrow I felt myself clench at her words as I felt the anticipation build up between my pelvic muscles. I've gotten used to these small orgasms I give myself or when Paris and I are just making soft love, but I know it's the big ones I remember for days._

_Soon she had started, calming me down by placing her hands on my lower legs and kissing along the inner portion, then along my knees. I was eager to find out how she would please me, very methodically and I'm sure enough to drive me up a wall._

_Man, I was right on that. She gave me time to get used to her below my waist, making sure I was completely comfortable before she moved any further up. She lathed my inner thigh for awhile with kisses and rubs of her nose against my legs, and I could hear her whispering to herself how to go further. I felt anticipation bubble up as my pelvic muscles tightened up, her breath drifting ever further and just making me dizzy._

_She continued to tease and I tensed up further, shivering and biting down on my tongue, commanding her to move up ever more slowly. I could feel the time drift by in a sort of fog I couldn't even make sense of. I just knew it by Par inching her way.._

_Then I felt it. Her mouth, just right there. Right there, her lips just on the side of my panties. 'Oh God, she's really going to do this,' I thought. I felt everything stand up on end as I looked down the bed._

_Her body compressed in the bed, her ass up so I could see my shirt sliding down her to show off her underwear. Five feet of curves compressed within a three foot space, and ending with a mess of dark blonde hair between my legs. I snarled at the sight of her about to go down on me, a silent prayer that Mom hadn't gotten out early. I didn't want this moment to be ruined._

_Thank God for the holidays and so much distraction time for her. I knew she wasn't about to show up, and I quickly backed the thought into the recesses of my mind as a sudden shock went through me._

_A nip through the fabric. Just a small nip, it was enough. I cried out a surprised "Oh my God!" and then immediately got a quick little glance, Paris staring up at me as she knew my abnormal sensitivity._

_"Shhh." She shook her head at me. "Hold back as long as you can, Gilmore. I refuse to allow you to cum yet." In that stern tone, she was setting down the ground rules._

_Orgasm denial. I could do that. I was only dreaming of this moment for about over a year. What was twenty more minutes?_

_A **long** time, actually._

_It's hard enough stroking yourself and not falling into the temptation to finish yourself off and get that feeling after only three minutes. Actually having another person on the end is another thing altogether._

_I grasped the end of the bed, even the headboard not enough as I went through all of this. Pushing myself back I opened up my legs a little more to give Paris easier access. An attempt to place a hand in her hair earned me a light scolding._

_"I think I know what I'm doing," she told me. "Now lie back and think of...Curacao. A good place, beautiful white sand beaches, blue waters. Just let yourself think...wouldn't it be beautiful to be taken like that under the hot equatorial sun on a private beach?"_

_So I did. I closed my eyes and just focused on keeping my hands away from her, letting her do the work of making me feel good. Nipping, licking, I whimpered as she kept up her work. She was actually very surprising, finding a perfect balance between stimulation and helping me to relax._

_My body began to sense how turned on I was. She seemed to not have a problem with me stretching out a little more and moving my hands to my breasts, feeling how stiff and peaked they were as I pulled the shirt up to behind my neck, just going with the idea I needed to feel cool air against my skin as she went down on me. I needed this, wanted it and I ran my fingers along the undersides of my breasts, knowing I was going to end up at some kind of limit of pleasure._

_It went on and I could feel her tongue soaking along my middle, between my lips. My panties were still on, not even moved aside yet and still I felt more pleasure than I had the few times Dean rubbed himself against me. I could hear her sniff and moan, wondering how I'd react to her ministrations. I kept nearly quiet, not wanting any words to ruin this. I had completely forgot where I was after this point; it was just Paris and I on a bed, nothing more specific than that._

_Glad I did too, because there was even more that was surprising about how she gets me off._

_It started with the warm-up through my panties, but then, she used her fingers. Just two or three, nothing unusual. But combined with her mouth, it was more than I had ever handled before. As someone who has gotten by near completely manually through her sexual history (a vibrating back massager just can't target much vaginally), to have more than fingers down there...it's interesting. One of them coaxing at my clit to unhood, while the other opens up my lips, and her lips and tongue just below, testing that sensitive skin where I had never ventured outside of some shocks while washing up after a particularly swampy day in Washington._

_It went on and on. The teasing, the need and build-up towards the part where I would find my ride towards the promised land. I couldn't wait for her to push aside my panties, but the damned stubborn girl just wouldn't give me that relief. She seemed to concentrate on getting me turned on until I felt my clitoris pushing against the fabrics. It actually stung, and I didn't know much longer I could hold out without an orgasm. I panted and whined, knowing I needed to just come soon._

_Somehow Par saw it differently; it looked to her that I needed to be stretched beyond my limits. I never knew how I could feel this good. She stroked me slowly, ignoring my pleas to rush things along. I kept looking at her rocking back and forth on her knees as I kept sliding my thumbs and fingers along my breasts until it somehow became too painful to keep even that up. All my bloodflow had seemed to concentrate around my core as she worked me into a tizzy that had me raising myself in the air._

_"Paris, please...God, come on, I need to cum." I felt sweat dripping down. "Please."_

_She shook her head in response, continuing to circle my clit with her fingers. "Getting there, Gilmore. Be patient."_

_How could I be any more patient? I didn't make her wait when I went down on her. But I know this is different; she's in control. She thrives on the idea of it in near every circumstance possible._

_Especially in the bedroom. She took me further, to the point I was nearly crying. I can feel arousal beginning to drip towards the back of my underwear. She massaged where my G-spot was over my panties._

_I was getting there, maybe this wasn't so bad, being taken so slow..._

_And it wasn't. Not at all. I had gone into this opposing slow oral sex. It should just be done. That's how Dean treated it (or didn't), because God forbid that he actually get a gander at my pussy. When he caught me naked one morning while getting dressed, Dean was in nothing but apology mode for the next two weeks, dwelling on how sorry he was that he saw my butt stark naked and then got a glance at the goods when I turned around._

_Never mind that I was fine with it and shrugged it off after minutes._

_Par and I have seen each other naked in the locker room and in bed though. Along with that one shower. It's nothing unusual. We just don't like others to look at us._

_I felt her move her hands onto my waist and then set aside my underwear, keeping me 'clothed' despite all of my parts out there to see. She slid her tongue in effortlessly, as I was so slick I was dripping onto the bed._

_It was like a fire exploded inside of me. I hoarsely screamed and immediately stilled. I was now completely complacent to her as she licked at my flesh, the hair below keeping me shielded and stiffened on end as she went down on me._

_Finally! She had stroked me, rubbed me, fingered me. Everything else except the one thing I knew would break the floodgates of our relationship open._

_I couldn't believe it. I had relived this dream almost non-stop for months on end. Practiced it with saliva-coated fingers. Had so many dirty thoughts about her tongue. Hell, I got off to her **talking** about the names of private parts! Who does that, seriously?_

_Well, I do. I do, I'm weird, and being gone down by the girl of your dreams..._

_I have no words. God, do I not have any words._

_All I know is that Paris Gellar knows more about the human mouth than the entire profession of dentistry. Where to put her tongue, how fast to circle it, which direction, and how deep._

_I ended up holding the headboard and bending my back so she could use her skilled tongue to fuck me intensely. I always thought sex like this was supposed to relax me, but it was wearing me out! Her tongue circling my clit, fingers against my g-spot, she continued to be slow, methodical and needing of me to have an orgasm that would pretty much fulfill me for a long time._

_As much as I remembered details about the seduction, her ministrations down below are a little bit of a blur because of how intense they were. She...I just know that she knows how to work me somehow. The only things I remember are the clench of my muscles, the bounce of my breasts as I ride her mouth and how sexy she is at this. I also remember lots of profanity and a stray thought hoping the neighbors wouldn't come to rescue me._

_I feel out of my body as she just applies suction against my clit, licking and sucking it and amazed with how aroused it could get. I felt myself tightening further, begging for release and she finally began to bring me on home._

_"Par, fuck me!" I pleaded hoarsely. "Make me cum for you please!" I felt my heart pump faster and my shrieks come closer and closer. I was getting there...oh, God, getting there so nicely. Nothing could stop me..._

_Nothing did. She released for a moment to stroke me and then go back to licking me out. I felt her just open me up completely, and it was so good. Nothing like I had ever experienced. She encouraged me with deep hums against my cunt and I looked down the bed to see her ass fully in the air, the outline of each side very obvious as I could tell she was aroused herself and..._

_That glance did it to me._

_Because she had her left hand down her own panties getting herself off. The idea of fucking me with her tongue was making her fuck herself._

_Anyone else would think that was selfish. To me though, it was hot. Stroking herself in my shirt, going down on me._

_I encouraged her, my voice hoarse as I called her 'Baby' and told her to save herself so I could see her finishing herself off. I wanted her to feel like this was good, that there were no taboos, rules be damned. Ever since I heard her in the dorm room I just love the idea of catching her being human, red-blooded._

_Beautiful. There was this creak in her throat as she concentrated on the two tasks on hand...and in mouth, to turn a bad pun (Sorry!)._

_"Fuck us both," I husked. I stretched down to see dark blonde hair peaking from her underwear and salivated over the sight as she worked me off. It was unexpected, but I loved it. Loved everything._

_I  began to spasm and gasp row after row of 'yes' and 'gonna cum so much' phrases, and other assorted profanities. I just wanted to ruin my bed, to smell Par in it when I woke up, got home, studied, and went back to sleep. I could feel my walls stretch out as it had that damned need to capture the 'load' about to spill into me that didn't exist._

_Last thrusts, circles with the tongue..._

_"Gonna, cum...outta the way." I expected her to avert away just in case._

_She didn't, working my tongue until she hit the spot with her finger...just right._

_So very right. All I could remember in that moment is a sudden grab for a pillow to muffle my screams and this emission that rippled from my pelvis and left me breathless to near the point of fainting. She continued to lick through more and push until I could muster no more and I just collapsed into a heap on my bed, my lungs struggling for some breath in the heated atmosphere of my bedroom._

_My muscles were beyond relaxed, while everything else, I was sure I wasn't going to be able to have more sex for days, it was that good. I whimpered as I felt the orgasm slowly dissipate. Too good, maybe too powerful for my own good. Even though I had been intense with her, this was something different. She moved up from between my legs, slowly easing the panties to where they were supposed to be, then my shirt back down._

_Paris was panting heavily from her own come and collapsed against me, resting against my breasts, looking up at me like she was the calmest person in the world despite her hair being all out and her chest rising and falling rapidly. There was nothing to say for a few minutes as we calmed down. I felt very damp and was a little flustered at yet another underwear change to come. But that was for later, because I needed a little cuddle time with my Par-Bear._

_Finally I looked down at her. She felt like she was purring and her eyes were slightly closed. I kissed her forehead and sighed, my voice barely able to say anything. But I did._

_"You know me," I told her, brushing my fingers through my hair. "Wow...there's no easy way to say this, but you wore me out." I chuckled as she sighed. "You did, and you rendered me speechless."_

_She shook her head. "You wore me out too," she mumbled. "Never thought an orgasm could stretch that long!"_

_"You told me to be slow," I reminded her, just as I noticed she could barely talk. Her voice was light as she tried to recover her facilities. "Just following instructions."_

_"I meant to be more lenient. Now I won't be able to talk normally for the next day." She smiled up at me, looking worn out and beautiful in my shirt. I couldn't help but feel like she was just so beautiful like this, away from the stresses of school._

_"You feel good though?"_

_"Mmm, yes I do." She relaxed and we stayed like that for what seemed a long time, just talking and getting back to normal before we finally had to get up from the bed, the both of us unable to stand normally from our lovemaking._

_I got her into the matching gym sweatpants and changed my clothes, finding a loose top with shorts to get by for the rest of the night, but we couldn't keep ourselves from each other, still kissing and touching as we waited for Lorelai to come home. She did, and I was thankfully that she didn't notice much of what Paris and I did when she wasn't home._

_Well, almost. Later after Paris had left after having a night of burgers and a catch-up of Charmed for our Lorelai-approved "fun night" (and changed into the clothes she had so Sharon wouldn't be the wiser), she sent me a text which seemed to be furiously typed out._

_"I can't find my bra! Where did it go?! - Par"_

_It was then I noticed that Mom had gotten my laundry together as we ate and didn't realize she was in my room. And I found out about ten minutes later what happened to her bra..._

_"Rory?" She cried my name from the laundry in the basement. I ran downstairs, thinking she needed the spare dryer sheets we came upstairs..._

_It wasn't that. There was Mom, shaking her head and cringing._

_"You have not grown to a new larger cup size in the last week, have you, kiddo?" She held the bra in her hand and I wanted to faint from embarrassment right there! "Or were you having a little unsupervised fun earlier?"_

_"Uhhh..." If there was a moment to melt away, this was it. "She was changing...and forgot?"_

_"Yes, I'm sure the Mensa folks would love to hear that...Paris Gellar can remember all the Russian states, yet she forgets about her bra." She smiled. "Honey, if you're going to do things I don't want to know about, that's OK. Just..." She gave me a glance. "Next time, make sure she has everything before she leaves? Also, I changed your plug-in, it was pretty ineffective."_

_"Oh my God!" I shuddered; she knew! "Mom--"_

_"Like I said, I don't need to know," she singsonged, putting the load of clothes in the dryer. "Just don't do it when I'm home. I know I don't have to worry about...certain things, but we still both live here until August. I don't want to have to make you both uncomfortable."_

_"You aren't, I just want to make sure the rules are followed." She set the basket on the top and shrugged. "As long as you're confined to your room, your shade is drawn and you're both not making a ruckus, it's fine. I do trust you two kids. I'm just watching out for your heart here, kid."_

_I could see where she was coming from; she still thought Paris was going to come back eventually and hurt me. Yes, I'm scared of that too, but not as much as I was last month. "Mom..." I came up to her and hugged her. "She's good, honest to God. I don't see her breaking my heart anytime soon."_

_Mom glanced down at me and held me tight. "I know she won't, I'm just not ready to think of you yet no longer so innocent and growing into adulthood. It's just gonna take awhile to get all the way into it. Especially if I'm grabbing your girl's bra accidently." I snorted, then laughed. "What? I've never been anywhere near a double D, it's a little scary!"_

_"Mom!"_

_"I'm serious, we could both fit into that thing--"_

_"Oh my God, if Paris hears about this she is going to have my head!" I ran upstairs with a horrible blush across my cheeks. "Her bra is not a comedic prop!" Mom ran up after me and I could feel the routine continuing despite my utter embarrassment._

_"Honey, I'm teasing! She has me jealous too; she can buy you a car that has actually gotten past the Insurance Institute!"_

_"That is true, though I wouldn't accept it." I grabbed a piece of pizza from the counter on the kitchen. "And she really is a great girl. I didn't think she'd be so open at this point, you know?"_

_"And happy, which she is." I could tell Mom was warming to her despite her first impressions. "Her watching and mocking Entertainment Tonight? That was gold how she took down George Clooney a few steps. I never thought she'd even know about the first E/R he did."_

_"Or how she can only handle Mary Hart in caption form?" The cringe on Paris's face as she couldn't stand the host at all was something to remember. "She is extremely cute when she wants to be."_

_Mom paused for a moment and then looked at me. "Yeah. You picked a good one, kiddo." She rubbed my back and smiled. "She keeps up with your intelligence and she's quick with the wit."_

_"You like her then?"_

_My mother nodded and handed me the phone. "Yes. Enough to tell her you didn't realize her bra got in the wash **you** did. Don't say a word that I handled it or cracked wise."_

_"Got it." I happily texted the information her way and relaxed for the rest of the night, glad for Paris in my life, despite feeling like jelly and mortified about my mom's interest in my sex life._

_It could be **much** worse though. At least I have a cool mom to share this relationship and get embarrassed about my sexual life about, so a little teasing from her like she did with Dean?_

_Yeah, I can handle it..._

__"Hello, hello?" I felt a shaking on my shoulder as I wondered where I was. I looked up to find an older man in a conductor's outfit looking down at me.

"Young lady, we're at South Station, end of the line." He was kind about it as I looked at the emptying train car. "Boston. I called out the stop four times."

I looked around. "We're in Boston already? What time is it?"

"Ten to noon, right on time. You looked like you were somewhere else all through the trip."

"Trip?" It was then I realized that I was only **dreaming** about the last two hours all over again. "Oh yeah, trip! To see my dad up here. Oh, God, I'm so sorry." I hurriedly got up...

And felt uncomfortable. In the process of passing the time by reliving Thursday night in a row where I was thankfully alone, I had an...ahem...emission. I wasn't about to tell anyone else that though, and I quickly retrieved my large carry-on bag for the trip and made a quick stop at the bathroom to change, feeling flustered all throughout.

I couldn't believe it; I had spaced an entire trip from New Haven to Boston dreaming about Paris! It was a first for me, that's for sure. Although I was mortified, at least the time went quickly thinking about her.  


* * *

** 5:00pm Saturday **

****I put on a large smile, ready for what was to be a good weekend trip with my dad to hopefully catch up and see how he was doing.

Getting everything together, I picked up something to eat at a food stand and made my way to the front to wait for Dad to come around, ready to go hopefully. I expected him right outside of Atlantic Avenue waiting for me in his Volvo like he said.

Only, he wasn't out there. I didn't see him at all. Waiting ten minutes, I was ready to go at any time, but he never pulled up. I paced the sidewalk, but he never arrived. Eventually I called his cell to find out if he was in a parking garage somewhere else in town.

When he picked up the phone though, I could tell that even though we had talked about the planning for me to come up to Boston for weeks, apparently he forgot.

"Sorry kid," he said. "I was planning to pick you up, but I got Celtics tickets at the last minute at the Fleet from work. I had a few beers last night and just got up." I was ready to lay into him, but I was taught to respect my elders.

"Are you going to pick me up? I've been waiting for fifteen minutes."

"Hold on..." After two more minutes, he came back. "Sorry, you're going to have to take the T into Brookline. I'm feeling a little under the weather." I could tell in his voice he was a little hoarse, and I was...

Well,  I was on my own. "Fine. I'll be there when I can eventually get there," I told him, and soon I was struggling to make sense of how to get to my dad's apartment, knowing Sherrie was under strict orders not to leave home. Holding a few maps from the kiosk near the train stop, I had to make sense of a transport system I had never used before! Not expecting this, I hoped for the best; all I had was the Brookline address to guide me, and because there was no way I would leave this station without something to defend myself, a rape whistle I picked up at the newsstand.

It took me an hour to get there after getting the Red Line to Harvard, transferring to a bus, then another bus, walking a few blocks, going through completely unfamiliar neighborhoods, and having to stop in a couple of bodegas before I finally found tall red bricked brownstone on Browne Street in a quiet neighborhood. I was finally thankful to get there and was worn out from my long and unexpected commute from downtown. If I had any sense of anger I would have given my father a piece of my mind.

But at that moment I thought he honestly did forget. I buzzed in the hall towards the Tinsdale apartment on the fourth floor.

Immediately, I made one observation; most of the names on the apartment roster were printed and attached onto the buzzer panel with one of the newer labelmakers where it came out from a laser printer.

However, Sherrie's last name was done up in that red tape stuff you had to press down to make the letter with and was faded to a sort-of pink, which meant she had to have lived in the apartment for awhile. My dad said he had just moved into a 'new apartment' with Sherrie.

Seeing as I had never seen her apartment in the first place I wasn't sure if the 'new' part wasn't true.

"Hello?" I heard a male voice come out harshly from the speaker. "Kid, is that you?"

"Dad, I'm here," I replied. "Buzz me in."

"Welcome home, Rory. Come on right up." I pressed on the door as the open signal was sent and headed into the lobby, relieved there was an elevator for me to use so I didn't have to use the stairs going up. After a minute-long trip up, I was at the door, knocking.

I had expected my dad to answer. Instead, I was presented with the woman officially known by Paris as 'the cockblocker'.

"Rory, hello!" The woman greeted me brightly, and I was in shock.

"Hey!" I was a little perplexed. "Um...aren't you supposed to be on bed rest?" I looked over the woman who had looked slim the last time I saw her over the summer, but was now definitely preparing for her baby. "I didn't expect you."

"Well, I was up anyways. I have to get the rocker seat I got from the baby store website together." She hugged me, and I kind of welcomed it, though with a little aversion because for a woman seven months pregnant, she sure had a lot of energy. "Your dad is in the bedroom talking about a deal from work."

"Oh." Again, color me surprised. "I thought he was free this weekend."

"He is." She told me why he was distracted. "The boss called for him to log onto the company intranet and check on a few things for his new proposal." I was guided into the apartment by Sherrie, who hovered her hand above my shoulder in order to keep me comfortable. "I'm sorry you didn't get your ride in," she said apologetically. "I wanted to remind him last night but he got last minute tickets to the Celtics/Cavs game with his work buddies. Skybox seats. So when he got home I was out like a light."

"It's OK," I said, assuring her it certainly wasn't anything she could do anything about. "Just a little longer trip. I got my first experience with the T because of it. It's...interesting." I felt a little easier with her than I did earlier in the year; she was a lot less intense, a little more welcoming. "Is Boston transport always that complicated?"

"He didn't give you directions?" Sherrie was a little troubled. "I should've given you my cell; I know my T routes pretty well." She shook away the thought as we went into her living room, which overlooked a back garden with a beautiful picture window and a slight peek of the Boston skyline through the sky-high oaks behind the building. "So, Rory, I should ask how you're doing? I was excited when you called to say a few weeks ago you'd be making the visit up here. I had my maid service clean extra well this week."

"Maid?" I wish I knew more about her to wonder how she could afford a maid. "You didn't have to do that."

"Christopher says it's a waste, but worth every penny." Sherrie flopped down onto the couch and whined from the exhaustion of getting up as I saw the rocker seat in the corner partially assembled. "Especially need it now when I can't leave the house or exert myself and annoy my doctor. I swear, she thinks I'm carrying the second coming of Jesus."

"My mom was the same way; she wanted to do so much but because of her age she was told to take it easy. Not that you or my mom could really match experiences since you're older, but it makes sense."

"It's more out of caution after I had a false labor a few weeks back," she said. "I was planning for a baby shower that I would have invited you and Lorelai to, but I couldn't pull it off." She eased herself onto a back pillow, feeling relief from the pain the baby was placing on her spine. "That, and my mother and grandmother had a history of pregnancy complications. I was a four-week preemie, while my brother was a month early; sis was the only one in the ballpark, off a week. I just want to actually get in the full nine with this one."

"I can see why you'd want that. Good luck." This time, Sherrie was trying to get me comfortable rather than be 'my second mommy', and I felt more at ease. "I saw the ultrasounds you emailed out over the last couple of months. She looks good. How is she kicking?"

"Actually she's been a soft one so far; the worst I feel is when she rolls over. That's why I had to go on bedrest, because my OB/GYN noticed Gigi was a little unsettled and didn't want her to wrap the umbilical cord around her neck. Well, that and my schedule was too crowded for a mother-to-be." She smiled uneasily. "It's hard when you're used to nothing but work to take yourself down to only checking in enough to keep your sub appraised of your cases."

"It's a good sacrifice though."

"I guess." Sherrie shook her head, feeling a little uneasy with my response. "I had fast-tracked my way to partner and everything comes to a halt..." She wandered off, looking towards the shut office door where my father was. She turned the conversation away, and I could tell it wasn't because she wanted ti. "So, how are you, Rory? I've missed hearing from you since I found out I was pregnant."

"Everything's been good. Going well." I went on about how well I was doing in Chilton and most everything else except for Paris and my dating life, along with things with the town. She nodded and seemed happy to have someone to talk to that was in the same room or wasn't a co-worker.

"So, what happened to that Dean fellow? You two still going out?" I uneasily shook my head in response, not wanting to get too far into it.

"We broke up a couple months back. It just wasn't working any longer. We're different people than we were two years ago." I spoke neutrally hoping that would leave things like that.

"That's...good. You don't want to have to stay together when it's not working." I saw something in Sherrie's eyes that I found hard to place as she talked. I didn't know what it was, but in her words I could trace something. _Could she be having...regrets?_ I thought to myself. She didn't seem as outgoing as she was in the past, a little off from how she had been at the debate. She brushed back her hair and turned away when she saw my stare. "You probably did the right thing," she said.

"I do know. I have no regrets." She slid back on the sofa and she raised her hand slightly, about to say something...

The door from the office squeaked and my father came out of the room in jeans and a blue shirt opened down a couple places. "Rory! I'm glad you got here!" He had a wide smile and I got up to hug and kiss him, though still a little mad he didn't pick up. "How was the ride in?"

"Complicated," I responded back. "Is the T always that confusing?"

He gave me a confused look. "I wouldn't know, I don't take any trains or buses." _Now you tell me. That information might've helped a couple hours back_ , I said internally. "Sher, you good for us going out today? I want to take Rory to the Museum of Science."

"Hold on," I said. "I want to catch up with you both and see how things are going--"

Sherrie stopped me kindly. "No, you two go off, have fun. I have some stuff to catch up with on the TiVo and eventually get a nap in inevitably. _Without a Trace_ seems to be the show that does that." She smiled, and out of the corner of my eye I caught Dad stilling up surprisingly. "We can talk tonight, hon, plenty of time until tomorrow night."

"You're sure?" She nodded, and even though I had no interest in the Science Museum (I had been led to believe Dad would take me on a Freedom Trail tour), I got ready to go with Dad. I could tell something was wrong though when he kissed Sherrie on the forehead and she didn't seem to be really enthused about it as she had in the past, saying a quick 'I love you' and grabbing the remote to watch her shows.

As Dad walked out the door, I glanced towards the screen and then back to Sherrie, who I thought let out a silent swear as I couldn't see _Without a Trace_ or the CBS logo at all on the TiVo menu, but plenty of stuff of NESN, ESPN and some action movies from other channels. She threw it on to Lifetime and I walked out the door, knowing there was something that she wasn't telling me.

I was beginning to think she was home for more than doctor's orders. She was withdrawing, and with all the time Dad had to still had fun, she was suffering. Not wanting to say a word though, I was complicit as I left with him for what I hoped would be a fun afternoon.

It wasn't to be. At first it was fun at the museum, at least until his second companion joined us in his cell phone. As I tried to read the text off an exhibit in the nanotech section...

His phone rang. "Shhh, I have to take this." Soon, I was cast off as him and the person on the other side of the line discussed business and sports. Even though it was in a hall that had a sign banning the use of phones, he raised his hand and passed off the sign's wording as merely a suggestion rather than a rule. Eventually he got off the phone and we were able to talk.

If I thought it would be about Sherrie and Gigi though, I was wrong.

Instead, most of the conversation was about probing me for answers about Mom. "What has she been doing?" "How is the Inn?" "Is she doing okay, I'm sorry I haven't seen her lately." "Does she talk about me?" "Is she excited about me coming for Christmas?"

That last one set me off a little bit. "I don't know, Dad. Are you planning on coming for Christmas? I would think seeing the Tisdales would be a little more important because of your pregnant girlfriend." I didn't care if I sounded a little bitter; after a half-hour of him trying to ask about Lorelai, I wanted to hear one bit about him and Sherrie.

"Hon, she's fine," he said. "Seriously, she doesn't mind if I come down to see you this Christmas. She understands I'm trying to rebuild my life with you. I missed so much of it." I showed on the outside that I was fine with him. "Really, she'll be with her family at Christmastime, I'll be with mine, your grandparents."

 _On paper_ , I thought angrily. _In real life I'm just the hated required heiress in their will when they eventually die_. Dad had tried to get me to the see my paternal grandparents in a better light than that first time, but I just couldn't. That first impression and the words they used, along with Grandpa almost taking out Straub from what he said? I don't care at all for them.

"Are her parents OK? What about her brother and sister?" I asked.

"They are, but I just don't get along with them. Differing views on things."

We continued to tour the museum and I was in awe, talking to him about how excited I was about Gigi. I found it very odd that he didn't really respond about his own feelings, instead going on about his job and things involving it I really didn't care about at all. Like he had when his Internet venture was strong and he called Mom from California, it was all he seemed to be able to talk about, along with the new friends he was making in Boston.

It began to seem like he had no interest in Gigi to speak of. By the time he got back to talking about me, he wanted to wonder why I dumped Dean, which Mom talked to him about a few weeks ago. I told him the same thing I did Sherrie, that it just wasn't working.

"You sure? You put everything you could into the relationship, right? I'm sure Dean wanted to try." Yes, he pulled out the 'think of his side' card. "You should get back together with him. From what your mom says you're buried in schoolwork and Paris keeps pestering you about your college interviews and SAT results."

Yes, I heard that conversation, only it wasn't pestering. Mom had stated neutrally that Paris and I were closer friends than ever and we kept commiserating about our Harvard interviews (which were moved up during break because Paris feels her rhythm is off a bit, and I feel the same way) in the hope we wouldn't blow them. The only pestering Paris has done lately is the usual editor/reporter battles at the _Franklin_ that came with the job.

"I just don't have time to date," I lied. "There's too much to do in these last few months."

"Surely you could skip a day of school and come up here or go out with Dean--"

"Dad, I've lost interest! I don't want to date him! Would you leave it alone, I don't want to talk about it!" I felt embarrassed he was making an issue of my dating life in the halls of a museum where I just wanted to enjoy the day with him and hear about his new kid! "Besides, you have a daughter to think of, aren't you getting nervous yet?"

"A little." He seemed to shrug. "But if something happens your grandmother is ready to come up here and help out until we can get a nanny."

"But you're going to be there in the delivery room, right? You have a bag packed, the doctor's number programmed in, taking their advice?"

"Sherrie has it in control," he told me, patting my back and completely brushing off the question. "I'm sure everything will be fine."

 _Yeah, Dad, I'm sure she's fine, stuck at home before she delivers for three months_. Something is going on that he's dancing around completely. "OK," I said. "I'm just worried for her, stuck at home--"

"She's fine," he insisted as we finished our browsing of the museum before heading out into the chilly December air to head towards downtown for a quick driving tour as he continued to go on about how much he missed me.

I was beginning to think this trip was a bad idea, like I was some kind of third wheel in his life and that I was there solely to give an apparent reminder to my mom that I had a father that still wanted to see me.

He always came around at the most inconvenient of times, and it seemed like this was yet another one. I flipped on the radio to have some music to distract me and tooled around the FM dial, only to find him suddenly bark at me.

"No Rory!" he said, startling. "I don't do any of your kind of music. It's either 'BCN or 'EEI." He flipped the station to the most annoying thing I have ever known.

Sports talk radio. Ugggh, there's nothing more grating than hearing men go on and on and on and on about games and players and all that stuff. I didn't understand the outburst at all and stayed still in the seat as if I was toddler caught playing with a cell phone and dialing out to Russia. Turned out to be WEEI, and a bunch of hoarse guys going on about something called the Motor City Bowl that seemed to involve Boston College somehow; I think they were playing football? I wasn't sure with the braying laughter from the hosts and stereotypical Bostonians I needed a translator to understand.

I could handle that. But what came next was a forewarning of what was to come.

Sherrie called on the cell phone to ask Dad to pick up something for dinner. They seemed to argue for a bit before he acquired to her request to pick up some pizza from a pizzeria she really loved. I could tell at least there Sherrie and I were kindred spirits, as she wanted a pie packed on with the works. Including anchovies. Though I shuddered, I still understood how she wanted to give as many nutrients to Georgia as she could get in before her birth.

"I'm not going to do anchovies. No, Sher." He argued with her when I really didn't mind at all; I could just pick them off. "You keep asking for them and they stink up the house...yes, I know you pay the rent and you're stuck there. Fine, whatever, go back to talking to him, what do I care? I'll get your pizza but you owe me." He hung up the phone without an 'I love you' and tossed it onto the dashboard. "Christ, she's so needy," he said under his breath. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but he seemed to be in a bad enough mood that I didn't want to bother him any longer. As he drove on through the Back Bay, the guys on the radio began to talk about the Bruins, which I at least knew from Paris always mentioning them with an expletive and going on about how she's still bitter the Whalers left for North Carolina and switched her allegiance to the Devils because 'the Rangers are run by a cable guy with bipolar disorder', which isn't funny to people with it, but from a paper she wrote about his company for her business marketing class, seemed to be completely true.

My dad hates hockey. I don't mean like 'ignore it like it doesn't exist' hate. Just...bitter hate for the sport. His parents tried to make him go out for it as his varsity sport at Hillside and from what Mom told me, on the first day of practice he slammed three of his teammates into the boards unprovoked and mouthed off at his coach to get thrown off the team and took a week suspension from school to make his point. He thinks it's uncouth, uncivilized. I could make the same argument for basketball (squeaky shoes, bouncy balls, the dopey shorts and all those endless fouls? Drives me crazy!), but he's mad about that sport and baseball (he also cast off football because apparently the Jets are cursed).

So the guys go on about the Bruins and something about divisions, major penalties, and a bunch of stuff I could probably understand with Paris's help easily. A guy named Sal from Lowell (which sounded like 'loll' coming from him) asked the hosts about how they would do against the Islanders next week.

"Oh good lord, shut up!" Suddenly Dad flipped the station to the rock station he liked, where Metallica was playing, much to my utter displeasure.

It was at that moment where the perfect picture cracked of Christopher Hayden. For all of these years he had been able to display an image of himself as a carefree guy who did care about me in some way and would send gifts, like he was a Santa Claus who could give me what Mom wasn't able to. All these years he was able to maintain it.

But with a few simple words, I knew my father was no better than he had been when he was a sixteen year old who regarded wearing a condom as 'unmasculine'.

Forgetting I was in the car completely, not even putting on the filter he usually kept around me, he said something I never expected from him.

"I hear enough about hockey from Sher's fag brother, I don't need to hear it from these morons!"

I only include the last part to complete the sentence. But all of that was nothing compared to the first part of that statement.

The word echoed through my mind in an ugly manner. That f-word, the one I would never say, not even as part of a debate transcript, had been uttered by my father. He had no shame about saying it.

Immediately, I tried to make sure it was a mistake. "Dad!" I said, speaking out. "Don't say that!"

He looked right at me...

"Well, it's true, he likes guys and he won't shut up about how manly they are compared to the Celtics! It's annoying."

"No, don't--"

"Rory, I can have whatever opinion I want. Her brother and his 'partner' annoy me. That my kid is going to have to call him an uncle...between you and me I'm tempted to tell him he doesn't have the right to that."

I couldn't say any more. I couldn't. I just stared at him for a moment and turned around to look out the window. I know he expected a laugh or a crack in response, but I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction at all.

 _He said...that word._ My blood boiled as I went over it for any kindness or if it was just some kind of odd 'bro nickname'.

I knew the truth though. It wasn't. Christopher hated who would probably be his future brother-in-law because of whom he chose to love in life.

He finally shot off a weary "Whatever" and put his focus back to driving as I considered what I was walking in on.

Coming into this weekend, I had expected to see my future stepmother-in-law glowing about being pregnant and my father excited for the new arrival, and that my love for Paris would be accepted with open arms.

It was different now though. I walked in on a woman I was sure was miserable and unsupported in her pregnancy, while dealing with a man I was becoming convinced was still in love with my mother and was using Gigi as a reset button to wipe away all the problems with his parents, actual love for Sherrie be damned. He was also back to how he used to be, a hanger-on who used his business degree to glide through life and didn't care about the people he worked for in the least as long as he got his perks like a Volvo and basketball tickets.

I was starting to see why Lorelai is adverse to him ever getting back together with him; it seemed like he really did find me to be a ball and chain that ruined his happiness when Lorelai chose to go forward to having me.

As we went through downtown, I also began to question the timing of why he was at the Inn for the wedding when he barely knew Sookie to begin with...

 _Oh my God_ , I thought to myself, connecting the dots. _Why would he come into the Hollow to see my mom when Sherrie was there and then she found out she was pregnant when he left..._

 __I had deluded myself long enough. Too fucking long.

Mom hadn't told me and I hadn't asked. But the timing was true.

Sherrie was at four weeks when she called him at the Inn to come back. She's at 32 weeks now, seven more to go until her due date...

I was sitting next to a cheating bastard who was doing the bare minimum to take care of the mother of his child. I looked the other way.

I am not stupid; I knew exactly what Chris came to Stars Hollow for, and it wasn't to give his good wishes to Sookie, because my mom was busy with 'wedding prep' all night.

Probably a shameful 'wedding prep' once she was told he had to go back to Boston.

I was going to be sick. Now instead of that dumb kiss with Jess that failed at confirming I was heterosexual, these events were now the worst thing to come out of Sookie's wedding day.

I wasn't going to say a word though. I couldn't ruin this trip with some kind of unfounded accusation against my father. I just needed to get through the weekend, get back home and vent to Paris. I could take the high road.

At least I hoped that I could. Somehow I knew my father would find some way to turn this ugly. He always has, every visit. Usually with my mother, but only rarely with me.

Looking in the distance at the new bridge going up near Bunker Hill, I knew I was going to have another tough night on my hands.

But if I could face up to my grandmother, surely my father wouldn't be a problem, right?

At least, I hoped so.  


* * *

** 9:00pm Saturday **

****The evening seemed to go slightly better for us as we got back to the brownstone and ate as Sherrie still seemed a little pained lumbering around the house, though thankful she did get her beloved anchovy pizza, which without them was pretty darned good. I was beginning to push off the things that had occurred during the afternoon, self-convincing myself that it was a rare moment of anger.

At least in that moment. We had to eat dinner and it was funny to see a culturally refined woman like Sherrie go back for seconds and thirds, which I did enjoy. I sighed in contentment knowing that my baby sister at least was eating well. So eating...fine.

The film? That was a little different, unfortunately. Sherrie had wanted to get _Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_ on-demand, which I would have loved to see, but somehow Dad got his way and rented _Dragonfly_ , a very, very dull film about near-death experiences that I swear both Sherrie and I mocked completely, much to his annoyance. The only thing that was good about it was seeing this girl in a hospital scene who looked just like Paris, I swear; she was a dead ringer. But she was gone quickly as we had to discover whatever mental demons plagued Kevin Costner, one of which was self-indulgent writing and over-reliance on CGI.

"Guys, will you stop it? I'm trying to watch this seriously," he told his mid-way through the film as the film's protagonist goes to South America to 'find himself' or his dead wife or his career. Sherrie and I only snorted and laughed.

"Face it, this isn't the film you were expecting," I told him. "It can only be improved by a good old fashioned Gilmore mocking."

"Yeah, that would be fine usually, but I'm trying to enjoy it," he told me. "Now quiet down."

"Chris, don't be ridiculous. You picked a dud, hon," Sherrie cracked as she sprinkled cheese powder on her popcorn. "Costner has been coasting on _Dances with Wolves_ for waaaay too long."

"Finally, someone agrees with me!" I laughed. "Mom actually loved _Waterworld_ , but all I could keep thinking about was 'he drank his own pee!' It's gross!"

"Oh, God, this guy I was dating in the mailroom took me to see that opening night out in Peabody." I could sense a little 'Bawston' silpping into Sherrie's accent. "Theater was only a quarter full and it went on for so long I needed three bathroom breaks to get through it."

"My worst experience was dragging my mom to the _Thumbelina_ film because the songs sounded good," I said, cringing at the memory. "That was the only good thing. I put her through hours of _Rugrats_ when I was a kid taped off her friend's TV because we didn't have cable, and I actually wore out the tape."

"Reminds me of the stage where I wanted _Charles in Charge_ of me." I laughed at her dirty allusion within the title, but we both were startled as Dad cleared his throat.

"Is this how it's going to be all night? You two talking?"

Sherrie shook her head. "What's the problem? My friends haven't been here for awhile and Rory's welcome here."

"Well, I wanted to show her what I got in my record collection," he said. "You have time to talk later."

Sherie nodded. "Oh yeah, while you were gone, I dusted off the tops of your record and CD shelves. Looked like it kind of needed it. Really, hon, you--"

"You did what?!" Suddenly he hit the pause button on the remote hard. "I told you to keep your hands off of that rack!" I turned to see that his eyes were flaring with anger at her.

I failed to see what she did wrong in any way. "Dad, she's helping you out. It gave her something to do."

"Rory, you don't understand. I have $14,000 invested in those albums and shelves and they must be in exact release and alphabetical order. If she happens to jar one loose and one of them drops to the ground, I lose most of the value put into it. I still remember having an original _White Album_ and the cover being ruined because the movers screwed up in their shelving of my bedroom when I moved to college."

I wearily shook my head. "My friend Lane knows a lot about record preservation. You have them shelved on metal racks; that is not good for albums at all. She prefers them in wooden shelving to prevent scratching, and to put the end thinner albums next to buffers. Besides the point though; dust is bad for vinyl and compact discs, but if it's on the top it can't really do anything. Sherrie--"

Dad held up his hand, accusing Sherrie of...well, I'm not sure. "What if she ends up bumping into a shelf and takes it down entirely? The very act of dusting is something that must be taken with care!"

"Honey, I had no intention--"

"You didn't, because you know nothing about storing music. You can't just go to Sam Goody's, buy a cheap shelf and call it done."

"Well, I'm sorry," she said. "I would have rather bought that Bumbo seat on special at the baby store, but God forbid your Dylan collection be exposed to the elements, so it's placed on its own velvet-lined shelf."

OK, that sounded a little absurd. Surely, my father wouldn't be so stupid--

"The man is a musical genius. He deserves his own place of honor above all my albums."

Never mind. He is. Also, missing in this argument so far was any attention to the mother of his child, or his child, would his badly-shelved music collection tumble down.

"Christopher, I do not want to do this while we have guests," Sherrie said, trying to end the argument. "Let's put this aside--"

"The doctor said not to over-exert yourself. Why are you even worrying about my record collection?"

"Because someone decided to mass-delete all the programs off the TiVo **I** pay for, which was keeping me sane. Christopher, I have given you latitude to record your sporting events. But what's a _Pardon the Interruption_? From what I saw it was two guys whining about sports for a half-hour. Do you really need to record _Rambo_ when it's in the DVD collection already? Why would you record the Cavilers/Celtics game last night when you were there watching it in person?"

"I could have been on TV!"

Sherrie pinched her temples. "You were in a skybox. You know the business people in Boston usually buy those because the sports channels **don't** put them on TV unless the company wants them to?"

"You never know." Suddenly, he whipped around back to me. "Did you hear Rory dumped her boyfriend?"

"Yes, I did. They broke up because they were different," she stated. "Is there a problem?"

He looked at me. "Honey, I don't understand why you didn't want to stay with him any longer. He seemed to treat you fine."

I groaned. "Again, Dad, not everyone is going to be together forever. I didn't see my life with Dean further than we went."

"So you gave up on him." _Whoa, where did that come from?_ "What was wrong with Dean?"

"Attacking my friends for one thing!" I told him. "And I don't feel like I have to divulge much more than that."

"You hardly talk to me anymore," he said. "I'll call and you'll be out with that Paris girl for something or another, or you just want to talk to Sherrie."

"Because she's having my sister! Girls are kinda hard-wired to know how that's doing," I explained, trying to calm myself down. "And when I do talk to you it's all about business or you just want to talk to my mom more about things."

"She is your mother."

"So?" I knew Sherrie was in the room, but judging from the crazy CD dusting track Dad went on earlier she was drifting towards my corner. "I'm your daughter. I'm the only one you should be caring about. My mom is fine and has been for years. At least until you come around."

I held a hand to my mouth as soon as the words came out of my mouth. I had no idea why I was looking for a confrontation. I saw him narrowing his eyes suddenly at me. "Crap," I mouthed. Sherrie immediately tried to jump in to defend me.

"Hey, hey. Christopher, she's a senior in private school, she's under a lot of pressure--"

"Sherrie, stay out of this!" He moved to sit across from me in a way intended to make him feel intimidating. "I provide plenty for you and her, so don't say anything about me not doing anything."

I didn't want to take the bait. I wanted to stay quiet, but I began to think judging from his lording of the TiVo and her cleaning of the house I could see why my mother was never comfortable with Dad being around long-term.

But I did. I had wanted to talk under kinder circumstances, but I seemed to have hit some kind of nerve in my dad I wanted to ease down. I took a deep breath and hoped I could continue things on a calmer track.

"I am under pressure, Dad," I said, acknowledging Sherrie's point. "I have to get interviews done next month, and in between that all I have my debate schedule with Chilton, scholarship apps, graduation things months down the line and just living. There's so much to do, not to mention coming up here for Gigi."

"Well, relax, it'll all work out. Get away from Paris once in awhile; I swear she's cramping your style." _What is it with attacking Paris? Stop it._

 __"Her scheduling techniques are keeping me from just giving up right now," I admitted. "It all works for me."

"But what about fun, screwing around, taking some time off? Surely you can relax--"

Here we go again. "I have time off. I have vacation. But I'm not at Stars Hollow High waiting for the next secret kegger. I'm at Chilton, I'm running 1-2 at the top of the class, I do paper editing, I'm VP of student government and trying to maintain a good GPA." I gave him a look straight on. "I am going to Harvard. If I step on the brake once and have to settle for an ACC school, that is failure."

I noticed Sherrie nodding in complete understanding. "She's right. When I was pushing for Dartmouth I almost blew it with an idiotic party with underage drinking and I don't blame my father for his disappointment."

"That's different though; your family is middle class. Rory can step off because if she needs to, my parents will save the day," he said, suddenly interjecting something that sounded like an insult, and rightly so.

Was he saying that Sherrie was an over-achiever, and I should relax because money solves everything? I still don't understand how we got into this debate, but now I understand why Mom said he barely got into Princeton. I could see the woman across from me narrow her eyes and prepare for battle.

"Are you saying that Rory is stupid for putting in effort she doesn't need to?" The lawyer was completely stunned by Dad's idiotic argument. "And that my effort is expected just because of my income bracket and my work for student loans and scholarships? Also, correct me if I'm wrong, Rory, but you're trying not to settle for family hooks to get the money for Harvard, right?"

"Exactly!" Oh my God, she gets it. How does this woman get it, but my own father can't? "Also, might I remind you, Dad, that I don't care what those two offer me at all?"

"They're offering a free ride--"

"Yes, in turn for my soul, my complete subservience to society life and having to tolerate them as my grandparents. Geeze, were you in that room with me two years ago where they basically cut me down to ruining their perfect plan of wedding you and Mom and her being a trophy wife? I don't need their support!"

"That's not what I'm saying. I can make it--"

I shook with anger. "So what, Dad? So I can know I'm using blood money to get through college that I was only offered in a rather sad attempt to butter me up to see them as more than the 'aberration' they never cared about?" I couldn't even look at him. "I don't want to argue with you, so as always, the answer to having your parents support me, is no. It always will be."

"And if you don't get into Harvard you don't want me to have them pull a few strings?"

"Absolutely not!" I said defiantly. "Dad, please settle down, Sherrie needs to take it easy. Please, stop arguing with me."

"You're hiding something," he claimed. "I don't know what it is, Rory, but you need to be open about it." I don't know what I was showing beyond my usual stubborn streak. "Usually you're not this defiant to me or your grandparents."

"Whom I've met once and want nothing to do with me unless it means grinding away every moral I've held for years," I stated. "I would rather die than have to acknowledge I have the same blood as Francine Hayden."

He raised his hands up at me. "Just take the damned help so you can let off the gas!"

"No!" I kept my tone even while his kept increasing. "This conversation is over, now let's get back to the movie."

"It isn't over," he said, voice raised, Sherrie seeming to wonder why he was pushing this as far as he could. "You're still hiding something from me. You leave a good guy like Dean. Why?"

"I'm not getting into this with you. I have told you I don't want to talk about it." I set my hand on Sherrie's and could immediately feel that her blood pressure was increasing at her pulse point. "You need to stop; she's getting stressed out."

I knew from my mom he could get into these streaks of stubbornness, I just never knew how deep. "He did everything for you. He built you a car!"

"A car which earned me a broken arm from hitting a squirrel and was deemed unroadworthy after the cops looked at it. It wasn't even titled out." I hoped I was calming Sherrie down by rubbing the end of her thumb. "Dean was lucky that Luke didn't sue him into the ground because his nephew thankfully escaped injury." I tried again to hope for an end for the conversation, but my dad seemed to be on fire.

"He presented you as a debutante and the thanks he gets is you ending the relationship? You didn't try at all." Yes, this was my father, giving me relationship advice. The irony could be cut with a knife.

"Oh, I tried. Again, it just didn't work out," I stated with finality, spacing out the words so hopefully he understood this was a closed topic. "I don't want to keep up a losing relationship."

"You have to make it work--"

Finally, I let it out, feeling more stressed than I had around him in my entire lifetime. "How do I make it work when he's not in it at all? When he's still in love with his ex in Chicago and pushed me aside. You know why I'm not with him anymore?" I boiled. "Because he cheated on me. He cheated on me with his ex. I saw the proof. I know the proof. And I have to deal with seeing her around town this Christmas!"

That was also enough for Sherrie as she could feel my anger. "That is enough, Christopher!" She gritted out. "You see why she gave up? For a very good reason. I wouldn't want to be stuck in a relationship like that, as the second choice."

I gasped silently as I remembered what I had surmised earlier in the day and could feel the hurt in Sherrie's voice that I would be driven to having this argument with my father. _She's me right now_ , I thought to myself. _Mom is his Beth. The one he went back to when **he** didn't want to make it work with this good woman._

 __I couldn't say anything because I had no ill intention to break them up. That's not what I wanted. But I think it took all the wind out of his sails as he finally gave up on haranguing me.

"Oh..." He shook his head. "I...I'm sorry, kid. That had to hurt."

I wanted to be sarcastic, but I just went with a "it did", and the talk thankfully faded out for a little while as he finally resumed the movie that I knew I wouldn't remember except for the Paris clone within moments of the credits coming on.

I was shaken though. This weekend trip was turning out to be much more troublesome than I thought it had been originally. At the time I hoped that with the damage of Dad's idiotic line of questioning regarding my breakup with Dean would mute my coming out to him later.

How wrong I would be proven.  


* * *

The movie had ended and Dad had put away all of the food and cleaned up, though not without some cajoling from Sherrie to do so. While he was in the kitchen, Sherrie shifted around a few cushions on the couch to make herself a little more comfortable, a pain in her back as she looked for any kind of distraction to mute it.

"So..." she smiled at me. "How are your friends? I know you mentioned Paris earlier. That girl scarily reminds me of how I was at her age up in Medford." I averted my eyes, not wanting to insult her, but she responded with a laugh. "Rory, it's true. I had like 14 things going on before I got into college. I know how it is; high school can be just the most intense thing, even more so today."

"So you thought college admissions staff was out for blood with you too?" I asked, wistful as I remember Paris's complaints about the process. "She thinks they have spies in Chilton."

"Same thoughts here. I thought Dartmouth was gonna disqualify me because I scored a 95 in a pop quiz for a subject nowhere near my major! I also had an interview where I was too intense. The entire thing, I'm sympathizing with you both right now and how you keep her as a friend is a miracle."

"I don't even know," I said honestly. "The trip to Washington probably saved everything; without her push to have me as her VP I don't know where our friendship would be right now."

She cringed at the mention. "I still feel horrible about the after-debate thing by the way." Sighing, she pushed back against the pillow and finally felt a little comfort. "I should've probably invited her along so she still got to celebrate with you."

"We eventually smoothed it over," I said, trying to downplay it. "It's like after a sporting event. You get all that adrenaline and there's a big letdown if you can't celebrate the way you'd like."

She wrinkled her nose. "Rory, I don't think she was mad because she didn't get to celebrate. I think she didn't like that I took you away from her." I felt a sudden urge for diverting the topic far away. "Like...now, I don't want to say anything that would be a little off, but does Paris have anyone she likes?"

 _Oh dear. Attempt to play it down..._ "Well, she had this boy, Tristan, but he got in trouble and hasn't been back to Connecticut in a year. They had a love/hate relationship."

"Before that, then. How about now, or then, at the time?"

"There was another boy, Jamie. They just didn't have chemistry when they met in Washington, or when her mom set her up with him to take her to the Winter Formal under her nose."

"Hmmm..." She was silent for what seemed to be a long moment and all I could hope was she came to the conclusion that Paris was just plain uninterested in dating.

However, Sherrie Tinsdale, is a lawyer. A darned great one too. I might as well have been on the witness stand. "Nobody else?"

"Er, no one else." I laughed nervously, really hoping for some kind of distraction. Or even a phantom labor pain.

"She must have a crush on you then," she said, as if the observation was as natural as breathing air...

Which I was now finding hard to do. She was giving off a smile which suggested she certainly didn't doubt her observation.

"Uhhh, why would you think that?" I asked her, hoping she had very faulty gaydar. "I have never seen her...express interest in women."

"Rory, my brother Devon is gay." I nodded, wondering how she could tell. "I know all of the signs of disinterest in the opposite sex. She exhibits many of the ones I saw in my brother before he came out when he was twenty."

"Wait...you think you know she likes me?" I at least wanted to hear this, especially based on a three-hour impression when she was having a day of emotions filled with bipolarity.

"Just the way she looked at you during the debate for one. Everyone else, she respected; the other team, the moderators, your coach. With you, it was like her attitude was this...different thing that I see with Devon and Ian together. Like, she behaves differently around you."

"Of course she does. She's my teammate and my best friend," I said.

"No, not just that," she said, holding up her hand. "When you were on the stage arguing your side, I don't know. I remember observing teammates in my forensics competitions and most of them only listened to the words. With you, she also observes your emotions and body language. Usually I know debate instructors do want you to look at that. Just not in ways where she's looking at you in more than a friendly manner." A smirk. "She was staring at your butt, Rory."

I shook my head. "Sherrie! That can't be true!"

It is. Paris does ogle me in debates.

"She also had these facial expressions which suggested contentment at both hitting your mark, and a part of your voice that hits her pleasure center."

"You can't really think that." I shook my head, wondering where all of this was coming from. "Also...pleasure center? Really?"

"I keep thinking I ruined some deep plans that she had for that night. I didn't think she'd be so angry about it, but I hit some kind of nerve with her."

"But she's always like that," I argued. "She has everything planned to the second and--"

I saw her shake her head. "Rory, I knew you wanted to go with her instead. Like I pulled you out of this happiness bubble you had so you could 'meet the new adult' because your Dad told you to." Sherrie gave me a serious look and I could swear she was somehow burrowing into my soul.

"I really think she likes you," she said, not a hint of irony or sarcasm at all in her voice.

"Uhhh...OK." What could I do with that information unless I wanted to spill the beans right away. "I guess she does."

 "I'm not...making you feel uncomfortable right now, am I?" She scooted herself a little bit. "I mean, for all I know you're the type who is flattered but has no interest, and I feel like I should have probably let her take you out, but I was told by Chris to get to know you."

"No, no, it isn't that. You're a great woman and I'm glad you're giving me a sister," I said. I debated for a minute what to do, but it seemed like this woman just wanted to know me and had no malice of any kind. She was apologizing for breaking Paris's plans; that was something unexpected.

I looked around the room and heard Dad still putting away the dishes. I figured I could be a little safe and pushing aside my fears, I figured that with Sherrie confirming that she had a gay brother, I could be kindred and she wouldn't be offended.

"Rory?" She nervously felt like she broke the wrong topic. "I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it."

Closing my hand into a light fist I slid over close. "I have to tell you something. After I whisper it into your ear, don't say a word about it to Dad. I need to say what I have to without feeling fearful."

"Is it bad?" she wondered, I shook my head and reached over, whispering quietly so that only she could hear it in any way.

 _Here goes nothing._ "She does like me," I admitted. "I also like her back. We've been dating for the last month quietly and I'm going to tell my dad in a little bit." I paused. "You kind of pushed things into motion and made me realize I should've gone with her."

I pulled back, expecting to see some kind of shame or annoyance that I had just outed myself to her. I even thought she would tell me to get out.

Instead...she squealed lightly and reached over to my own ear to respond back.

"I thought I was on-target. You two fit so well...I'm glad I wasn't imagining it." She pulled away and mouthed 'you have my support' towards me. Just in time, as Dad came back into the room with ice cream and cake...

Oh dear. It wasn't fresh ice cream and cake either. I could see on the slices he brought out read 'grats Myrna' and '35 yea' on them.

Yup, he was treating us to dessert stolen from a company retirement party.

"Here you go ladies!" He presented it as if he was a hero, but Sherrie knew it was just him putting in minimal effort.

"Honey, you brought this home on Wednesday and I can only eat the ice cream or my sugar levels shoot up," she complained. "I can't have the cake slice."

"Eat, it'll help the baby," he implored, under the assumption that any calorie was a good one during pregnancy.

"It's plum flavor. Cake should never be any flavor but chocolate or vanilla," she said, pushing aside the cake to attend to the ice cream and saving me what would probably be the worst dessert experience of my life.

I ate my own ice cream, noticing that my dad was just becoming gruffer as he was disappointed his daddy-daughter weekend was instead turning into a bonding session between us ladies. It troubled me because I thought the point of coming up to Boston was to get to know Sherrie also and how they lived. She made quick work of her dish, as did I, and we had the cake still completely on both of them unconsumed, never to be touched.

I could tell the tension was picking up. I wasn't behaving like I did two years ago, just excited my father came to town on his motorcycle. This was different, chilly. Whatever the office world had done to him, it made him completely different, and I was getting a vibe from him that he was realizing something he was just beginning to know.

He had missed my childhood. Dad's decisions to leave raising me to Mom were now coming back to bite him. Instead of having success with her in his corner, he had a long line of gliding by that had left him to be a different man than he had been in the past, who knew that I was a young adult looking towards the future, towards college.

Dad had challenged my reasons for ending it with Dean. I hadn't expected that.

What else I didn't think would happen? Seeing Sherrie like this. I knew how she was in February was her real personality, not false at all. She was always this cheery and happy.

She was a lot different now, stuck in bed and really hoping for the best, but not sure she was going to get any support with her pregnancy.

I had told her about Paris, and like I expected, there wasn't even any argument. It was normal to her. Her brother had been out for years and I could tell she would defend him, his partner, and their children.

Knowing that now, beyond he was just her gay brother that Dad suddenly had these nasty words for with no reasoning except for prejudice, it made that outburst all the more chilling.

I had to be careful. I hoped for the best.  


* * *

It was a half-hour later after we finished eating and he had gone off into his study for work as I helped Sherrie into bed. She was very worn out and it took awhile to get her in. I averted my eyes as she changed from her Dartmouth t-shirt and jogging pants into a loose maternity nightgown that made her look ethereal. I was a little concerned with my revelation to her that she might see me as somehow flirting with her, which of course is a silly thought to have about a woman having your half-sister, but there is my brain trying to juggle things.  
However, she kept it loose. After sliding into bed, she laughed at my shyness and let her eyes wrinkle in humor towards me.

"Rory," she said. "You're a lovely young woman, but I have no designs on you. Relax!" She patted the bed and I sat next to her. "She's your one and only, isn't she?"

I thought about the question, asked seriously. I knew I was gay, but was I for all women, or just Paris? I thought for a moment, remembering only a few attractions here and there and my Miss Peters crush, but really, it was true.

"I hope she is," I whispered softly, closing my eyes. "Are you sure you're OK with this?"

Sherrie nodded strongly, grabbing her book from the nightstand and giving me a smile that told me that I could certainly do this. That there would be no problem.

"I think you're a good kid with a head on her shoulders. Who you love doesn't matter to me," she said with finality. "It didn't matter when Devon came out. We can discuss that when you talk to your dad." She slipped beneath the blanket and sighed as she got comfortable with a pillow against her back. "I hope it goes well."

I nervously batted away hair from my side. I concurred my hope of my revelation being for the best and wished Sherrie a good night, softly closing the door and hoping for time with Dad all by myself.

This was becoming a pattern, sadly. There was Dad, on his laptop chatting to work buddies with the Celtics game in the background. I was beginning to think Mom had thankfully dodged a bullet, but Sherrie had taken on the miserableness in her place.

"Dad, I--"

"Rory, this is almost over. I want to see if they get over 110.  Hold on." Even not knowing not much about basketball, looking at the score on the screen this wasn't football where a touchdown would put the other team back in the game. The green players (I assume the Celtics from Paris telling me their uniforms were green) were at 105, and the other team in white from New York was at 80. It looked like Boston had well won.

"But they're winning by a lot."

"Not enough though," he grumped. "If they bump over 110 I get $250 from Jake in HR on Monday. I bet the score with him, he was convinced the Knicks would win by 18. How wrong he was."

"$250?" I sat down to watch basketball and continued to find it confusing. At least when Paris describes hockey or football it's pretty much artistic and in detail about the importance of a formation or 'power plays'. Here though, it was just 'guy in white fouls guy in green, green guy shoots two times at the hoop, white shirted guy gets ball and tries to score', and repeat that over and over.

How Dad could bet so much on a game was puzzling, but on one that was already won, even more so. The announcers even said it was 'garbage time', which apparently means the professional basketball players decide to play like Chilton's 0-9 junior varsity team, which from seeing a practice one day where even the JV cheerleaders were taunting them about their awfulness, were our school's athletic embarrassment.

Somehow, two minutes in basketball time is fifteen minutes and has commercial breaks. The game finally ended with the Celtics winning over the Knicks 113-90, to my relief and Dad's, who apparently wouldn't have to go into work on Monday and pay his co-worker money for betting wrong.

After the post-game show and some chatting with his work buddy, he finally got to me after twenty-five minutes as we went out to the kitchen for a snack with his laptop.

"Hey, so what did you want, kid?" he said as he closed up his computer.

 _An acknowledgement that I'm your daughter?_ My inner vixen grumped, which I thankfully ignored for that moment to bring out the 'birds dressed me' side of my personality.

"I...I wanted to talk to you about something," I said. "I did come up here for Sherrie and you, but there is something else."

He nodded at me. "OK, lay it on me." I sat next to him and tried to psyche myself up for it.

_OK, Gilmore, you can do this. You **have** done this. Though not usually in this way; Mom caught you making out and Madeline found out through my little jealousy routine, and Grandma and Grandpa, well that went 50/50, but still, she's not talking to me. He's in a good mood, he just won a bet and his kid's on the way. Lead in with Harvard..._

__"Well, I'm going to be coming up for interviews at the start of the month in Cambridge, and I was wondering..." I paused, remembering even if I did get rejected, Paris's dad offered his Back Bay house to us to stay in. "Would you be OK with Paris and I here the night before?"

I wondered what the response would be. I prepared for almost anything he would say and hoped it would be for the best.

"Why does Paris need to stay here? Can't she get a room downtown? She can afford it."

OK, I didn't expect complete snobbery just because of her income bracket. _Redirect_.

"It's not that," I said. "We want to go over our interviews the night before."

He shook his head. "You do remember that Paris almost tumbled you into a locker that night, right? The force of how she shoved that boy, why would you want to associate with someone that mean and vicious?"

"Dad, the boy forgave her. And she was in a bad mood because you came and I had to go off with you instead of celebrating our debate victory with her. She was just frustrated that night and no, Paris doesn't regularly shove people." Internally I giggled, remembering even how angry she was that she just had incredible upper body strength for a woman of her size and build.

"She also wants to lecture about everything," he reminded me. "And she'd probably steal your answers too. You realize she's your competition in Chilton and Harvard?"

"That, she is. I understand. But she's also my friend and when all of this admissions rigmarole is over we won't have any reason to be enemies any longer. It's silly to have an enemy just to compete for some arbitrary number."

"You shouldn't be friends though. You should be socializing with others, getting into peer groups...maybe find a good guy in Chilton, put yourself out there." OK, why was Dad suddenly showing an interest in my love life two months after I hit legality? "If you stick with Paris and her friends, you're going to be stuck in a limited peer group that isn't 'cool'."

Oh God, no. _Dad, you are seriously not playing the 'outcast card'. You're not..._

 __"Dad," I huffed out. "I'm at Chilton to learn, and it doesn't matter if I'm part of the in crowd or anything. I don't want to be part of them. If I get to the point where I'm stealing a yacht, please, jail me." I made a mention to try to up Paris's rep. "Besides, she is a motor connoisseur like her father and already into fast cars and motorcycles like you are."

"Oh, geeze, don't defend her. She likes imported crap; all I buy is finely crafted American machinery."

"Dad...your Volvo is from Sweden," I reminded him.

"Sourced with American parts and owned by an American car company. It still counts."

"What I'm trying to say is there is more to Paris than meets the eye," I said. "She isn't just all intense studying and a bloodlust for winning. She has vulnerability to her and she needs a friend who understands her. It's taken awhile to get to the point where we can even be in the same room without being in constant debate with each other, but once you get to know her...she isn't that bad."

"I knew kids like her in high school," he claimed. "They all eventually burned out or turned to drugs because rote learning doesn't mean squat in the real world. You need to have the knowledge of the real world to get through it, and Paris--"

I narrowed my eyes in frustration. Trying to justify my friendship to a man who knew her for a grand total of two hours and trying to make excuses for her? It was growing annoying.

"Paris is going to be just fine. We have an agreement where we won't steal each other's questions, and she will make it out there."

"Yeah, because Daddy Warbucks will give her anything she wants. She doesn't get her way she'll just throw a tantrum. You know her dad will just buy her way into Harvard, right? She could probably get lazy at this point and get in comfortably, while screwing you over!"

The way my father was talking about her was so casual, so uncaring that it was actually making me angry. So her father buys her nice things. What was the point he was trying to make here?

"There is no screwing over going on here," I said firmly. "We are both going to get in on our own academic merits."

"Yeah, you say that now!" His voice was building up volume. "Rory, she might be your friend now, but by the time March comes along you're going to regret it. Stay friends with girls like Lane who don't have ambition--"

And there was some whiplash, saying Lane wasn't competitive? The hell? "And you know my best friends how, Dad? How? I talk to you about Lane as someone hoping to get out from her parents but now all the sudden because she doesn't have Ivy ambitions, that's a reason to stay friends with her? Because she's not going to Cambridge with me?"

I shook, trying to hold my back as deeply as I could from dropping an obscenity. "Paris is my friend. She is the one keeping me from phoning it in at Chilton. Without her, I would have been gone by January my sophomore year, back to Stars Hollow High, back to being bullied, back to being belittled for being there to learn and not giving a damn about who's sleeping with whom. I'm there to learn and Par is keeping me on the line, keeping me away from becoming yet another society robot that only cares about Birkin bags that look like overpriced laptop cases and makeup! Lane is my best friend. She always will be. But I have plenty of my room in my heart for Paris, who is a good woman underneath all those layers she needs to protect herself from all the hurt in her life."

"Hurt?" He challenged me. "Oh my God, she's had so much hurt, getting her fast little cars and motorbikes and making your life a living hell. Face it, Rory, you're enabling a bully and becoming her lackey. You dumped a good guy because of this stupid need to satisfy her--"

"I dumped him because he was having cybersex with his ex!" I thought we had covered this already. "He didn't really love me and was a territorial jerk who thought Luke's nephew was a threat to his manhood! And thanks, really love the being called 'stupid' for wanting to have goals." I wrapped my arms around my chest, feeling primed for argument, every single bit of Paris's advice about conflict strong in my mind at that moment. "It's pretty clear you don't know her at all. That you don't know me. I am more than just your daughter, I'm a young woman with a life, with a purpose, and she is the same way, Dad. I wouldn't have chosen to befriend her if she was a complete bitch. But she isn't. She never has been. And I would appreciate you not cutting down our friendship."

If I thought that was the last word, I was wrong.

Very wrong. I thought I would have the halo effect into coming out to him, but he made sure I would have to do this riled up.

"You need to end it with her, Rory," he said. "I don't really like this side of you. Combative, disrespectful, angry. I'm your father and you need to show respect to me."

"Respect, huh?" I wrinkled my nose and took in a deep breath. "The same respect you showed my mom when you left her at the Inn during the wedding with her heart broken once again. When it suddenly wasn't working out with Sherrie, so the moment you were free you once again came back into our lives hoping for a hero's welcome from the both of us." I lowered my voice, intending to be as cold as I could be. "Only when reality slapped you in the face, to run back to Boston, not a word, or an explanation. Just gone, Dad. You don't have the foresight to ever think ahead--"

"That's enough!"

"And it's always the moment! Always your time, never anybody else's. We have to fit our schedule around the time **you** feel like coming into town!"

"Rory--"

"No!" I snarled, feeling built up. "I'm sorry, but I'm not just the happy girl glad you came in! I know now that you and Mom aren't going to happen, are never going to be married, and we will never be a happy family. That dream is gone because you have a kid coming, Dad. You have a living, breathing child that you are going to have to be responsible for, and from what I've seen so far this weekend you're acting the same way you did when Mom was pregnant, trying to deny the reality." I held up my hand to keep him from responding. "You bury yourself in work so you don't have to deal with it, think Sherrie is annoying for asking for things she needs, and going off to basketball games? And when I came in today she was trying to assemble a baby chair! Why is **she** doing that? Why does she have to do anything at all? She is pregnant with your child and you're treating her like a second prize of some kind."

"You don't know us," he growled, as I felt the anger that only my mother knew. "You come in here and you have no right to judge us at all."

"You started this argument," I reminded him. "All I asked was if Paris could room here during interviews and you took it to this place--"

"Oh, God, will you shut the fuck up about Paris?! It's like you love her or something!"

I shrieked as he let out the curse word and pretty much demanded I stop talking. I felt caught and I knew my eyes would give me away. Quickly I remembered her advice about rubbing my palm with my thumb and did that. I needed it, really needed it.

All I could think in that moment was _this is going to get very ugly_. With my dad outright talking about my friendship as if I was forced to under threat of death, it was wearing me out. I had to stay strong, push through this, try to at least keep some kind of sliver of my relationship with him going.

I knew I could lie and back away at this point. I could easily do that.

Instead, I went full force into the admission, taking a calming breath.

"Now that you mention it," I said calmly, "there was another reason I came up here this weekend."

 _Here we go_. Gathering every piece of courage I could, I did what I had to do.

"I was hoping I could say this in a peaceful mood, but I'll have to say it in this manner." Closing my eyes for a moment, I felt my heart constrict as I let the words out.

"I am a gay woman, Dad." I never wavered my gaze from him, looked him straight in the eyes. "I am dating Paris, and I am in love with her."

There was a moment of stern quiet between us as I felt my stomach clench from the revelation. The biggest part of me was hoping that Dad would understand, would see why I was so combative about defending her and completely. He looked at me and...

"That's funny," he said. "OK, that's a hilarious way to end an argument."

Alright, he was going with denial of this as a big joke.

"I'm serious. I've been with her for a month and I don't think I'll know a better relationship. She gets me, and I think she knows I get her. When she's with me, her sharp edges retract and she's whole different person." I was steady with my voice. "I know that this may be shocking to you, but I've always seemed to know that I just don't feel more than friendship with men."

"Paris can feel?" He said under his breath, giving me this neutral stare that was scaring me a little.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, she can. She has told me so much about herself that nobody will ever know. It got to me. There are things in her life that make her much more human than she projects. She is also a very beautiful woman and I cannot think of anyone better to hold my heart. My girlfriend has treated me with more kindness and respect than Dean did in the time I was with him, and in turn, she treasures me for treating her as an intelligent and vulnerable woman, instead of just someone in the way to Harvard."

"I hope you can understand why I'm this way, Dad." I was respectful, I was calm, and I would not be pushed into anger over this. He could take me or leave me from this point forward.

I expected some support, maybe some aversion. Or for it to go the way it did with Grandma; an argument, but yet an acknowledgement I was my own woman and she needed time to process how to go forward.

This is Christopher Hayden we're talking about, though. Who cuts out when he fails. Wants everything his way.

He looked at me, narrowed his eyes...

"My daughter is a fucking dyke." He spat it out softly, yet it still had the full force of heated hate behind it. "Unbelievable. That's why you came up here this weekend? To tell me that you like to fuck girls? And a girl like her?"

I nodded simply, refusing to take his bait. I sucked in a breath at his words, playing with my thumbs. I didn't think it would result in...this. I was chilled and nervously wondered how the rest of this would go.

"I told you--"

"Yes, you told me." He got up from his seat. "You told me you were gay, and why." I began to sense him moving towards me. "And I can't help but feel massive disappointment in how Lor raised you." Shaking his head he bit into a cheese stick from the microwaved plate in the center of the table, and continued to talk. "I was hoping I would have a daughter with good morals and a sense of right or wrong. Obviously that didn't happen, because--"

"I still do have good morals," I argued, "and I know right from wrong. Mom is good--"

"Not good enough!" He interrupted. "She failed in raising you because you're dating an insufferable bitch who is lording over you because she can't find a guy with the stomach to date her."

He was going to play low, and I had to tell him he was wrong. "It's the same with her. She did have a boy who liked her, but it didn't work out. She doesn't feel anything for men herself." I tossed back my hair, not knowing what to say.

"I'm sorry if you disagree with this--"

He stopped me. "Disagree, are you kidding me? Rory, this is the absolute wrong thing for you! You aren't a lesbian! You're an all-American girl who should be finding a good guy to settle down with, not a tyrannical snob who is only something because of her money. Trust me, if you were the one in that house and she was stuck in the Hollow with your mom, you wouldn't care about her at all, because she would be nothing. Ignored, hated, and best of all, not able to spend her way into Harvard."

I didn't know where this came from. Paris only used her money for fun things. Never for influence. Outside of her townhouse up here, she has the same college advisers as everyone else. The same interview dates. Like me, she has refused any attempt at line jumping. I was pissed, especially at the turnaround that if she was Mom's daughter and acted the way she does nobody would like her at all.

"I love her," I said again, repeating it firmly. "She is not the way you think she is, at all. Obviously, you don't know her. She cares. She pushed through money for the LGBT alliance at school, and I helped her with it. The _Franklin_ is an excellent newspaper in her hands, and she keeps me driven in that place!"

"Your school has a GSA?" He was incredulous. "If we had that in our day the other schools would have laughed at us!" He scoffed at the idea of progress. "I don't even want to look at you right now. You and your mother should be ashamed of yourselves."

"Why my mother?"

"Because!" He growled deeply. "My parents had a plan for everything so you'd be well taken care of. Everything was sorted. But no, your mom is a feminist, your mom has to be strong and have her own spirit! So I get stuck travelling the country after my degree while you get raised as an eventual lesbian by her!"

"Hey, this was all my decision!" There was no way Lorelai was going to be blamed for how I lived my life. "And you know Mom would have never been able to live with Straub or Francine around daily. You saw them when I met them; they want nothing to do with me."

"You know that's untrue--"

"Oh, do I? The only way they would is on my terms, as a trophy wife with no goals or aspirations to speak of and with every single shred of my creativity burned away until I was just a society girl. I will **not** have you demeaning Mom, my life in Stars Hollow, or Paris, in any way. There isn't any way I'd switch the life I have to have you and Mom miserably married in society life."

"You're going to regret this. Lor is going to realize soon that she made the stupidest mistake of her life in letting you be a lesbian, and when Paris dumps you, don't come crying to me and saying I was eventually right, because I've just warned you, Rory; you're making a serious mistake."

I hadn't even been able to muster a tear. Any sadness I could muster from my dad saying I should be ashamed by my sexuality had evaporated by his complete disdain for how I was. He just looked at me as if I was foreign, kind of ugly. I didn't understand why he was so against this at all. It's not like he cared about my love life in any form before this evening.

"Well, guess what?" I shook my head. "It's **my** life, and if I want to screw it up, I will, though I didn't feel like I screwed it up at all." The best thing to do was remain neutral. "I'm disappointed that--"

"I'm not disappointed, I'm pissed. Had I knew this is where your life was gonna lead I would've stayed with Lor!" He pointed his finger towards me. "I guess I can safely say I don't want Paris here for the interviews."

"In fact," he slurred, "I would like you to leave. That you would come here and bond with Sherrie and then reveal that you're in love with a woman. My child doesn't deserve to know you."

"What?" Now I was angry. "Hold on a second! You cannot deny me access to Gigi!"

"I have, and you will grab your crap and leave now." I saw the anger in my father's eyes. "And when you get back to Stars Hollow you can tell your mother I'm mad that she didn't feel the need to stop this. You are unwelcome here from now on."

"I would think that's Sherrie's choice." I smirked, remembering the labeling of the address block downstairs. "As far as I remember, she's the one who pays for this apartment, and she's still the mother of my half-sister. Because of my age, you have no say on whether I cannot visit Gigi or not."

"You're testing me, Rory. Get out!" He raised his voice louder. "I am not going to repeat myself. If you hadn't turned eighteen, I would have started a custody battle right this moment so I could get you--"

"Get me to what? Stop being gay?" I felt offended. "Guess what, Dad? I was born like this! My biology is bent towards an attraction to women, and obviously a certain type of woman. I can't just flip off a freakin' light switch and declare 'I don't like girls', and all of that stuff about praying away the gay is mostly ineffective." I pursed my lips. "Besides, where am I going to go? It is Boston at 8:30 at night."

"Go to a hotel, I don't give a shit." I stood there, willing him to get me to leave. I wasn't leaving without a fight. "Rory, leave, now. You're going to stress Sherrie out."

I stood firm. "It's her apartment. I'll leave if she asks me to."

"Rory..." I could tell I was getting to him, but I didn't care. He had just proven I didn't need him in my life. He moved closer. "I will take you out of this house with force."

"Go ahead and do that," I challenged. "You make me come up here, put in the barest effort possible in being hospitable, and now I see that she's miserable?"

"She is not miserable. Don't you dare come into my house and criticize my relationship."

"As someone who is your daughter, I think I have a right to." He approached me.

"Rory, I swear to God." He raised his hand, and I held back my flight or fight response as he began to make clear he would do something to me. "Leave. Now."

I narrowed my eyes and scoffed at him. "Why should I listen to you when you won't even respect me, you bigot?"

Yes, it was stupid to say it. But it was damned true. He came closer.

"That's it you little bit--" Just as he was about to slap me...

"I wouldn't move another muscle. She is right, you are a bigot."

Unnoticed by the both of us was that Sherrie had gotten out of bed to use the bathroom, and then sat down in a chair in the living room to hear our argument. She had assumed things would be fine, but once she heard us both raise our voices I suppose she knew something was going on. So as I pleaded with Dad to understand, she was there, listening to everything I had to say.

He tried to play it cool. "Oh...Sherrie, honey. I'm sorry, you don't need to listen to this--"

If I had expected Sherrie Tinsdale, seven months pregnant, under doctor's orders to rest and keep calm, to be complacent, I was dead wrong.

"I don't need to listen to this?" She spoke up strongly, her 'lawyer tone' in full force. "I love that you get to be my proxy and say I would like Rory out of the apartment and would deny her access to her sister! That is not happening."

"Sherrie, if I could explain what happened." The smaller woman held up her hand.

"She came out of the closet. You're supposed to support that. Instead, you go off on her for no reason!"

"Being gay is wrong, Sher, you know how I feel about that!" He was so out of his element he had forgotten about Devon.

"Oh, I guess I didn't. I assumed that you were fine with Devon, but with this outburst, shaming your own daughter like this because of who she loves, I don't even know how you feel about him. But that's besides the point, because she came up here to be honest and you react like this?"

"You don't know our family. Hartford society is insular, traditional and they are going to shame Rory--"

"Does she look like she cares?" Sherrie pointed out. "Your daughter just admitted one of the toughest things any teenager ever has to do, and the only thing you can think about is 'how are my parents and buddies going to react'. Christopher, you need to accept this."

"I don't have to do anything!" He growled. "You can't defend this. She's in love--if you can even call it that, with a power-hungry tyrant of a girl."

The woman shook her head and rolled her eyes, feeling like she was being spoken down to. "Because you can make that one assumption based on a few hours of knowing her."

"I know my daughter!"

"You didn't know her enough to give her freakin' T directions or a taxi here this morning!" She raised her arms up. "I reminded you multiple times this week, be ready for Rory, she's coming to visit. I wrote it down in your calendar and yet you still couldn't roll out of bed to pick her up!"

"You don't get to lecture me!" I was just watching this like a ping-pong match now, wondering if I would have to go or not.

"I get to do whatever the hell I want to you! I've been carrying this child of yours for seven months, two of which are about to be used, instead of advancing my career further, to dissertate the crap out of _One Life to Live_! And to tell Rory that she can't see her sister solely because of who she loves?" She listed a few things with her fingers. "I do not tolerate bigotry, I do not tolerate homophobia, and I certainly do not tolerate you denying the simple act of sisterhood."

"Well, maybe she should have thought of that before she decided to become a lesbian." He pointed at me. "You don't get to come in here and lecture me about how I live my life." He tried to push her aside, only to find her match him move by move. "Get the fuck out of my way!"

Then, Sherrie brought down the hammer on him. Staring daggers into the taller man, the pregnant woman just did the thing that would make it clear that she would no longer be an annoyance in my life, or Paris's.

"She can do what she wants; choosing to stay out of her life for so long, you don't have much right to control her, Chris." Giving him a stare that would make anyone shudder, she continued on, arguing her case.

"I love how she finally got out of her funk and realized my suspicions that when you left me before I found out I was pregnant, you went right back to Lorelai. Just...no thinking on that. Went back and played with her heart and crushed it anew when I told you about Gigi. How the hell could you do that? Just...cut out and go right back to her and think it was over with us? And yes you did the responsible thing by coming back, at least you thought so. But I **didn't** want you to come back."

Then, wrenchingly she admitted what happened in that week after Dad left. "The only reason I did call was to inform you I was going to terminate it because of your wishes not to have new kids, something we talked about when we first got together. But...you had to look good to your parents, get a little more guarantee on your inheritance. You had to satisfy them, so you came back and said you'd be there for me. You moved back here, and tried to respark things, when it was damned clear your heart wasn't in it. You pushed me into something I didn't want, and although I will love Gigi deeply as my child, it should have been longer down the line, like I planned."

"Hold on, are you blaming me--"

"I am!" She stomped down her foot. "You were embarrassed that you were going to lose someone to pass down the Hayden line because Rory wanted nothing to do with it, so you jumped on my pregnancy. At first, you were kind, benevolent, caring. Then month five once I started getting complications, you withdrew into the office and just took any damned opportunity you could to stay away from me." Sherrie continued to cringe. "For crissakes, Chris, and I apologize Rory, you won't even have sex with me! Am I that repugnant?"

"Sherrie, I think we can talk about this later--"

"NO! We're talking about it right here, right now!"

"Honey, calm yourself down, you're going to stress out the baby."

All I could think in that moment was that my dad just didn't get it at all, and Sherrie took that as the exact opportunity to finish tearing him down.

"'I can take it," she declared, then pointed at her bump, "and she can take it." Purposefully she made a move to get in front of me, as if to say 'you're in my corner, let me take care of you'.

"You really want to defend her? She came in here and declared something I heartily disagree with!"

"Tell me, Christopher, what do you think of my brother then? Tell me, please. You seem to have no problem with him, but your own daughter, somehow it's much different."

I watched his eyes, wondering if he would tell the truth. He seemed nervous, confronted, wanting to just weasel out of confrontation like he's done every day since his first loitering ticket when he was twelve. A moment of slience. He opened his mouth.

"I don't have to say." Yes, he was chickening out. Big surprise.

So I decided to answer for him.

"You said enough earlier when you called him a 'fag' in the car," I said, defiantly, my voice with so much disdain it was hardly my usual tone. "You hate that Devon will be Gigi's uncle."

"I never said--"

"Is this true?" Sherrie asked firmly. "Did you actually, in front of your lesbian daughter, use that hateful slur to describe my brother, my flesh and blood?"

"Hon, you don't understand. I was just talking about how he goes on about the Bruins and I don't like hockey."

"No, cut the bull, Chris. You hate my brother. That he's happy with Ian and the kids. You can't even stand to look at them when we see my parents." She leaned against the table. "You were just being a polite bigot. Once you got into the car with a daughter who you thinks worships the ground you walk on, you thought you could unload and it wouldn't get back to me."

Her words cut him with deadly precision. "I will say this right now to you; Georgia Maria Tinsdale will not be raised in a hateful home. She will have her Uncle Devon around all the time spoiling her to the nines. And her sister Rory will **always** be able to visit her, along with her wonderful girlfriend Paris. I don't give a crap if as if this moment she is disinherited from the will of the Hayden estate. The way your parents treated Dev and Ian when they were up here last month, I intend for them to be **very** distant grandparents who will have absolutely no say in how Geeg will be raised."

Dad firmed up. "And if I disagree? I intend for my daughter to know her grandparents, on my terms?"

And then, the death blow. Trained as one of Boston's best lawyers, Sherrie finished what in the Suffolk County Courthouse, would be a killer cross-examination.

She grabbed the cordless phone, waved it in front of him in a death grip. Even without the elegance of a power suit or killer figure, Sherrie proved herself in front of me.

"I pay every cent for this apartment, Christopher. Don't agree to my terms, and you can walk out that door. If you continue to deal in these abhorrent views, I intend to have you arrested for trespassing, because I don't want you here. Not in the form of a gay-bashing, mother-hating, overindulgent and selfish jerk who would throw his own daughter out on the street just for who she loves. Rory **will** be staying here tonight and will be meeting Devon and Ian tomorrow, as previously planned, and probably will be able to have plenty of catharsis with them after having a coming out I'm sure she'll describe as 'her worst hell' later in life. Meanwhile, you have plenty of work buddies to stay with, so I suggest you make a call to them and get a bed for a lengthy period.

"I fell in love with a good man. Not a hateful asshole. You ever mutter another homophobic slur in this house, and you will lose your manhood, in every single way possible."

Instead of feeling pushed down, he persisted in his ignorance. "You would not have the guts--"

"I would," she said. "And I know there's no way you will apologize to Rory, so cut your losses and get out."

Then, he made another fatal move. Wearing a grin that just oozed sleaziness, he tried to play the 'man card'.

"And if I leave, who's gonna protect you, Sher, Rory? What'll happen if some asshole breaks in and wants to have his liberties with you, or a freak of a woman comes in and cuts Gigi out?" The way he was sounding was almost psychopathic, and filled with delusions of grandeur.

Any other woman, even Paris, may have taken awhile to respond.

Not Sherrie.

"Cut the bull," she told him. "You really think I'm that stupid? Without your dumb ass not realizing that you should never trust a condom machine in a Southie bodega, you would've never given me a glance again if I didn't have your child."

And then, the _Mortal Kombat_ special move...

"Besides, you forget I pack heat; at least until I had to stop target practice, I was the queen of the pistol range. And even pregnant I know my goddamned self defense enough. I am not a poor, defenseless woman, you lout. As you've proven the last couple months, I don't need you to protect me. Also, the crime rate in this area is among the lowest in the city, and the building has security cameras. Only an idiot would dare to commit a burglary here. So kill the damsel in distress excuse, because we don't need you here." She handed him the phone. "Now call someone, grab the crap you need, and get out." She turned over to me. "Rory, my bedroom until he leaves."

I could only nod; no way I was going to disagree with Sherrie. "See you in there." I headed in and closed the door, the conversation ended between my father and I without a single word.

While behind the door, I heard other things said, like he now had an official ban from the TiVo, and that he would not be welcomed back without apologies to all of us. Sherrie was the only one to say a word as my father was completely emasculated. He left with a hard slamming of the door, and like that, with a whimper, I had come out to my dad, and probably lost him.

Still, through all that, even through all the silence and time to think, I couldn't even get sad. I still felt anger that wouldn't dissipate until I got home, and I felt good that I was able to bring out the thoughts I held out for so long. I hated being such a bitch, especially to my father, but when he brought Mom into it, that was it.

I've had a good life with Mom, in the Hollow. There is nothing he can do to take that away from me, and I refuse to let him ruin that, or strip away the happiness I felt with Paris. I looked down at my hands and went through my mind.

I had made the right choice coming out. Probably no matter what, it wasn't going to end well. I had even heard a rumor in the Hartford grapevine that he had been let go from a good software job he held a few years back for bullying an underling, something that he had tried to smooth over with Mom as just 'not a right match for the job', but there was a good reason no one would ever hire him in Hartford without Straub getting involved somehow.

I nervously pondered whether I had caused damage to Sherrie's dreams. That I caused a rift.

What was telling to me was Sherrie saying she would have Gigi, but only because Christopher would be with her. That he pressured her away from having an abortion.

What he did and not following up on his promises is what was making Sherrie miserable. I knew she loved Gigi now, but in that period when she told him, it was a choice she had to make, and if she had been able to decide on her own, things would have been fine for her.

Somehow though, I knew Straub and Francine. They are heavily anti-abortion, and that thinking definitely was passed on to my father.

What hasn't been told is although I know my mom didn't consider the choice of abortion, it wasn't because it was her choice, or the choice of my grandparents.

From what I know and has been whispered in the past, when my mom found out, she was basically confronted by those two and told if she even ventured anywhere near Planned Parenthood, even for pre-natal care, they would use some kids they knew at Hillside to spread even more salacious gossip about her. Not just involving her, but untruths that would have ruined my grandparents in society beyond repair. It was a threat made away from my grandparents, after school one day.

It chilled her. Somehow, I knew my father had used the same logic on Sherrie to scare her away, and now she was becoming depressed from isolation. If I didn't support her and she had Gigi without much help, there was a high possibility for her to have post-partum depression that would make her do rash things I don't even want to think about.

My father doesn't understand that. He laughed through my mom's two month case of PPD, where she felt hopeless about her life. It was something she only talked about during an extreme low in our lives around 1995, when her first attempt to buy a home failed because of some computer and credit mix-ups that took awhile to fix. If not for the nanny at the time Grandma hired to take the stress off Mom, who knows what would have happened?

Whatever the case though, what was done was done. Sherrie came back into the bedroom and left the door open, shaking her head and sighing as she made her way onto the bed, cringing and knowing the doctor would have a field day with her the next appointment. She groaned as she hit the bed and took in a deep calming breath. I didn't know what to say because I was afraid she'd last out at me.

Thankfully the silence was short-lived.

"Well," she said, breaking the ice. "It's nice to know how your father really feels now. When you told me and went out there I expected him to be kind and understanding. Not all of what he just said."

I shook my head, taking in a deep sigh. "I guess I really don't know my dad after all. God...I'm sorry you had to go through all that."

"Don't even apologize, Rory. Please, don't." She set a hand on my shoulder and grimaced, going over everything in her head. "It just helped me understand a whole lotta things about Chris I've been trying to figure out since he zig-zagged back up here in June. He told me he had gone to see his parents after we broke up." With a bitter laugh she seethed as she realized the truth. "I should've realized that he'd go right back to your mom. But he promised me that he wouldn't."

"Sherrie, the first thing you know about my father; he doesn't do promises well. If he did, my mom and he would be married, I'd have been in Chilton years ago and the proud owner of a Compact Oxford Dictionary. That last one still gets to me because he claimed there was a problem with his card, when he was just plain broke." I looked at Sherrie and saw there was no sadness in her eyes either, the both of us having come out above him. "When he said that about your brother I wasn't sure whether to tell you or not because I didn't know anything about him."

"You didn't have to. Dev's heard so much worse; we are in Boston after all, cradle of loudmouth bigots spouting off daily on 'RKO. But it's not a shock. When I first saw your grandparents back a couple months ago and told them about him, they were polite, but I could tell they weren't happy that I was completely accepting of him. It's not even an issue in our family, but I can understand how being who you are in that setting, it isn't easy."

"All I wanted was acceptance," I said, laying it out as simply as I could. "I was just expecting 'that's cool, kid' and then moving onto something else. But it didn't happen like that and I can't figure out why. How could he just be that cold and mean to the both of us?" I looked at her. "To you. Is this how it's been since he came back? Closing up the gates and trying to push you down."

With a slight frown, Sherrie was finally able to let her feelings known without the intervention of a friend telling her to 'buck up, things will be better soon'. "He really doesn't listen to me, what I want or need for Gigi. I just wanted a little support when he said he was committed to this, and frankly...I am a little scared. I have support, but I'm not a 'child person'. I expected to have one a lot later on. Part of the plan, you know? And I expected to have a choice in most everything about this."

She whimpered as she recalled the call of the revelation. "When I told Chris I didn't intend to continue the pregnancy, I swore he became panicked. Like, there was this change in his voice because he suddenly realized he'd have to go to those moralistic parents and confess he let the woman choose to cut everything, including the pregnancy. He guilted me out of it, and then promised so much. He was good the first month back. And then since I started to show, it's like I'm not the Sherrie he began to date, I'm--"

"Someone else," I said. "Like my mom all those years ago."

It was then I came to a revelation about why his timing of coming back into Mom's life had always seemed a little hinky. My eyes widened at the shock of finally coming to the conclusion that had been in front of me for so long.

"That...that's why he waited so long to come back," I said. "Their relationship plunged after Mom had me, and all the sudden I'm going to college and Mom's got an empty nest?" Knowing this now, I shuddered in horror. "I think we're beginning to find out a few scary things we didn't know about him tonight."

"I'd say." There was silence for a few more moments, as I slid my hand into Sherrie's.

"Hey," I said. "If you ever need something, call me, please? I know this all has to be tough on you and I don't want to see you down the line down about all this." I thought about PPD but didn't say the actual words about it. "You have me here, no matter what, and I know after tonight when I tell my mom what happened, she won't take my dad back if he tries to cut and run."

"Rory, to be honest, right now..." She paused nervously, wiping her eyes. "I am scared of him being a father. If he treats his records better than me and still acts like a bachelor going out to basketball games when I need him here taking care of me, what's to say he won't stop? I'm even afraid I might have to take more than my maternity leave. He won't even go to birth classes with me. Just the one for the introduction, but then he said he did it before, so he should know what to do."

"He doesn't know anything; he almost fainted in the delivery room at the sight of my crowning head." The time to think of her was overbearing was over; I knew if I didn't support her, Sherrie and Gigi would have a rough few months. "We're going to get through this, with him or without him, OK? This is all going to be fine." I wondered if it was true, but it was something I did have to say. I couldn't let my sister down, and that had to include her mother, in turn. She was hurting and I wondered about a few things.

"What's going on with your friends, by the way? Why don't they want to come over here?" I wanted her to open up to me about what happened. "You said you had to cancel the baby shower because of your health, but shouldn't they be helping you out and surrounding you because of that?"

I expected that it was just life picking up and there were problems with schedule coordination that made her friends stay away. After a minute of silence though, Sherrie averted her eyes to answer.

"It's because...'cause I'm an idiot." Her eyes were sad and downcast as she told me why. "Most of my friends say he's not good enough for me. That he puts on a façade. There was even...oh God." She quieted herself for a moment to build up her courage. "There were a couple incidents. I shut them out of my mind because I wanted to think the best of him, that he wouldn't do that. But I...I guess I don't know any more."

I encouraged her to tell me, take her time, hoping to understand why she was so adverse. She closed her eyes, licked her lips and let it out after another minute.

"My best friend Rebecca...she...I denied it for so long. But I can't hold it back any longer."

"Chris eyes her up. He makes her feel extremely uncomfortable, especially after he's had some drinks. I haven't seen it all that much, just the looks he gave her and my other friends. But a couple months back when we got back from shopping out in Natick for baby things, something happened where she told me she doesn't want to be around him. And when he confronted her on it...he told her if she didn't like him, she couldn't visit me. She ignored him at first and came over, but then behind my back, he just...I've denied it for so long, but eventually she began to beg out of coming over. Then when I was bedridden, there was no way she wanted to come because I'm stuck in my room, he could..." She wandered off.

"He could say anything he wanted to her and you'd never know." I shook my head; somehow my father had never changed. "Well, we need to change that straightaway." I began to feel the wheels of progress turn. "He's not coming back this weekend, as long as I'm here, right?"

"I don't expect him to come back until tomorrow night, if that." A pause. "Why?"

"Well, because we're going to make you feel a little less lonely, a lot more supported. How does your brother and his partner feel about baby showers?"

"Rory..." she laughed. "A shower is supposed to be a surprise to me! Inviting people over misses the point entirely, and at--"

"No, Sher, you can't lay down for the next two months miserable over a warm TV and with your friends scared my dad's hitting on them. We're doing this; give me your phone." I suddenly felt all of my planning skills come right to the forefront. "We are calling your friends, your family and we are going to celebrate you and show you how loved you are."

"I don't know. It's Saturday night, what if everyone has something to do--"

"I'll turn on the charm," I said. "Leave it all to me." She gave me a look and soon with a shake of the head, she handed over her phone.

"You do have a good way of turning on the charm; that's why you won that debate," she observed. "Go nuts." I smiled at her and looked at all the numbers and names she then gave me to call, along with her brother, sister and family wondering how much luck I'd have.

It's been a couple hours after all of the fallout, and putting myself into planning a baby shower on less than 18 hours of notice seems to have been just the exact thing I needed to distract myself from everything that went on today. I thought it was going to be hard to pull things together, but Sherrie and I were pleasantly shocked at how much response I was getting. Though everyone was thrown off by someone they didn't know talking to them about Sherrie, most everyone except three people who absolutely couldn't get out of their Sunday plans would be able to come over; her sister would call in from her home in Mesa, Arizona. When I called Rebecca, she was unsure about whether to come over.

"I'm not sure," the woman said. "I just haven't felt comfortable there lately and I'll be honest, Christopher--"

"He won't be there," I told her firmly. "We sort of had a row and he won't be back this weekend. I assure you it's just going to be between us girls. And a couple of boys."

"And Sherrie really misses me?" I looked towards her as she slumped in her bed, wearing glasses and going over her guest list.

"Misses you hard, Becca. She really needs the confidence boost, especially because Christopher had his way with the TiVo--"

"He recorded sports and crap on it, didn't he? I bought that for **her** so we could have TV marathons!" She huffed, her strong accent coming through the phone with fire. "I'm clearing the schedule and calling the rest of the girls, and if they don't come tomorrow, there's gonna be so much shunning around the office. Consider this an official go...um, uh--"

"Rory. It's Rory."

"Right, Rory!" She squealed happily. "Yes! Gah, thank God I kept my gifts otherwise this would be a packed Sunday out at the mall. Especially with Christmas coming. Oh boy..." She wandered off for a moment. "Getting on the horn with everyone right away; some of these girls might have to CVS their shower gifts since we have to have them by noon tomorrow!"

"Go, go, go, then, we want her and Gigi spoiled!" Talking to everyone there was so much excitement building, and though we didn't mention exactly why Dad wasn't going to be there, I think everyone knew that him and Sherrie just didn't work that well to begin with.

Yes, I know cheering her up with a bunch of consumer overindulgence and party games really isn't the best way to brighten someone's spirits, but I think it was going to work out. I also noticed a lack of Christmas decorations around the apartment too, so thankfully when I shouted over the phone that it could stand to look more like a holiday in there while Sherrie was on with her brother and sister on a three-way call, she was told Christmas cheer was on the way, tree and all.

All was coming together now. I had pushed down the anger a little, though I knew I would need to vent a little later, and soon Sherrie was ready to finally go to bed for sure, feeling so much better than she had since the doctor 'delivered' the news.

Yes, shut up, I made that pun on purpose. And I'd do it again, get that shifty look out of your eyes!

I knew soon I would have to talk to my mom about what happened today, and I wondered what we'd discuss when I talked to her on the phone in a little while. As I said goodnight to Sherrie and headed into the nursery to call Lorelai, I calmed myself, ready to have a conversation that hopefully would be cathartic and non-confrontational.

Little did I know that things were going to go much different than I planned.

Nor that fate was having its way with Paris and I this evening.  


* * *

** 11:00pm Saturday **

****It's late. I know I need to be up in eight hours to get things ready for the shower, but I guess you can say this day has pretty much had every emotion you can have thrown at someone. It's ridiculous really how one moment you can be pleased as punch, and the next you wish there was a way to be in two places at once.

I just really don't know how to describe my mood honestly. A part of it is happy, one portion is spurned because of Dad's non-acceptance, and then there's the other side. The one I didn't expect to feel tonight.

When I called home I expected to have a heart-to-heart with Mom and ask her how to plan a party in less than a few hours. Eventually I had to steer towards the elephant in the room, but I could get there towards the end.

Instead, when the line picked up, I heard a familiar voice. One I didn't expect to hear.

At first, I thought I misdialed. I hung up and redialed, and again it was her. Now I thought there had been a sudden brain tumor in my mind, so instead of redial I tapped out the number manually on the keypad and waited for Mom to answer.

Nope, it was Paris, questioning exactly how I was able to somehow get Chilton tuition for not having the simple logic to wonder why if I dialed three times to the same number that was right, it was probably the right number.

And she was right, sadly. If I dial out to 'Home', it's not going to become 'Paris' suddenly. I should know that. Still, I was thrown about why she was answering the phone at my house, and where I expected conversation and ranting about Dad to my mother, I was now completely thrown off.

Also, I knew Paris's telephone voice as a bit nasally and strong. But she sounded different somehow, like she had laryngitis. She tried to ask me to call later when I was able to talk to my mother.

However, I knew we had to talk. I wondered why. And then I began to realize...did I really want my mother to be the first to learn this?

Paris was right there. I didn't know why, or how. But she was there. It was because of her I was up in Boston this weekend, to tell my father...

Just the memory of his cold words began to take over my mind again. With space between the hours, I was able to buffer the pain away for a little while. My thinking was I could compress everything down and when I talked to Par on Monday morning at school, it would be much easier to deal with.

But she was there, her biting wit asking if I could leave a message for my mother to call back.

In that moment, I froze. My mind spun in circles on what to do. I could avoid the truth, but what good would it do? It was just avoiding the inevitable.

There was that. Then there was the fear if I talked to Mom first, she could let nostalgia overrule her and think I went too far in my reaction to what my father said about her and Sherrie, along with my sexuality. With Paris I could just lay it out raw and not have to hold back for the sake of my mother's past.

Without a thought about how I would sound, it was decided. I would tell Paris about my father's reaction.

It was indeed, raw, and full of profanity, as I just let go of all of my frustrations, telling her everything about the night. It was odd because for once, **she** was the one trying to keep me from going too far.

"Hey, hey. Gilmore? Let me listen to what he did first before I decide he was indeed only worthy for providing the material needed to merely fertilize your egg."

I cringed at the picture presented. "I really don't want to think of the process of my mom and dad...doing that. Or his material."

"Just concentrate though. Don't let yourself get too buried in the hate you're feeling right now."

"How can I not? He dropped so much homophobia on me he might as well be a card-carrying American Family Association member."

"Just, think of your words. Let your emotions into the telling, not the aftermath."

She was right; I had to calm myself after having such an outburst. I never let my emotions out in such a heated manner, so the best thing I could do was go through it without having too much rage in my voice.

I closed my eyes and told Paris everything I could remember, leaving out a few things because they didn't really add much to what I had to say. It was just about me telling, her listening and being my soundboard. To be able to talk to her without having to hold back certainly helped in calming me down considerably.

Going through all of it I also had an opportunity like I had in the past to second-guess my behavior. When I've been in trouble I always do it when I apologize. This was the time I was going to do it, telling my girlfriend what happened.

Only I couldn't find any way to not justify my attitude. I did get angry and said a few words that I might want to take back in the future, but for now, I really don't. It all felt right to me how I told it, how I behaved and just let my dad dig the hole for himself, especially after Sherrie came in. Paris pretty much asserted I was right in how I acted and going over everything with her made me feel better that I only used a few barbs to attack him rather than went full force when he didn't accept me.

We finished talking about my night, and now I had to wonder why Paris was there. My assumption after she answered was she was over to pick up a few things and look over my notes, which I gave her permission to do even while I was gone because I trusted her. I really did think that for some reason her and mom were having a 'getting to know you' night without me, something I had encouraged them to do to reduce what tension there was left between them, especially after the 'awkward bra' incident. My hope was that, nothing unusual, nothing awful. Her just stopping into Luke's for a bite after her day at the library on the way home.

But her voice sounded unusual, not at all how it usually was, ragged and a bit wounded. She was deeply affected by my confession and thought I did it the right way. That Sherrie was justified. But there was a tremor I heard in her tone, one that I had never been able to trace.

I wondered what was wrong as she spoke and reacted to my words. It sounded as if despite all I went through, she was relieved. Not that I had lived through coming out to my father, but just that I was there at all. I kept thinking of other reasons she would be at my house. It didn't make sense. Unless she was swiping my answers, which she wouldn't do, there wasn't a clear-cut reason for her to be there.

Her voice though...I kept coming back to it. Eventually I had said everything I needed to and gotten that strong reassurance I was in the clear, and I could get to it.

So I asked, making a joke about her smoking. Which is crazy; this is Paris after all, who think milk provides a material weakness to the 'debate voice'.

Her response was it wasn't for fun. Then, without warning...

The bomb came.

"I'm going to be here awhile."

The last word hit my brain stem. Awhile. It's one of those weird compound words that came into the English language, no matter how many grammatical experts wanted to fight it.

Awhile. It means a long and undetermined period of time. This wasn't just a few hours. Not overnight.

For a time. Paris said she would be at my house. For awhile.

Why awhile? Why not just a little bit. I asked again, hoping it was something little.

Then she responded.

And at the end. After ten minutes of this beautiful girl pouring her heart out to me, her voice wracked with tears, emotions all over the place, her mind so muddled that any other being would have needed to isolate themselves from humanity for years.

What stuck out to me the most was this.

"I told her she had no say and...and..."

I could feel her in my arms, shaking, sobbing. My girl, taken down to being a withering bundle of shivers and pain. From Boston, all I wanted in that moment was to be there to kiss her senseless and take her away from this all.

"Rory...she tried to kill me. She...she strangled me, stomped m-m-my foot, slapped me, shoved me d-d-d-down. I know if Nan-n-n-y wasn't there...you'd be b-b-b-b-burying me...now!"

In that moment, I knew one thing. As she detailed was her mother did to her, pushing her out of the closet by tearing away every goddamned civil liberty Paris and I held with those pictures.

Really, I didn't give a crap about the private eye. He was on public property and didn't catch us making love. He indulged the wishes of that crazy woman and got his assignment out of the way. All he needed was us together and some bonus pictures meant he wrung all he did out of her. The guy was smart.

What I felt in that moment was a thought I had never had about another human being ever before in my life. Even when Paris was at her worst and Francie threatened a goon on me, or Samantha Petersen was again brining out her worn cracks about my mother, I never did.

Not even tonight with Dad.

Now I did though. My blood turned ice cold and I know if I would have seen my eyes in that moment, my irises would not be iridescent blue, but a deep and dark black which matched the shade of Sharon Gellar's soul.

 _If I ever lay eyes on her_ , I shouted in my mind, _I will **kill** her where she stands. She ever fucks with my girl again, she will be sorry. She will get boiling coffee splashed in her Bakelite face. She will suffer._

 __Especially hearing about how she had wished Paris had died in the accident, Sharon just guaranteed I'm never going to joke with her again. That one sneak down to the kitchen a few weeks ago will be the first and last happy moment I share with Paris's mom.

Or should I say, mere concubine. Paris shouldn't have to acknowledge that woman as her mother, and I will make it clear if that woman dares to cross the town line into the Hollow.

I'm done. Paris has my heart, and I'm going to do everything I possibly can to protect hers. To know my girlfriend pretty much had to be convinced by my mother to seek safety in my house rather than be stuck in a hotel for a month.

That had me emotional. Paris is so broken, she thought it would be an inconvenience to come to my house and my mother to seek protection. It's screwed up and I was thankful Lorelai took her in.

That she even has to question the rules at this point and thinks I'm going to keep her out of my bed or would throw her out of my house. How she's been pushed down and shoved over the years, having to take all of this abuse, it's amazing how she's been able to push through.

Still, I didn't cry. I couldn't, because I was too angry to muster a tear. I'm sure there will be plenty when I get into New Haven tomorrow evening but for now, I couldn't cry.

Paris undoubtedly was shocked by me just casually letting go on a string of profanity. But after all I went through today, I couldn't hold it in or " _Major League_ on TBS" any of my emotions. I had to let them out, raw, and let her know her sadness becomes my strength. That I will shield her and protect her with my love. Thankfully I was able to calm down later with a description of Sherrie's support with us, though I didn't go into the baby shower because I forgot to mention it in the heat of the moment. I just needed to hear her voice and assure her that we were going to be fine and she was going to heal with my help.

We got to talk about how Madeline supported her and of Brad's unexpected anger over her mistreatment.

"I think...I underestimated him. By a lot. That is the first time I saw him so mad." She sighed over the phone. "And Madeline too. I went there to expect...some calming down, Mads being hopeful. Not so much support."

I smiled. "Hey. But you want that, Par. You need people in your corner. True friends who understand you and have your back. If there's anything that comes out of this besides our love, that Madeline and Brad are strong allies who will support you. You need that. Don't even think about finding it odd; you know life changes. How you are one year isn't going to be your station in life forever."

"Still, it's...Madeline. I swear if Sharon had walked in, she would have done something rash. I...I have so much support. I just haven't drawn on it." A pause. "And I feel guilty because I treated her pretty crummy for...so long."

I nodded, understanding how Paris saw it. For so long, Madeline was merely a group parrot, and to see her coming into her own in such a short time, it's a shift for the both of us.

"She's still there for you though. Madeline knows you don't have malice, just so much to hold back."

"Yeah." She was nervous, and I could sense she was shaking wherever she was in the house. "Everything will be OK, right? Please...tell me it will."

I was quiet, having to hear this strong woman admit she was scared and wanting to hide.

"Eventually, it will. But for now, we have to be strong. Don't let Sharon get to you, please. I know it seems hard, but she's not there. She can't do anything to you at all. Just...stop thinking of her." She was quiet and I knew I had to keep her from going to the darkest of her thoughts. "Remember, you're a girl who brought a sword to school. Which was just laying around your house and you shrugged it off. That is the girl I love."

"O...O-kay." She then told me about how we'll be seeing her therapist on Monday night. Any other night and I'd probably have turned it down because I'm not the type of girl who usually needs therapy.

After this evening though? It's probably the only way I'm going to be able to calm myself down. I'll be glad for the time to be able to talk to anyone, even someone who is paid to listen to us and work through the problems we have with everyone else.

I was relieved to hear that she was defending our love and not running away, and I made clear I was coming home for her tomorrow. Hanging up the line after we had finished having a deep and emotional conversation, I was glad that for now, Sharon was out of the way.

But I wasn't done fearing her. With her and my dad now knowing about us, we had a big target on our backs. One word gets back to Francine Hayden...

Yeah, Sharon can do some damage, but the divorce settlement she wrangled pretty much made her a castoff in Hartford society. Even though Francine is more in the circles involving Hillside rather than Chilton, it will be easy for her to spread gossip about her 'estranged granddaughter' that will head into Chilton easily. I didn't want to say a word to Paris about it because she was already shaken up enough, but there's no way my father is going to hold this back. Not with his sudden interest in how Lorelai could raise me to like girls.

Both of us are going to have to be careful. It's not going to be like Grandma, who had it out with us and then swore to let us have time to come out on our own.

I keep going back to that every day. There hasn't been one word about us in Hartford society. So at least there, a small hope exists that my grandmother will come around or is waiting to sneak attack a meet market on me one of these holiday nights. That I can live with; it's Emily Gilmore being Emily Gilmore and though she can be exhausting, at least she hasn't bumped us out of the closet.

That's not going to happen with my father or Sharon, though. Not getting their way is going to bring them out of the woodwork, and it will be ugly.

But I'm not thinking about that now. Instead, I have a new ally in Sherrie and her brother.

Good came out of this, and that outweighs all of the bad that happened today.

I also officially have Paris as a semi-permanent houseguest. A beaten and hurting version of her, but I pledged to love her to the ends of the earth, no matter how everything went.

Hopefully it can work for us. That she can settle in without all of the toys she has at the Manor, and maybe this will be just a week or two.

Something though tells me that I might be having a live-in girlfriend for the near future, however.  


* * *

** 1:00am, Sunday morning **

****You know, for being nearly volcanic earlier this evening, I'm in a better mood than I ever thought I'd be after a botched coming out to my father.

This night, it's not one I'm going to remember with much happiness. It's probably going to be one of those 'before/after' days like the start of the Gulf War or when we moved into the house. I know now that I'm going to remember that motorcycle with disdain...

And now I know my dad's call for Mom to take off her top wasn't a witty inside joke, but the mutterings of a sexist pig. Able to have vented with Paris, I called Mom at midnight to talk about everything that went on and expected her to defend him in some small way.

"So...you're out to him," she said, sighing. "And he wants out of your life?"

"That's basically it," I told her. "He didn't even want to consider any of the positives. All he saw was a threat to his masculinity and a ridiculous assertion that homosexuality is hereditary."

"And then he made fun of Gigi's uncle and dropped the 'f' word on him?"

"Was not his finest moment." I could hear my mom trying to find an excuse for his behavior and quickly failing.

"He hasn't changed a bit then. I would have thought seventeen years of distance may have given him a better outlook, but he's still..." A sigh. "I should've warned you."

"Warned me?"

She then gave me more of a window into her high school years. "Kiddo, the threat to break up with him was the only thing between him and more trouble at Hillside for being a jerk to gay kids. His gym teacher had to actually have him go to the locker room five minutes early so he wasn't able to antagonize a few shy kids who didn't know where they stood in the world. There was towel snapping and jokes about them having to put in tampons. It was puerile and...after I told him there was no damned way I would continue to go out with him if he didn't stop being a homophobe, that's what made him stop. But I guess he never did."

"I never heard him this hateful," I told her. "Mom...do you think...could this be why he was cast out of California? He said it was 'personality conflicts' in the past, but I'm beginning to suspect people just can't handle him after awhile."

"I heard rumors, though I'm not sure. His last dot-com venture ended suddenly. Too suddenly. I did hear one of his partners indeed had a partner and then the money 'suddenly dried up' according to him. So wherever he's working now must have a macho culture going on."

"Considering he was too drunk to pick me up this morning, I'd call that a definite." I moved on to talk about his criticism of Mom's parenting and I expected her to take it in stride. But it was obvious she wasn't happy, at all.

"You know what? I didn't hear his second opinion when I left Hartford. Or he graduated college. Or he just sufficed sending a goddamned card for fifteen years every Christmas and birthday, if he bothered to remember. He had plenty of chances to come back and assert his 'manliness' with the both of us. But he didn't."

Firmly, she told me what she thought of his opinion was of parenting that apparently left me liking women. "I have always been a feminist, and I will remain so to my grave. Now that he's basically discounted you as his daughter just because of both your existence and sexuality, I have zero reason to ever consider sharing a bed with him again, much less a zip code." She fumed deeply. "That he would take advantage of both of us, and Sherrie. I feel guilty now for making fun of her perkiness. And...I regret ever sleeping with him again. God, if I didn't have the best birth control good insurance could buy, the Gilmores and the Tinsdales would be an epic mess right now."

"She isn't mad at you if that's what you're worried about," I assured her. "She's much more pissed at him for lying about his whereabouts when he left, and especially about her brother."

I heard her pause and gather her thoughts before speaking up. "Just tell her, I'm never stopping her from coming down here. If she needs a room at the Inn, the charge is waived. From what you told me tonight, Christopher is up to his old bag of tricks again. It's funny how I did have a whole bunch of friends before we got hot and heavy back at Hillside, and I left there without anybody on my side."

As we spoke, I think Mom was also getting a dose of reality. "God, how many times did I ignore all the warning signs that he was this type of person? How could I still love him? I feel like an idiot."

"Join the club; I feel really stupid worshipping him for so long when he was only interested in me in his visage, not what I became. We're not idiots, just able to hide a few things from our mind's eye until they ripped forward this evening." Looking towards Sherrie's room as I sat on the couch, I was glad for how it all turned out. "At least we caught onto Sherrie's sadness before it...it got worse."

" _The Sherrie Tinsdale Story_ movie-on-Lifetime bad?"

I nodded. "It was that bad. Now that we're doing the shower tomorrow though and her friends can come back without having to give Dad dirty looks when he eyes them up, she'll be a lot better, I'm sure." We talked a little more before I got to the topic of most concern.

"Mom..." My voice trembled. "Is Paris going to be OK? She sounded terrible tonight." I could hear footsteps and then the familiar creaking of my door as I could tell my mom was going into my room. "I don't know what to do."

"Well, she took a sleeping pill and it seems to be working. She's lying in your bed with a Grumpy Bear and the chicken...she seems OK. Better than she was when she came tonight in the town car."

"If I would have known Paris's mom would act like that--"

She interrupted my stream of thoughts. "I know you did. But it would have been ugly with the both of you in the room. Honey, she almost killed Paris. I know it doesn't sound like it on the phone, but she has a tough road ahead. She got lucky when her head hit the wall it didn't cause any brain damage. Just a little off, this would be a whole different conversation."

"Oh God." Paris didn't tell me she was shoved into a wall. "And she's bruised badly?"

"Getting her into bed wasn't pretty at all. I talked to Paris's doctor after she went to bed and she's convinced she might need her foot casted and crutches, so I'm bringing her in tomorrow before we head down to New Haven to pick you up. I'm also staying downstairs tonight just in case she has a bad dream." She paused softly. "I know she'll be relieved she comes with me to pick you up tomorrow night."

"I will be too." I let a few tears fall. "Thank God she has people in her life who care about her besides me. And you. I didn't think you'd do that."

"You doubted me?"

"Not doubted. Just, we don't have lots of room and I know how you feel about someone in the sewing room--"

Suddenly she broke in unexpectedly. "Hon, she can share your room. It's going to be on an air mattress and there's going to be a few restrictions on getting too naughty, but...no. I'm not putting her in the sewing room. She can sleep in the same room with you. I can handle it."

"But...Thursday night, the bra thing." I stuttered some of my words. "Surely you're a bit concerned!"

That's when reality hit me again. "Rory, she's not going to be up for more than talking and massaging for the next couple of weeks. Remember, Sharon?" I felt a bit stupid. "And more than that, it's because she fears her mother will come to town and try to kidnap her. It's why I'm down here tonight too with the umbrella ready to wail on her if she dares to enter my house. Hon, she can't be alone. I'm scared if she is...she might feel that guilt Sharon builds in her for being defiant and...go back to her."

I sniffled back more tears, feeling sad that my strong girl could be taken down to that level, scared her mom could ruin her happiness. "The sad thing is I could really see that. Paris hates defying authority, even her mother, and that guilt may build up if somehow she's taken off her track." I took in another deep breath, looking down at my fingers. "I'm scared for her. Especially going back on Monday. There's no way she is going to skip, is there?"

"She told me she felt guilty for skipping her library session," Mom said. "I don't foresee her skipping myself. She's working under the assumption she'll be back on the horse in a couple days."

"I love her," I reminded myself out loud. "But she's stubborn as hell."

"Kiddo, you'd probably do the same thing if your experiences were reversed today. You had the fear of God put into you after the bus trip to New York. And this is Paris we're talking about. She would go in a plastic bubble if she caught German measles."

"And the sad thing is, that is no exaggeration." I shook my head in wonder at the lengths Paris would go for her education. "She'd probably hire the teachers on a freelance basis to come in wearing spacesuits if she was ever quarantined."

"You know what though? Paris isn't going to let this get to her," Mom predicted. "She's down now. But in a week from now? It won't even be remembered by her except as the day she reached the breaking point with Sharon."

"I hope so." I took in a deep breath and sighed. "When she talked to me it felt like...like I was talking to a whole different person who was beaten down. What her mother said to her about wishing she could've killed her in that car accident...it was offensive. It angers me."

"Rory--"

"No, you're not defending this! There's no way to defend this! Can you imagine Paris **not** in this world? That I would've come to Chilton and my big competition would've been somebody else? That woman's gotten away with too much for too long, making Par feel miserable and not human!" I was too far gone to stop. "She almost was killed! For loving me? How the fuck am I any kind of threat to Paris at all outside of making her feel human and in love? Treated as an equal? That is all I've done! I could never bear to hurt my girlfriend."

"Hon, I know it's hard," my mother told me, hoping to calm me down. "I want my hands on her throat myself and to shake the hell out of her for being so cruel and heartless. But we can't do that. We can't sink to her level. You, especially. If there is anything Paris wants you to be right now, it's what you've been doing; killing them with kindness. Like you did to Francie, and tonight with your dad. It's how you made Paris fall for you in the first place; you numbed through the walls her mom built in front of her, proved that what you did was much more powerful than any violence you could ever come up with.

"You're a pacifist at heart, Rory. I know this. You don't need to see that woman, because you already proved Paris deserves your heart more than she does. I think she would find it a bit too much if you went off on Sharon with actions rather than just words."

"I want to though...I really want to." I clenched my open fist and bit down on my lower lip, then took a calming and deep breath before settling down. "But I won't. I'm not that way. You're right. Treat Sharon like I did Francie, just hash it out with words."

"There's my girl. And if you've survived all these coming outs so far, it should be a snap, right?"

"A snap. I wish it would all be. But right now she doesn't even have full rights until a couple weeks from now." I looked around the room and brushed my lap. "That's when she can leave and do whatever she wants. Even get her own apartment." I paused. "Not that I'm saying--"

"No, no, I know you're not moving in with her," Lorelai hurriedly said, obviously in a small panic. "For one thing, how would you get Luke's in the morning?"

"And another, who would be your alarm clock?" I joked. "Mia would fire you in a week without me in the house."

"Oh, man, I'm going to have to hire a waker when you head off to college, aren't I? See, you can't leave, or else I'll become Elvira, Mistress of the Dark!"

I laughed. "You can't, Mom. You don't have the breasts to pull off those dresses she wears!"

"Oh, but I could. For I have more cheesy movie knowledge than Elvira, and I could just use my legs and--"

I shuddered. "I'm ending this conversation thread before therapy with Birnbaum becomes a whole lot more complicated Monday night!"

"See, I told you one day you'd have to see a therapist. Just...didn't know it was going to be someone else's therapist." She paused. "You nervous?"

"To be honest? I'm not scared of it. But I hardly know this woman. But if she keeps Paris sane...I trust her."

She put in her own opinion. "It wouldn't hurt to have someone else besides me to talk to either. Miss Patty you can't go to with much, and no way you go into the bedroom things with me. She doesn't care about what's the haps in Stars Hollow, so it'll be better for you both to be there rather than just depending on family and friends."

"I think you're right, Mom. It definitely will do Paris good, but I think I'll get something out of it for sure." Honestly, I didn't really know what would happen. I only knew the little bits of what Paris divulged of her therapy sessions, and I didn't know Dr. Birnbaum's style at all. I'm sure of one thing though, and that she's always there for Paris.

Slowly, the conversation ended up petering out and I finally found my eyes weighing down with sleep. With a shower in ten hours, I need all the sleep I can get.

"I have to go, Mom." I couldn't wait to get home, but I was also excited to have an official celebration of my sister for the first time. "What do you want me to tell Dad if he comes back?"

"Actually..." I heard a smile in her voice. "Tell him nothing. I have his work number and I plan to have quite the ass-reaming of him on my lunch break on Monday. Suffice to say, to him? Lorelai Gilmore is closed for business and has his NSF check and picture posted at the door. After I talk to him, unless there's a complete change of heart, he's done. There is no way to get out of calling my daughter a 'dyke' and thinking nothing will come of it."

I smiled, relieved that my mom was going to be a great advocate for us. Taking in Paris and supporting us being in the same room together? This is why I keep a great relationship with her; it would be heartbreaking to lose our unique bond. "And Sherrie is OK with you?"

"Tell her, please. I will be there for her if things get rocky," she promised. "There's no need to feel hopeless. She has too many great people surrounding her to give up now."

"I'm glad it she didn't. She is a great woman. Kind of Paris-like, but a little more..." I searched for the word. "OK, she's about the same. Like Paris would be if she was 33." I looked at the clock; 12:47 am. "OK, Mom, I really do have to go if I hope to pull off a self-planned baby shower in less than ten hours' time."

"Good luck, kid. Umm...break a...rattle? I don't know how successful baby showers come off."

"It'll be awesome, I'll be sure of it." I smiled. "Tell Paris I love her."

"I will. Night sweets, love you."

"Love you too." I set the handset on the table and headed into Sherrie's guest bedroom/nursery to prepare for bed. I shucked off my jeans and crawled into the small twin bed, the assembled heirloom crib (with modifications her brother made to make it safe to modern children) on the other side as I plopped my head on the pillow.

But I couldn't sleep right away. The doubts about everything raged on and it kept me up a little later than I expected. I got out a book to read and it helped to weigh down my eyes, but then worries about Dad popped up again.

He was going to tell Francine and Straub, no doubt. They would spread it through the school, knowing exactly who to go to and how to let it out. I knew winter break was going to be a relief, if only for the two weeks away from school. I also worried about helping Par through new fears of her mother. If she could do all of this in the space of only three minutes, what was stopping her from confronting us outside the school and doing the same to me?

But I forgot something that I just realized now about people like my father and Sharon.

They do talk a big game. Sure, they made us both feel terrible today. But that's all they can do from here on out. They can spread rumors and try to stir things up, but **they** left us. **They** cast us off.

 **They're** done with us. Whatever they do in the future, it won't affect Paris or I at all. They can try to bring us down, but since they've disowned us, we need not take one piece of their advice.

Also helping is they're both the shame of where they are. Sure, Dad has his buddies at work, but you know damned well the Boston gossip grapevine is very tight. Once Rebecca finds out exactly why Sherrie's boyfriend is gone tomorrow, it's eventually going to get into his office as she spreads it down the line.

By next week, he can say goodbye to Celtics tickets and bets with his buddies. Unless they're the most macho company in Boston and don't give a crap, plenty of those colleagues aren't going to accept a bigot in their office. There might be a small chance of him getting back to Sherrie, but the damage is done. Mom is done with him, and certainly the rest of the Tinsdales aren't going to be forgiving of someone who would use such a terrible term to describe Devon.

As for Hartford? Tomorrow I can hear the Hartford DCW members struggling to figure out why the hell their president beat the crap out of her own daughter, and how that woman isn't exactly the best one to fundraise for them. Sharon is going to be respected by the fire and brimstone crowd there, but I don't see her getting much support from many other people. There is no way that she continues to run the DCW, or much of anything else.

If anything, Chilton will be glad to be rid of Sharon. She never helped and only seemed to be there to put down Paris and make her feel like less than she is. Remembering back to that day when she was told she wasn't taking her acne regimen seriously, I look back now on it in anger.

And a bitter sense of sadness.

Paris didn't need any of those products. I don't think I've ever known her to have a pimple on her. In fact, when she dropped the regimen in the summer and went with just the usual cleansing with a beauty bar, I think she didn't need it after all. Her face took on a more natural complexion I couldn't help but want to touch. I think in the anger of that summer and the bitterness we shared before Tristan's intervention forced us together in the _Romeo & Juliet _scene, the one thing that guided me through was Paris did have a beautiful complexion, one I wished I could have.

Now I have her. And I know now that I found her beautiful from the outside.

As I've learned to love her though, her inner beauty is shining through in a blinding manner, and I love being one of the few she trusts to see that.

When I get into New Haven tomorrow, I'm going to hug her. Be there for her. Fight for her. Make sure that she knows that Mom and I will protect her from Sharon.

And up here in Boston, I'm going to make damned sure that Sherrie has all the support she needs to get through the next couple months, and beyond. How she defended me made her more than just the mother of my sister, but a powerful ally who has a brother who knows the process of coming out, and will help us through it.

Paris and I may have been shamed and disowned tonight, each by half of our parentage. But together, we'll stay firm. And all the hurtful words and violence that can be thrown at us will never change that.

I love Paris, and nothing will stop that. I just hope tonight she feels at home in Stars Hollow.

God willing, she will find that I will be her shield, the one to keep her on track. Her centering influence, keeping her calm from the rage within her soul.

I will be her home, and my heart is always open to her.  


* * *

**_ To be continued... _ **

**__Ending author's note** \- I don't usually include a note at the end, but I wanted to say why I had Sherrie mention that she wanted to end the pregnancy early. In the later seasons I was severely disappointed that somehow, the network and producers could not bring Madchen Amick back to the show (or even do a recast if Amick was unable to come back), and instead wrote Sherrie out in the appalling manner they did, with her fleeing to Paris without a care involving Gigi, and solely to use Gigi as a plot device to bring Lorelai and Christopher back together (never mind said plot came solely because of the failure of the actor's sitcom and him wanting to come back to the show). I theorized in season three at the time that Sherrie was unsure about her pregnancy, and the later retcon of her leaving suggested a horrid case of post-partum depression that was waved away (undoubtedly by network notes) in such a casual manner by the writers which angered me. The show never explained the circumstances and I feel like writing this, some things can be changed so that Sherrie would be in a much better position later on with Rory in her corner.

Also, very few stories in this fandom (mainly on ff.net, much less off that site) seem to acknowledge that women have a choice, with the Girls choosing to carry through without a mention of any options at all. Looking at all three seasons of the Sherrie plotline, Gigi was an unwelcome surprise and Sherrie put on a good front to seem excited about having her, but when reality set in, she was overwhelmed because her boyfriend really wasn't happy about being dragged back into a situation he didn't want. Christopher turned out to be a horrible parent to Gigi and without Lorelai's intervention, would've probably looked at giving up custody to Sherrie's parents (who were never, ever mentioned as an option, which seems kind of both suspicious and didn't put in any gravity to the situation Sherrie was in). I think of Sherrie as a progressive who had a plan and would have probably chosen another option after Christopher left her, but who acceded to the wishes of Christopher and the elder Haydens. And as the product of a teenage mother, Rory would be naturally sympathetic to hearing all of what Sherrie thought about. Including the possibility of abortion. I think it had to be mentioned, and there was no way to sugarcoat it, especially in the way Christopher regards her and Rory in the world of _Longing_.

For the years I've had this story plotted out, the confrontation with Christopher has been foremost on my mind, and naturally I had to include this. Also note that I changed major things about the living situation of Christopher and Sherrie; he moved into Sherrie's apartment with his things, and her friends don't consist of the vapid characters pictured in "Take the Deviled Eggs" because I couldn't stand setting a story around women like that, and they didn't seem like "real friends" Sherrie would keep. This needed to be a chapter where two women show support for each other, and I wasn't going to do it with female characters I knew I would never mine sympathy from.

If you have any concerns about my portrayal of Sherrie or Christopher, feel free to let me know. I know my feelings about him are quite strong, but especially for the purposes of this story, I needed Rory to have both an obstacle and her own emotional hurt to give her a boost to show Paris how much she cares for her, and with Francie numbed for now, it had to be Christopher because of the many complications of their relationship.  



	24. So Scared & So In Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paris and Rory try to regain their momentum and romance after going through their worst outings, and Paris's past comes back to haunt her.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-Four | So Scared & So In Love  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, alternating POV's for this chapter.  
 **Spoilers:** Totally in uncharted territory now; except for being in season three, nothing here spoils anything else (especially as we're around the infamous WB hiatuses were everything during the holidays took place off-screen).  
 **Rating:** R (sexual situations, sensuality, profanity, violent dreams, mocking of air beds and playful derision of Lorelai's singing voice)  
 **Disclaimer:** Sorry, not making terrible erotic adult e-book romance money off this; _Gilmore Girls_ still belongs to Amy Sherman-Palladino/Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone, and Warner Bros. Television. All products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied. In advance, I have no opinion one way or the other about air beds and their durability, except they are the most uncomfortable sleeping experience besides laying down right on an interstate. Not that I know or would want to know what that feels like.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, RalSt, and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** Paris and Rory try to regain their momentum and romance after going through their worst outings, and Paris's past comes back to haunt her.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** Just like I promised, this is going to be a busy month with my projects. Well, busy for me in that I actually put out chapters of course, but now that we have Paris and Rory out to the important people in their lives, things get a little easier from here as Christmas break comes for them. Although I'm hoping to have a little less 'Paris is hurting' going on in these future chapters. This one, like _The Innkeeper's Lover_ is timed to come out for the International Day of Femslash, and is the first time I've released exclusively to Passion and Perfection before my other sites, so here's hoping you find what you're looking for in this update. For those on ff.net, _The Innkeeper's Lover_ does not meet the site's TOS, so if you're looking for that, it's on P&P and AO3, and links to it are on my profile page.

Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed and has patiently awaited updates to this, and for all your support.

And if you're reading on fanfiction.net and been waiting 23 chapters for one of the LDB guys to come in and do what they do, are you seriously still waiting for a male love interest 24 chapters in at this point?

The title inspiration this time is a line from Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Not Forget You".  


* * *

** Paris's POV, 5:00pm **

****This isn't how it was supposed to be.

My life shouldn't have gone this way. I should be on cruise control headed towards valedictorianship, nothing in my way, an open road and a GPA well above 4 with plenty of extra credit to boot. No challenges, nothing in my way. I should be unfettered on my way to Harvard without anything to care about.

The problem is I forgot to account for the one factor that ended up stopping me.

Myself.

Or to be more specific, my emotions, my heart, everything around them. In planning, on paper, everything has a simple path. A flow chart where each box eventually leads to a decision diamond, where a line is limitless and never runs into anything except each choice within each box. It all seems so simple a few years ago hanging on your wall, the directions and bullet points you need to obtain the goal you have been living for since you first heard your father talk about how you're 'bound to be a Harvard girl' and of this mysterious place in a place called Cambridge where big lecture halls are backed by haunting chants and "Pomp & Circumstance", inspired by probably being the only person under 30 to ever declare that _The Paper Chase_ was your favorite film and television show.

OK, I might be exaggerating a bit; remember my three year-old self was obsessed with _The Care Bears_. But still, right on top of there.

All I've been living for since the day I went into the Mandell JCC at age two, expectant, wide-eyed and ready to learn. Nothing would get in my way. Not that annoying redhead with the dorky name of Francine Jarvis who kept making fun of me for coloring outside the lines. Certainly not Duncan and Bowman, who even at three years old were budding troublemakers interested about what was beneath my skirt.

Thankfully a little undiscovered bash into a wall fixed that forever and struck the fear of God into those morons. Though I do apologize if they have lost some brain capacity from my reaction.

Nothing was going to get in my way. There was nothing that could stop me.

Then I fell in love.

I had expected it to be Tristan years ago. I knew at twelve we would probably be bound together somehow for life. That things would end up with me carrying the name DuGrey.

However, what you think at twelve is different from the reality of being at the edge of seventeen. How true the words of Stevie Nicks, a woman my father had wished to marry in his youth, have come true for me.

Tristan is now in North Carolina. And now I'm in love with the woman I thought would be bound for both his arms and my slot in Harvard the day I came in.

This was nowhere near the flowchart, the diamond reading 'fall for Rory Gilmore and move into her home'. Especially not the moving in part.

But here I am, nursing a near-broken foot, thankful that the dressing of my wounds from Dr. Merton will be enough to keep me off crutches. My head still hurts, but I still feel fully cognizant, thank God. My face is going to take a bit before it returns to my normal complexion.

At least now, I'm on the way with Lorelai to New Haven to pick Rory up. It's going a whole lot better than it should. She's coming home, and everything should be well as I recover from what has been a hell of a weekend...

"Holy crap, that's amazing! There's an entire channel devoted to New Wave music?! Damn, I wish I could get something like this in the Jeep!"

I should mention I let Lorelai drive my car to the station, and she's made a mess of my custom seat and satellite radio station settings in only fifteen minutes. Although I should be annoyed about my car being sullied by the peppiness of Katrina and the Waves and Oingo Boingo, I will take it any day over what has happened this weekend. Besides, I can always reset those things easily.

Resetting the bones in my foot and my emotions are going to be a lengthy process however. There's also no reset button with the relationship with my mother. When I got the call from Fran earlier that Sharon's attorney was trying to get her out with a laughable bond that was on par with the purchase of a London Fog coat, I was angry for a moment. I wanted to throw the phone towards the nearest wall.

But I'm the better woman here. I defended my love to her. I proved my independence. In ten days I will no longer have to take her advice on anything.

I've been thrown into this new way of life. Living out of a suitcase. A regular-sized shower in a bathroom I must share with two other women with long hair. A lack of wi-fi. Television that is contained within a hundred-pound tube rather than a flat portrait hanging on a wall.

I should be pouting and acting like a poor little rich girl. But I'm nowhere near that point because possessions are just immaterial at this point. I still have myself, and Rory's love. Right now, it's all I need...

"Her name is Rio and she dances on the saaaaaaaaaaannnnd!"

Besides earplugs. Lorelai Gilmore, Kelly Clarkson you are not.  


* * *

** Rory's POV, 4:30pm **

****This weekend has been a turbulent one. I wish there was some way to really reference something in the past that is comparable to this.

The problem is, I've had a good life. I know I'm lucky to be where I am. The worst I've had to go through has either been academic or the disappointment of not getting a toy because Mom had to pay the heat bill more to keep me warm than satisfy me with some kind of doll I wanted, but lost interest in within minutes.

I'm not Paris, who has had too many crappy moments she can easily compare to this weekend. I'm just who I am, a girl who just feel for her in an unexpected way and never expected years ago when I finally got the acceptance letter to Chilton that it would not only bring me a prized education, but someone I could love so deeply, that hearing them in pain hurt me in turn.

Boston is behind me. In some ways, it was terrible. Christopher never came back, never bothered to call. Sherrie is still boiling at him. His cool-off period may be turning into a 'moving into another apartment' period.

But there was so much good about today too. Meeting Devon and his husband, Sherrie's friends. They all missed her terribly and were glad to be back in her life, no matter the circumstances. How they were all supportive of me and hoped for the best for Paris and I, despite us all just meeting hours ago. The awe of the mother of my new sister as she was spoiled deeply, and of how I left with Devon and Ian staying there, helping with putting all the stuff she got together, being the father figures I'm afraid Dad may not be able to be.

And of Rebecca actually being kind enough to bring me to South Station instead of having to re-navigate the T all over again and somehow helping me build a support system in Boston I hadn't even figured on asking for, much less picturing when I left yesterday.

I'm on my way home, to have Mom meet me at New Haven. And Paris. I don't know how it's going to go. Or if Paris will be in any condition to even get out of the car.

Despite all that's gone wrong this weekend, it's all been overshadowed by the good. Madeline's loyalty. Sherrie's excitement about having Gigi. How good friends will never truly leave you. And of how distance does make the heart grow fonder.

We may have lost two people this weekend, but we gained much more support that we ever could have mustered. Everything is wonderful...

Oooh, just got a text from Paris, wonder what it says,

_R,_  
How do you live with Lorelai's terrible singing in the car?  
P 

__I laugh out loud. Despite all we've gone through, at least there's still something that unites us all; my mom breaks mirrors with her singing voice.

Also, knowing Paris is going to be living with me, if only for a few days, or a week...

Lord have mercy on me please. I know even despite her physical state, I'm still going to be in lust with her.  


* * *

** Paris's POV, earlier, 2:30pm **

****"Does it hurt...here? Or here? Now how about--"

"Oh God! That's where it's the worst!" I cringed in deep pain as Dr. Merton went by feel over my shin, then ankle and down to my feet to trace where the worst of the pain in my foot was coming from. "Don't again!"

"I won't, I promise." She quickly held up her hands, to assure me I did right. "I just need to know where I can buddy tape this. Only a couple toes were real sprained so I can just hold them against the others, along with the other damage in your ankle. Now you're going to be limping and thankfully this isn't going to be casted. But Paris, absolutely no saddle shoes the next week. I'm sending you with a doctor's excuse to go in tennis shoes. At most you'll need a couple days on crutches, but if you take it easy the rest of today and tomorrow I don't even think you'll need that much."

"What about driving?" The concern was there to get to school, especially with a half-hour drive to the Hollow.

"Brake and gas with your right foot for now. You should be OK to drive. Thankfully the shiner healed up a little from last night. It was a wonder she didn't snag you with any jewelry on her hands." She began to wrap my injury as Lorelai looked on in concern. "But you say you have to pick up Lorelai's daughter at the train station?"

"In New Haven, yes."

"Paris, I can drive." Lorelai volunteered without any thought at all. "You rest in the back and heal up. That way you and Rory can share the backseat on the way home. It's a wonder you even got to town in the first place."

"You're sure? I know you usually drive a stick in the Jeep and there's a lot of controls in my car."

"Ehh," she brushed off the concerns. "I actually had a Civic for a couple of years before I was able to get the Jeep. I do know how to drive a car."

"Well, if you say so." Dr. Merton had be stretch out my foot as I tried to push down the pain while tying the healing of the sprained toes to my healthy ones.

"You probably know the deal with this; tie a bag around your foot before a shower, don't take too many steps. Your face will heal up and no scars will be left physically." She concentrated on her work as I felt at ease, somewhat on the road to recovery. "If there's a bright side to this injury to be found it's you have only a week to winter break, so you're healed up once the Chilton custodians get in their floor buffering done before New Year's."

"And you're sure the Headmaster will be fine with me in tennis shoes? The man is a stickler for the uniform code."

"Well, he better be a damned stickler for the Hippocratic Oath and our state's child welfare laws. You're going in tennies, it's on the doctor's note and that's final." She looked over the situation. "The good thing is when you fled upstairs you were smart despite your adrenaline rush and put only small bits of pressure on the foot. Any more than that, I'd be talking cast rather than a wrap."

"So we're good."

"Yes, we are." She paused, remembering Lorelai was in the room. "Uh, Ms. Gilmore, can you excuse us for one moment? I have to get into the usual things with Paris, insurance and all that. A couple of women's health issues too."

Lorelai nodded. "Of course. I...I think I'll grab the car." She smiled at both of us. "It was nice meeting you, Dr. M. I can see now why Dr. Reiss recommended you to take over her practice when she retired. You have a good manner, like she did with me."

I should probably mention that Dr. Loretta Reiss was Lorelai's doctor for many years until her cut-off from Hartford society, and about the only advocate on her side when she was pregnant with Rory. I had never known that until a few conversations over the last few months where I shared that Dr. Reiss had retired and left Merton in charge of the practice, and how Lorelai was glad my family stuck with such a good personal doctor and the practice built up.

With Lorelai gone, I knew what was coming; the usual battery of women's health questions I was used to. It was the time when I usually made the call to get my prescriptions, and though I knew things were slightly different this month, I had to talk to Dr. Merton about them.

"So, how goes your regimen?" She adjusted my foot and began to treat my bruises. "You still want to stay on it, right? If you don't feel it's right I can find a new mix."

"I should," I told her. "I've been fine the last couple of years, and the main factor is I'm on birth control to treat the other thing. My sexuality doesn't change that, and you know me. I'm paranoid."

"So...no change to birth control. No patch or injection."

"I read _JRM_ last week. No way I'm putting myself at risk with that crap. The pill works fine for most everyone I know."

"That you read _JRM_ despite not going into the field scares me a little," she admitted with a laugh as she applied a numbing agent to the bruise on my neck. "But medically speaking it's working fine?"

"Medically speaking, I do have no complaints. I might not need it for the primary purpose, but thank goodness for the secondary effect. If I ever have to go through that again I think I'd wish for a dose of testosterone to push that crap away." I laughed; it would be absurd to take male hormones just to kill of my...moon time. After finishing up, she headed to her prescription pad to write up the usual.

"You need to me to call it into Chase's as usual?" I shook my head.

"Better not. There's a Rite Aid just outside the Hollow and I filled a couple of prescriptions there on the run when I picked up Rory this fall; call it in there. They'll know and I'll pick it up on the way."

"Will do. Just remember what I said; no pressure, don't get it wet, and with Ms. Gilmore out of the room..." She made sure patient-doctor privilege was used as it needed to be. "As long as you're light and not applying pressure to the affected areas, sexual activity is fine. Take it easy."

"I didn't even say anything," I argued.

"But you're at that age and I know both you and your girlfriend are probably active. As I said, easy goes it. But of course, follow Ms. Gilmore's orders."

"Of course." I slid off the exam table, all bandaged and soothed, ready to go. "Thanks for the weekend visit. I know it isn't--"

"Paris, it's never a problem. I know how you are, and if you weren't in school tomorrow I know you'd be wailing about it for days." She helped to prop me on the crutches she gave me. "Just be healthy and well for me."

"Of course. Thanks again, Dr. Merton."

"Anytime." With that, the treatment of my wounds were complete, with a bandaged foot, toes bundled together, face and neck treated and numb, and some nice painkillers to come with my birth control prescription. Lorelai then bought lunch for me through the drive-through, an experience I don't usually have because of my usual ban of food from the car.

Obviously inside eating wouldn't happen this afternoon. Feeling better, I indulged in my curly fries and two roast beef sandwiches at Arby's with a Diet Coke as we drove to the pharmacy outside of town with the prescription called in. Soon, we were on our way to New Haven.

To Rory. I was going to get out of the car for at least that. I couldn't not meet her at the platform, and hopefully nobody would stare at me.  


* * *

** Rory's POV, 5:00pm **

****Two hours and six minutes were all that were between Paris and I. The train I'm learning through this weekend will definitely keep Mom and I in touch next year when I go to Cambridge. It's not a long way at all. It seemed like it in the past.

I think I can do this. The Acela is a fine way to get between Boston and New Haven, though there's still all that space between there and Stars Hollow.

At least I know I'm no longer alone, and neither is Sherrie.

If you could describe the difference between yesterday and today in her flat, the word you'd look for was 'remarkable'. Yesterday she was sulking with an incomplete baby rocker, a TiVo packed with nothing but NESN and Fox Sports New England content, and absolutely no Christmas cheer to be found.

I left today with Rebecca, my ride to South Station. As I left, Sherrie was smiling widely wearing a 'future Bruins fan' shirt with an arrow pointing to her stomach, her brother and his husband applying tinsel to the tree containing many presents beneath it, and Deanna Tinsdale, a product of Roxbury glowing about the arrival of her future granddaughter.

They say things can't be fixed in one day, but sometimes in rare circumstances, it's a complete lie. Seeing all this bottled up support for the mother of my half-sister in a baby shower executed with only mere hours of prep and a total lack of knowing the basics about one, there was a definite change in the air. No Dad getting in the way or hiding flirting towards Sherrie's friends.

Getting up, I was able to prepare a quick breakfast of some Yoplait, toast and...well, let it be known that Sherrie is a Whole Foods regular. I might have to actually get Luke to add tangerine juice to his menu, it was pretty darned good. As I looked over the Sunday _Globe_ , Sherrie came into the kitchen, wobbly and woozy from an odd night of sleep. I gasped as she tried to slide into her chair and quickly got up to help her.

"Good lord, I'm sorry." I guided her into the chair as she shook her head.

"I'm used to it now," she explained, and I could tell there was yet another thing my father failed to do for her. "He was told to help me out, but it didn't really take."

"He doesn't really help unless he can get some kind of benefit," I argued, knowing exactly what 'benefit' he got out of Mom. "You should really get a midwife, Sher. I'm here today, but not for long."

She cringed, running a hand through her messy curls. "I actually did try to get one. I have more than enough money. But Chris argued against it with some argument about me being an independent woman. And I do need some help." She looked around the kitchen. "You really think it wouldn't be bad to get one?"

"It could help. You could have someone to talk to, and she could help with breathing exercises. I know your mom's coming in today but I am worried for you. Just...think about it for me?"

 

She nodded. "I think I will. Things have been screwed up since I had to take my leave at work and I'm not out there. I really hate having idle hands, you know? I've been working hard for all these years, and now it stops because I have this hard-ass pregnancy to get through." Falling into her childhood accent made Sherrie seem a lot less cultured, but more human to me. "Not that I'm saying--"

"No, of course not, I know you love Gigi. Just a little hard at this point, it's completely understandable."

"I think this is pretty much a visible 'don't get pregnant at your age' life lesson, isn't it?"

I laughed out loud. "Thankfully I shouldn't have that problem with the way I live. Also, my birth control." She took the arts section and circulars from the paper and began to look them over, groaning at everything in the Macy's and Target sections.

"Damn it, why do all the great sales have to be this time of year? Look at all those tops on those thin models and--" I made a move and took them away from her immediately. "Rory--"

I set my hand on top of hers. "Sher, I don't care what my dad says or does, or doesn't do. You are beautiful. You're having my sister. No matter what, a woman who is pregnant is sexy just for who she is; a fertile woman. So just...just ignore those ads. You will get off the weight eventually. But I don't want it done like Kate Hudson. You're vital."

She winced and I could tell that I was about to make her cry, which she did, covering her eyes. "Oh God...I'm so sorry..."

"Sher--"

"No, you're right, you are!" She raised up her hand and laughed. "I'm just so emotional lately and the way Chris has been treating me hasn't helped. It's like the moment I got my bump it automatically...well I'm not going to get descriptive here, but you get the idea!"

"Idea definitely gotten for sure." I shook my head at her and smiled. "It's going to be OK, I promise. Things are looking up from here, you know that." She nodded, taking in a breath and letting out the barest of assuring smiles. "Now, we should get ready. Don't want to look bad for your friends and mom, do you?"

"We should. God, I'm nervous. I haven't seen Ma for months. Let's just say that Chris didn't consider her someone he wanted to talk to all the time. Like oil and water." A laugh. "She said he was a 'young punk'."

"Your mother doesn't mince words, does she?"

"This refined accent? It took years away from Ma and Dad to sound like I came from one of the finer suburbs rather than Roxbury. How the three of us made them proud, I'll never figure out." She shrugged and grabbed at the coupons, a binder next to her to organize for her next shopping trip. She glanced down to find a Progresso page staring at her and blanched. "And...now I have a craving for her clam chowder. The stuff these people push as delicious is certainly not that."

"Sorry." I smiled, knowing that our talking made her sort of hungry with the coupons. "I'm glad your mom and brother are coming today."

"Believe me, I'm ready for them." Wistful, she looked up at the cabinets. "Though she's going to criticize my housekeep--"

"Sher?"

"Yeah?" I shook my head in her direction.

"You're pregnant. I think you have a right to push it off." She pushed her eyes together and groaned.

"I really need to know that, don't I? Three months, this girl is out in the world." Her eyes were wide. "I hope I'm a good mother."

"You will be," I promised, definitely sure of it. We talked some more as eventually I got up to get things ready. Sherrie really didn't have anything to worry about as far as cleaning and I was able to move a few things out of the way to accommodate everything.

Through the morning, my worries built up about Paris though. I did sleep, but it was filled with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach about her in pain. The idea of her hurting and out of her element after what she went through yesterday had me on edge, and I kept looking towards the front door, ready for my father to come back.

He didn't though, to my relief. In hindsight, I was glad the last time he was in Stars Hollow that I was a little more wiser about why Mom doesn't want to be with him forever. Just the way he treated Sherrie though, I think the ick factor with him is just beyond anything I'd ever want in a father.

Soon enough it was 10:45am though. Sherrie had just sat down in the chair she found most comfortable when the intercom buzzed. With a nod she told me to head over to it to see who was in the front hallway. I clicked the button to talk.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"Ahh, you must be Rory!" A bright and cheerful male voice rang from the intercom. "It's Devon, with Ian!"

"I'll get you right up." Smiling I hit the buzzer and after a couple of minutes opened the door, wondering how these men my father could hate so much looked...

...And from the moment I saw them I wondered what the big deal was at all.

I'll be honest that I had expectations of what Sherrie's brother looked like, but those went away very quickly. He was still nice and gruffly male, a definite Tinsdale for sure, but with a weekend growth of facial hair and brown curls framing his face; he wouldn't look out of place hanging out at a sports bar with his scruffy Bruins cap on his head and a plaid shirt on. His partner Ian was definitely the Penn to Devon's Teller, a sort of quiet and shorter guy wearing a Pats shirt and holding a gift bag, looking around the room nervously.

"Hey," I said. "You must be Ian."

"I am. You're Rory?" He extended his hand. "Sorry, I'm not usually the type to introduce myself."

"That's fine, me either." I took his hand and shook it as Devon sat on a sofa next to Sherrie, giving her as tender a hug as possible. The relief on her face was immense as she felt thankful to see her brother again.

"Sher, you're absolutely bursting," he said, as his sister laughed out loud. "You sure you're not at fourteen months?"

"Shut up Dev." She stuck out her tongue as the man sat next to her. "Great to see you again, little bro. How goes life?"

"The usual, Ian's making money for the clients, I'm doing well with the bar, it's all good." I looked at Ian, who smiled.

"I'm an institutional investment banker at CSFB," he said, filling in the details. "Rough work, but at least I'm in the part of the office that allows me to see my kids. It works out very well. Devon takes care of the kids during the day while I get home and get them fed and to bed, and we're both home during the weekends." I nodded, interested in hearing about everything as we sat down to await the girls.

It was great getting to see Devon and Ian, and I sat on the chair to the side as the two guys cuddled on the couch next to Sherrie, talking about things, including the kids, who had both been adopted out. I saw pictures of them, both of them three years old, a girl and a boy. The girl was named Naya, a child of El Salvadoran heritage, with the boy named Bobby, who they adopted from an agency from Vermont. I was happy hearing about how normal a family they had created and that their little blended family worked out.

Before anyone else could come though, Sherrie brought up what had made this all possible in the first place; Christopher's slur in the car to me last night.

I expected Devon to curse or strike back that my father was some kind of weak man for his actions.

Color me surprised when instead of anger, there was a loud laugh and a smile instead.

"Really, that's it? That's all he called me?"

"Devon, he said it with anger!" Sherrie asserted, but her bear of a brother was having none of it.

"I've been called worse at Bruins and Eagles games, seriously!" I was surprised at how well he was taking it. "The F-word is terrible, yes, but these days, it's just a word stupid men use to describe other guys who threaten their masculinity. I'm not threatened by the guy, not when he can't even stand up to me and look me in the face. Let him live in his ignorance and not know how excited his niece and nephew are about Gigi coming soon."

That was when Ian speaking up. "It's too bad. He's got a good shot at us making him look good as a groom. Well, he's on his own now if he wants to marry you, Sher, he is getting no help from us."

"Or me either." A laugh. "After all that he said last night he'll be lucky to get a pity bunt to first base! Unless he apologizes for everything, including giving up on us before I found out, he's done."

"So...you're OK then? No anger?" I asked the both of them. "I really--"

Devon stilled my apology. "Rory, from what I heard you've been coming out with a slow grace and dignity I admire. Your partner too, she's pretty much Ian up to his focus on getting into Columbia. If that jerk didn't want to understand why you're gay, he does not deserve to know you. He was unprompted in his tirade and there is no fault in you in how you've dealt with these feelings. You did good, and boy am I glad you let me know he was screwing up the TiVo something awful." He looked towards the entertainment console, grabbing the remote to look at the Now Playing screen and immediately cringing in horror. "Are you serious?! Charles Bronson movies and...what on earth? Sher, you need more control over the remote. This thing seriously needs some _Charmed_ on its hard drive, stat!"

Sherrie and I watched in amusement as Devon played with the device, going into the suggestions screen and thumbs-downing a bunch of things I knew we would never watch, but Chris would. Her and Devon felt offended at how many Metallica specials it spit out.

"Oh fercrissakes, this might need to be restarted completely!" he cried. "Thumbs down on the Bruins?! You were gonna marry this guy, Sher?"

"Hey, I didn't know he hated hockey--"

"Oh this is just unforgivable, he thumbs-downed _Red Sox Classics_ on NESN and...what?! The wish-list looks to tape all mentions of the Jets?" Now I was just doubled over in laughter. "You know having Gigi in kelly green would be unforgivable!"

"Thank God Paris is a big Pats fan," I observed to Ian, who nodded knowingly.

"I'm from Buffalo," he said in response. "Our marriage vows also had the declaration I would never cheer for the Bills again. The AFC East is serious business in our house."

"Oww, what about the--"

"Don't even say the 'S' word. Don't even." I laughed, but the smaller man glared. "My parents shipped a...'S' sweater when Bobby was born which went right to the Goodwill."

"Glad he got out then last night when I confessed, wouldn't have been pretty." Once the TiVo had been cleared the four of us had a fun conversation about our lives, and I could tell Sherrie's spirits were much higher than they had been when they arrived.

Soon enough, Sherrie's friends arrived, along with her mother, and once her sister's came in via video chat, everything was under way. I was pretty much to the side as Sherrie was able to celebrate her upcoming birthgiving as Rebecca happily took control of everything for me with much thanks for getting it off the ground. The tree was decorated to the point it was sagging, so much under the tree and gift-wrap and conversation everywhere. My closet departure was only one of a few small topics as Sherrie was caught up to the work water cooler and felt better with her circle around her, including Rebecca volunteering to help her out as her Lamaze buddy for the rest of the pregnancy.

Christopher didn't bother to show up or call, much less apologize during the shower, which I wanted to hope for or expect, but I knew wasn't coming. So I was glad to relax on getting to know my baby sister and a lot of the people I was sure I would know more once I got up to Boston next August. Unlike the Springsteens they gave me a better view of what college life in Boston would actually be like, having all gone through it themselves at places like UMass, Tufts, BU, Harvard and MIT. Rather than tell me about the process, they gave me advice on how to live in the area, which I'm sure Paris and I would be thankful for later on.

As the time grew shorter and I packed what I had brought to Boston, I felt a little sad to go. But I knew Paris was going to be at the end of the line in New Haven, and we had a lot to go through. Soon, I was at the door after Devon brought down my bag to Rebecca's car, Sherrie barely standing as she said her goodbyes, giving me a hug and smiling at me as easy as she could take it.

"Next time you come up here, you're going to have a sister. Hopefully not too long from now. Or...short. Not in the next couple of weeks."

"Not this week," I said confidently. "Take it easy, get in plenty of good food and rest, and don't stress yourself about anything. Paris and I are going to be fine."

"You think I'm going to stress over you two?" A small laugh. "I think your girlfriend would lay into me if I did. The girl is scary!"

I winced; I'm sure Paris would tell her to stay relaxed, without a doubt. "She is. But a good kind of scary. Don't worry, we will be fine." Both of us hugged, and after more goodbyes as the baby shower showed no signs of stopping, Rebecca brought me out to South Station and I caught the 4:10 Acela to New Haven.

Relaxing in my seat, I was finally able to check my phone after keeping it off since I got to Boston. Turning it on a litany of text messages came in, from Lane and Madeline asking how the weekend going, which I answered quickly.  I landed on Paris's texts, which had went dark since her good morning texts yesterday. A couple hours before she had sent me one, and I felt my breath catch as I read it.

_R,_  
You need a better bed. I expect a back massage when you get home. All I can complain abt though.  
Love you,  
P 

__Even as I knew Paris was hurting, the connection is still there. So much. As the train pulled out, I tapped out a quick response.

_P,_  
Anything you need. You have been missed. Can't wait to be home w/you.  
Truly,  
R 

__Ten minutes later, she responded;

_R,_  
Get home soon.  
P 

__I quickly snap a picture out the window of the disappearing Boston skyline in a blur and send it to her.

_On my way. - Your love, Rory_

__I was counting the minutes until I arrived home, and I couldn't wait to see those brown eyes taking me in again.  


* * *

** Paris's POV, 7:30 pm **

****This just sucks.

I knew working around my injury was a bitch, but to have to be stuck in the car while I wait for Rory instead of meeting her at the platform with her mom sucked. I knew it had to be done though, or else Lorelai would have to be stuck explaining why I was injured to every single employee in Union Station.

Thankfully it's the middle of December, so I was able to fiddle with the radio knob to get in all the AM stations I can pull in. Soon I had settled on WGN from Chicago, where a friendly female host was talking about gardening and home improvement through the fuzz and static. I sat back in my seat, hoping my hello to Rory would come soon.

My thumbs were worn from texting her through most of the last two hours since she got her phone back on. It's amazing how in 150 or so characters how much you can get to know someone you love. By the end I had even been dropping the signature just so I could respond back in a rat-a-tat manner to her as I sat in the back seat before Lorelai sanely tuned to my favorite classical music station after warbling along to a Christmas song to some 80's group called The Waitresses.

The time was passing too slowly. I brought out some reading I had to memorize for tomorrow as I waited for the Gilmore women to come back. The pills I was taking numbed the pain in my face a little bit, but there was still a lingering hum of stinging along my cheek. I was thankful that my mother at least didn't have good hand strength and hadn't constricted my throat too badly. But it still stuck with me how she had ended up treating my coming out.

The thought depressed me and I tried to draw myself away. The darkness of the moment is going to stick with me for a long time, and what she did, I knew the effects would stay with me for a long time.

I just wanted this to go well, for nobody to be hurt at all. It wasn't to be however, and I know Sharon is hoping that it'll cause a panic attack for the rest of my life each time I remember it.

I can't let that mind float through my mind. I have to push it down, let other thoughts overtake it...

It was then I closed my eyes, just wanting to internalize something to blot out the pain.

Except it somehow turned into sleep. I didn't really dream, and before I knew it I was in my car, out like a light in the back seat as the next show seemed to be a man with a booming voice talking about the latest health news.

I would only know I was sleeping when I felt a sudden rumble against my other shoulder. Out of silence, I heard an echo seem to build up.

"Par...Paris, wake up. I'm here. Wake up, Par."

Slowly I fluttered open my eyes to the sound of that lilting voice, combined with the tone of the door ajar indicator. Drearily I let my eyelids lift to expect the blinding light transition...

"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty." Unexpectedly I felt a soft kiss upon my forehead as my beloved slid into the backseat next to me to the left. I felt my skin heat almost immediately at the contact, my vision adjusting to find Rory sitting next to me after putting her luggage in the trunk.

"R-r-rory." I stumbled over the name I knew so well, my pupils finally able to focus and find the first thing in my visual line were her intensely blue eyes. My body constricted immediately upon the touch of her hand against my arm. "Sorry I fell asleep. I was just tired, I guess."

She nodded. "Don't apologize, it's your car." A little smirk. "Well, technically it's **mine** too." She bit down on her lip. "Kinda hard to get memories of my virginity loss out, even if the leather's been deep-cleaned since then."

"Oh my God!" Well that had me wide awake! I whispered, feeling flustered. "Rory--"

"She's still getting my last bag in. But come on, I had to mention it." Her hand landed in mind. "I missed you. Too much."

"I...I did too." Remembering the condition I was in, I wanted to turn away. "Doesn't matter though, I look like a wreck." I knew she had probably taken in my injuries while I slept and demurred to what would probably be a less sexual relationship for the next few weeks. "I can't even walk straight right now."

"Paris, don't." Her voice was suddenly firm as she brought herself close, settling herself in the middle seat so she wouldn't have any space between me. "I'm not going to have you begin to put yourself down again."

"But look at me--" I spread out my hands, expecting an argument.

"I am. I am looking at you and I know that even with those god-awful bruises and how you cowered even when I just sat next to you when you were sleeping, you're not a wreck. Far from it."

"Rory." I wanted her to see the reality. "I don't have a mother right now. Don't bring me false sunshine saying it will all be better."

"We will discuss what hole she can crawl back into later." She used her left hand to gingerly guide my gaze towards her, those eyes too irresistible to look away from. "But for now, I am here. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. Circumstance sucks, but you're my Par-Bear, and when someone attacks you, I get protective. I know you wish you weren't like this right now, and when I first saw you, I clenched my fists in anger."

A soft pause as she moved closer. "But just for a moment. Because I'm home. You're in my home. You will be protected, and heaven and earth, you're not even going to let any of this get to you." Her voice was strong, none of the fear or shakiness I thought she would have had upon the first sight of me. "I fell in love with you because of your strong will and the drive you have to make you, I...us, better. Whatever your mom did, what she tried to do to stop us? It was completely ineffective."

She whimpered as the tip of her nose fell against the indent in mine. "You still look beautiful. Vulnerable and wounded, but you still take my breath away. I missed you, yearned for you all weekend, Par. I wanted to explore that library with you and maybe sneak a kiss here and there."

She clasped my hand in hers, and her strong emotions somehow made her freckles stand out even more, blotting my brain with a need to swoon. "I love you, Paris. And you know I would have said that in front of Sharon. And of course, probably been stupid and been Jess-like and stopped her with something that would blight me with a felony record."

OK, that got to me. I let off a little crooked smile, along with a small laugh that didn't stress my larynx. "That would've been stupid, Gilmore."

"God, yeah. I would've lost the right to vote."

"Wait, that's all you're concerned about with a criminal conviction, losing the ability to cast a ballot?"

"It's a pretty darned important thing. It's the only legal way I could possibly get Taylor out of office." A little smile, and I was so far gone. This is me; swooning to Rory Gilmore stating the one thing she would do to nullify one of her basic rights. "I promise you, she's not going to get near you."

I shook my head. "I wish I could believe that." Running a hand through my messy locks, I had to kill the urge to do anything more than kiss Rory, retreating my hands into the deep cuffs of my shirt. "Hey. Can we talk later? When Lorelai isn't around? I've gone through this story too many times and I need a break."

She nodded, feeling a little thrown off. "Oh...yeah. Of course." She looked down at my foot and shuddered. "I still hate that this was done to you."

"At least I'm still here?" I reminded her. "Again--"

"Got it." I hated to close myself off, but as Lorelai got back into the car after getting the luggage in, I cooled down as her and Rory had time to talk as I relaxed against her shoulder, thankful she was back, in the same state, and for now in the same house. I felt thrown off by everything as Rory shared her weekend with her mother at 200 wpm without any interjection on my part. I began to feel myself calm down for the moment, if only because her soft scent was soothing me.

If only that was the only thing.

Despite the freezing temperature outside, she found it fit to unzip her jacket, and the button-down sweater beneath it, a violet-colored one that seemed to also match up well with her eyes and her pale skin. I didn't think anything of it at first, thinking that she probably had a flannel shirt on beneath.

I quickly found out that was not the case as she instead had on a women's shirt with the Bruins logo upon it in their sickly shade of gold. The "B" hub logo between the words "Boston" and "Bruins" seemed to be right where her cleavage split together.

Her exposed cleavage. Which my eyes once she allowed me to rest on her shoulder, could not stop staring at.

My internal clock was reminding me how much I hated the Bruins. That as a Whalers fan still in denial, I hate that smug team from the Hub City. That I was so offended by their moving I decided to support a team from New Jersey.

Fucking Jersey. And yet...

"I know you hate the Bruins," she whispered. "I didn't buy this to make you mad. It's sort of a 'screw you' shirt to my dad for not supporting me. Sherrie's brother gave me money to pick it up at the South Station gift shop, and I couldn't wait until I got home to wear it."

"That's all?" I said, letting a little smile inch across my face. She let her lashes flutter and then brought her mouth close to my ear.

"Well, it also makes my boobs look nice," she said, as I felt my body temperature immediately warm. "Which when your eyes landed on them, proved it was so worth it." She broke away, leaving me all flustered.

Also, a little happy. I took a blatant glance at her goods, feeling a bit like a pervert despite Rory being flattered by the attention. Lorelai seemed to notice and gave a shake in the mirror.

"Girls, behave yourselves back there." Then... "You want more of my renditions of the '80s on 8'?"

_Okay, consider the mood killed_ , I thought with a shake of my head as Rory recoiled in horror at more sing-alongs to my satellite radio. She let out a panicked no and I could tell Lorelai had made her point in the 'cool mom' way that didn't make us feel uncomfortable. I decided to rest on the way home, laying against Rory as she pushed back some hair behind my ear. Before I closed my eyes, she spoke to me, assuring all was well.

"Later then," she promised. I nodded softly and rested, comfortable in Rory's embrace as we headed north towards Stars Hollow.

Already, through only a few shared kisses, I feel much better than I did waking up this morning. I'm blessed to not only have a kind-hearted lover in Rory, but also a good friend, in return.  


* * *

** Rory's POV, 10:00pm **

****When I got home tonight, I expected to be able to trap myself in my room and talk to Paris over the phone or IM until one of us fell asleep. That's what probably should have happened.

Instead, I'm looking down at her doing her best _The Princess and the Pea_ impression, attempting in some way to get comfortable in some way on the air mattress currently sitting next to my bed. One which we had been assured by the girl at HomeGoods when we stopped there on the way home would be just as comfortable as her cloud bed.

I don't know what their standards are for comfortable, but Paris is definitely not. Having to juggle that with a certain sleeping position so she wasn't in pain wasn't making things easier at all.

By far, she's had a terrible weekend and I wish I could do something to ease her pain, but I'm sure there's not much I can really do than be there for her and keep her calm.

She ate well, a stop at Arby's from earlier keeping her fed as Mom and I called in an order to Luke, which definitely threw him off as I know we never call in an order in advance. But I know Mom; she doesn't want Paris to have to answer the public until she's definitely ready, and by just getting our food right away she didn't have to get out of the car or face any of the town. I gave her a few fries, but I can tell she's just not ready to eat that much yet. I was down all the way home, having to look at my girlfriend in this state and knowing all the flirting in the world cannot make her forget what happened yesterday.

We were back home within an hour and a half as I helped her into the house and she chose to go right into my room, not saying much. I knew there was no room to argue, and after giving her a kiss she headed into the bedroom and began to prepare her space next to my bed to put the air mattress and lay out her luggage in some way. Not asking our help, I was left to sit in the living room with Mom watching _Charmed_ and wondering how to go forward with Paris.

"I want to help her," I told Mom, shaking my head and feeling immense guilt. "I wish I hadn't gone to Boston this weekend. Then I could have picked her up to take her to the Yale library and we would have had safety in numbers."

"Kiddo, you could've done that, but it would've delayed the inevitable," Mom reminded me. "The pictures were known by her and you weren't going to get out of the Manor scot-free. We're just lucky Mrs. Gellar doesn't wield more than a shot glass."

I brushed my hair aside, sighing. "I was just bringing Par out of her shell, Mom. After the Formal mess it was a miracle we resolved it in the same night and became even closer. She defended me over the RTS and confided the accident." My voice rose in tone and emotion, shaking. "I was being careful. I didn't say a word to anyone. Grandma, despite everything, hasn't spilled a word. How could this go so wrong?"

"It's emotion, honey. And the past between them. Sharon resents her daughter for ruining her plan, Paris doesn't want to be her pawn. It results in fireworks and I hate to say it, but I'm glad it came to a head now, early on, rather than later when stakes were involved."

I felt a rush of anger, not feeling the need to deconstruct her phrasing. "You wanted Mrs. Gellar to--"

"NO!" Mom held her hand up strongly. "Absolutely I am not saying that. I'm saying that at least she can come here to heal. I don't want either of you to hurt, but Paris needed to get all of this out to go forward. She knew it wasn't going to be like I was, or even Grandma. This was something she had to do, and I think she was prepared for the possibility of violence. Just not in the way it ended up occurring."

Still, I felt disillusioned, my face still as I took in the adventures of the Halliwell sisters in front of us. "Do you...do you think we can work from this?"

"Of course, hon." I felt fingers eased upon my back, massaging me in circles. "This certainly isn't the end. She's staying here at least for a week or two, maybe longer. I allowed her in because I knew I couldn't handle her going anywhere else besides here. I had to get her away from Hartford."

"But she has to go back tomorrow--"

"I know. I mean...just away from everything. The questions sure to come. She needed a break from all of that before she faced it all." Mom gave me a solemn smile. "I remember I was just thrown right into the next day, no thanks to the bitchy receptionist in my doctor's office who leaked my test; she was fired immediately by Dr. Reiss, thankfully. Thank God the _Courant_ cut their society column years ago to just events and cotillions and the rich side of town can deal with problems in the same way as the middle and lower classes. But the gossip circle is still going to be vicious when this comes out."

A pause. My face stilled. "You're scared of me going public, aren't you?" A minute of silence, as Mom tried to gather her thoughts.

"Not saying it in those words, but yeah. Rory, people sometimes aren't good. You have to be sure this is something you really do want. To go for this. No matter how deep you love Paris, everyone else doesn't care. They just see two women who don't belong together--"

"Mom?" I was firm, remembering I had finally told her about Dean and Beth after I yelled at Grandma for pounding on the point that I had to be with him. "I felt no malice for Dean and Beth. They're both idiots and deserve each other. If I saw Beth in town this Christmas, in fact, I'd probably just shrug it off, because she's not worth it to fight over something I knew wasn't there."

I found my point. "Sharon Gellar is different. **Much** different. What she did to Paris is not only unforgivable, but sickening to me. When I heard the details, I swore like a sailor and if she walked in the door right now, I would cold-cock her jaw."

"Rory!" Mom tried to keep me from going forward, but I persisted.

"You taught me to stand up and defend myself. To know when I was truly in love and that it was worth it, and never let anything stop me from any goal I want." I opened up my arms, feeling a deep passion for my words. "The only thoughts on my mind this weekend besides Sherrie and Gigi and you were getting home, back to Paris, back to my girlfriend. I mean, God, I remembered Thursday night and it reminded me how lucky I am! I want her in my life, and I would defend it to the death for her."

With a grimace, I made another declaration taking me far away from how I ever felt with Dean. "Whatever occurs at school, in public, or wherever else, I'm ready, whenever Paris is. I don't want to hide who I am, Mom. I'm not the doormat I was with Dean. I'm an equal with Paris and there's a spark with her I have never felt for anyone else I have loved in a spiritual or sexual manner. I will protect her, no matter what it takes. From her mom, from Francie, herself...whatever. I am not going to waver."

I whispered the last words, strongly and in the same way I mustered up the challenge to take on Paris that first day when we laid down our gauntlets.

"I'm all in." I was grave and direct, making clear that this wasn't going to be the point where I had second thoughts. Trying to understand, I knew Mom was still a bit lost, but this was something we both were doing. We went into it, knowing what the eventual consequences would be. We would get help, I know, but most of this, we had to do on our own.

"If you're sure," she said, grimacing. "This isn't going to be easy."

"Well, I had my formative years in a potting shed," I reminded her, wrapping my arms around my chest. "I think coming from that, I can meet any challenge head-on." I didn't receive a response besides a look which suggested my mother found my strong side a little out there, and we watched the rest of _Charmed_ and on into _Alias_ as I caught up on the remainder of my homework for Monday that I hadn't finished in front of the television laying down on a pillow. Mom and I talked more about the weekend and about Dad, and we knew it would be a long time before we could stand to see him. I also shared the sonogram of Gigi Sherrie had forgotten to give me until just before I left. You could barely make out the form of a child in the black-and-white picture, but she was definitely there, and I couldn't wait to meet her eventually.

I was glad that the weekend, no matter how crappy it was, ended up making Paris and I stronger, and soon I was preparing for bed, eventually heading into the bedroom...

To find her groaning on her airbed, seemingly uncomfortable. She looked very unhappy.

"In what world is this bed comfortable?" she gritted out. "In the world of a store where everything is perfect and nothing ever goes wrong, of course it's perfect. Get it to where you're visiting, you're better off on a Boy Scout cot. Which I do have and have used; my father was in a troop in the 60's and it was acceptable. This isn't."

"Paris--"

"I'm not trying to complain," she said, quickly trying to make sure her complaints weren't mine. "I'm fine sleeping in here. Just, I hate this bed."

"Well we can't go out again tonight. The only other place open is Wal-Mart and I know you'd find that bed worse." Not remembering where I was I took off my shirt unconsciously. "I suppose after school tomorrow we can go somewhere else."

"I miss my bed," she said plaintively. "It's perfect."

"I know it is, but we're in my room and I have the smallest twin bed ever. I'm tall and lanky and you'd be uncomfortable in bed with me." Setting my shirt in the hamper I just began to notice Paris's eyes widen like saucers.

"Who said I was uncomfortable?" she flirted back, her voice suddenly going from annoyed to...how do you describe your girlfriend living with you and suddenly hot for routine? "I know, Ror. You have plenty of room in that bed. You know it, I know it. But the rules mean we share different mattresses."

"What, do you want a bunk bed?" A smile. "I'm sure we can get a bunk bed, but I don't usually do Ikea." It was then I remembered I had taken off my shirt in front of her. "Oh God...I don't usually take off my shirt like that either!" I was wearing my most worn casual bra. "Darn it, Paris, you could've reminded me!"

"I forgot too," she admitted, though her voice suggested it was less forgetfulness, more editing out certain details. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to take off your bra? You can't sleep well in one. I certainly can't."

I scoffed, grabbing a pair of purple flannel pajamas from my dresser. "I'm going to the bathroom to change. You need to behave." I threw on the top to quickly button it up. "I know you're intending to distract me, but all my homework is done, so nice try on that."

"Distract?" A shake of her head, and there's that darned smile she always gives me to throw me off her game. "If I wanted to distract you, I could easily do so. I'm currently providing you mercy by not being distracting."

"You're in my room. That is very distracting," I argued.

"I'm safely behind my Harvard sweatshirt though. Distractions neutered." A smirk. "Makes up for the bed being uncomfortable."

I rolled my eyes. "You're like this and still turning me on! What the hell?" Frustrated I headed out the door. "There's a comforter in my closet. It might add on another layer to make you feel more comfortable."

"Wait." I came to a halt as I took the doorknob, surprised from her sudden change in moods. I turned to face her, spread out a little.

She bit her lower lip as I came down to her level. "I didn't mean to complain about the bed. Or fluster you. I haven't really done this before."

"Lived with me? If I remember we spent two months in the same room."

"Yeah...not knowing how we felt about each other," she reminded me. "It was easy to desexualize each other. We had our own corners, we came to our own rules quietly without argument. There was no thought to how our nudity would affect each other or that we had a spark of attraction. Back then it just didn't work out. So this is all new, no matter how you slice it."

"And?" She gave me a guilty stare, taking in a deep breath and letting it out as her eyes looked down.

"And...I wanted our time living together to start at Harvard. Unsupervised, and unclothed. Not...like this, with my lower body in pieces and a nearly busted larynx. I don't want to be here to be sheltered, but out of love."

"Paris, you know you're here because of love," I argued. "I'm letting you stay in my room because of how much I love you. Please...don't feel like you're being a rude houseguest because of the circumstances." I could tell how much she was hurting, and the sadness she felt for throwing me off my routine by her presence. "You are very far from that and--"

"Rory?" A stilted pause. "We can still...change things. I don't have to be here and..." She rubbed at her hand against the fitted sheet over the air mattress. "I'm not saying I want to end things, just..."

"Paris!" I raised my hands up, and my voice, surprising even myself. "We could have done nothing to stop Sharon. Even if we had seen that PI we could not have connected him to her rather easily. This was going to happen, and I'm going to have to live every day of my life now wondering why I wasn't there to protect you. I've had dark thoughts of your mother all weekend. What I could do to her. For God's sake, if I do see her in my driveway I'd probably have Mom start the 911 call by asking for **two** police cars! Because that's what would end up happening, I'd be arrested by the police for beating the daylights out of Sharon!"

She shook her head. "Rory--"

"My love for you is now beyond what I would've ever thought it would be for Dean. It took me **months** to even say I loved him, or to have him be in my room unsupervised. You're here now and we've run the bases a few times, confessed our love and are pretty much roommates now, Sam and Brooke style, along with definitely not unresolved sexual tension. In my head right now is not Sharon Gellar, your mother. It's Sharon Gellar, the unrepentant bitch who has now tried to kill you. Twice!"

She reeled back from the use of the word, and I could tell I had done something to her. Good or bad, I didn't know. My voice had raised up to a level I didn't even use in a debate.

In fact the last time it had gone that high was when we had the argument that climaxed with the 'Mary Stone' crack.

Remember that, in October? It seems like eons ago now.

She took a couple minutes. We just sat there, looking at each other, wincing that I had actually said what I had meant to keep to myself. That I would die for her.

Me, the girl who can barely boil water or defend herself outside a debate situation. Slowly, Paris gathered her words and with a shrug that slipped the right side of the sweatshirt slightly to bare her shoulder, she went forward.

"You want me to stay then." I nodded, and I could tell she was nearly at the point of tears. "Stay here, live with you."

"For all the time you need," I assured her. "After the paper and before Birnbaum we can go back to HomeGoods--"

She moved closer, her voice a whisper. "No, you don't understand. I don't want to be a camper in your own room." She winced as she moved her leg slightly. "I...I talked about you when I went to the doctor today."

"OK." I didn't know what to say.

"She knows I am...girl-inclined. And my doctor thought I didn't need birth control any longer. But...but I do. Not because I might get a boyfriend. I...I know that won't happen, no matter how my mother prays the gay away. I'm--"

"--On a horrible cycle," I said, breaking her confession. "Irregular doesn't begin to describe it. When we were in the pits last year around Rebuilding Together and Madeline had to get lunch for everyone at Subway I gave her a ride because her brother brought her to the site. We did talk, don't get mad."

She shook her head, and I knew she wouldn't get pissed about something a year and a half in the rear-view. "We...we talked about you. Why you are who you are. We didn't know about the accident, but for some stupid reason I regret to this day, I joked that you were on a permanent bout of PMS." I could feel her cringe, but I persisted. "She yelled at me for even saying that and that's when I learned...God." I brushed hair back. "Is it really true your dad had to buy your feminine supplies? Because Sharon refused even as...as..." She was crying. "You have terrible ones, don't you?"

Paris nodded, whimpering as I now knew why my regiment of birth control was much weaker than hers. "I...I..." She squeaked through the anguish. "It just...hurts. So much. And the pain. My mom told me to suck it up but...I found out down the line if I just lived with it, I might end up losing my fertility in the end. That's why I never really jumped on any opportunity with Tristan, to tell you the truth. I could have pretty much had him freshman year, but behind all the terrible menstrual pain I felt and heavy bleeding? I couldn't weigh him down with that."

"Along with not feeling a full attraction to him."

"That too." She shook her head. "It took me until just about you came to get my regimen just right. Eventually I know if I go off it I know it'll get better. But I know it was Sharon. That even if they could look at her all the time, she snuck in some hard liquor here and there during the pregnancy. I came out as OK as can be expected, but otherwise there is some stuff that throws me off. Even when I found things right, as you said, I still have a harsh shyness about me."

"Along with a hard time welcoming compliments," I mentioned matter-of-factly. "But they're better now?"

"There's a few times I still feel off. But what I'm on, I'm much better now." She quietly looked up. "I really am sorry about that entire situation. Shutting you out from Madeline over my going bi-polar on you--"

"No, you're not!" I scoffed. "You're a little thrown off at times, but you certainly are not bi-polar. You're...Paris. I wouldn't want you any other way. It adds to the challenge that is being your girlfriend."

"My moods are a challenge?" Finally, I got out the smallest of smiles from her. "I guess it's true though. You kept pushing me and pushing me until I couldn't help but fall in love with you." She moved closer to me, as much as she could with her bum leg. "You know what else kept me charged through the summer in Washington?"

"My Pollyanna demeanor and hope for the future of this nation?" I answered, knowing it drove her up a wall when I got along with Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao when we met despite my hate of her party. She clutched a pen, effortlessly spinning it around with her fingers like a baton.

"The trip in mid-July to the National Zoo." I was lost for a moment as to why she mentioned it. "We were able to sneak off from the group and spend a little more time than they wanted us to in the Asian exhibit, especially around the panda exhibit. I was one for sticking to the rules, but damn it, Gilmore, I didn't want to lose you and end up having you disappear on me." Her little dip in emotion was coming back to an ebb. "And we just sat at the rail, staring into the enclosure, at those wonderful creatures, together, just talking."

"It was nice," I recalled. "You were very nice that day. Even a little open, talking about your younger days at Chilton."

"How I broke the hearts of the boys in first grade." She looked down at her fingers with a blush continuing to spin the pen. "My Valentine's Day, where I refused to participate and make one of those envelope folders to get valentines inside. When my nanny insisted I go in with these braids decorated with little hearts in the rubber bands and how I hated them. Even then, Francie being a little witch and giving me a passive-aggressive message in her card to me. It's interesting." She looked up. "But the reason I bring up the Zoo, is because of what you wore."

I suddenly froze, as the next few words were completely expected, her tongue clicking them out with zeal.

"Or rather, what you did **not** wear."

_Oh God, she did actually notice! She did? Paris Eustace Gellar, you little pervert!_ I saw her gaze suddenly bump down towards my pajama shirt and on reflex I closed my arms around my chest.

"I...it was laundry day!" I argued. "Or near it!"

"You could have still worn a bra, or at the very least one of those tank tops you have with the shelf in it."

I cringed. "All of them were soaked from sweat! I couldn't stand another day in them before I could get to the washer. You don't want to spend a day at the zoo basking in your own perspiration, especially on a 95° day!" She was laughing quietly. "I didn't know you looked!"

"Everyone was looking." She smiled at me. "You stick out like a sore thumb braless, Ror, and you know it! That's why you love taking the uniform shirt off at the end of the day. You were trying to lure me in there already, even if you didn't know." Now I was flustered deeply as she went on. "Also, that blue sundress? Really didn't hide your whites that well...or was it rose-patterned?"

I was really hoping Mom was far away, in another room. Or Metropolitan Statistical Area. I felt flattered, but also began to shift around as I felt a twinge below my stomach. "Whatever makes you happier there."

"Oh, I was very happy. Especially with the plumbing. That removable showerhead in the dorm really helped cool my fire through the summer."

_Okay...fight fire with fire_. Knowing now that both of us used that showerhead to more than...shower, that added on another dimension. I redirected quickly.

"Well...those nightgowns you wore didn't really hide that much!" I argued. She just shook her head, moving closer. "They didn't. And when you bent down to grab something from my desk--"

"I sleep naked, Gilmore," she reminded me. "Of course I didn't wear anything under my gowns. It's merely a modesty layer."

"So when we did the Puffs, you were?" A raised eyebrow, confirming my suspicion.

My legs turned to jelly as she came even closer, the damned sweatshirt blatantly baring her very sexy shoulder. Here she was, her face bruised on one side, her leg terribly bruised and toes nearly fractured...and I was still way more turned on than I should've been. "But you had to know."

"Doesn't matter. Not like anyone was about to lift it or anything, I just feel more comfortable in nightwear without." She let the pen drop to take my hand.

"And right now?" My tone was very shy, like I was still learning how to kiss with Dean.

At that moment, she had the sexiest smile as she lowered my hand to...

"What do you think?"

Yes, my hand was moving where you think it was. Along her stomach and...clearly beneath her silk sleep pants, no sign of underwear.

"I think..." A pause, remembering why she was in my house in the first place. "I think you're forgetting that you are injured, and that I don't want to hurt you any further."

"Dr. Merton says as long as you're not weighing on my whole leg or foot, no problem." She was making it hard to resist. "I know you want it, Gilmore." Still wearing my jeans I felt fingers sliding along the seam where I didn't need them to. "I might be a little wounded, but I am not going to let that stop me." Her index finger dipped in closer. "You're right. I can't let my mother stop us. She won't. And I refuse to let her, or your father, even attempt to halt our momentum."

Oh God...she was on her own roll. My 'all in' speech was bringing her into the same state of mind. Her voice barely echoed through the room, but there she was, the Paris who turned me into a sexual animal.

Thirty-six hours after the worst moment of her life, she was still ready...for me. Everything be damned. I could feel her curls between my fingers. Her mound, glistening with need.

Emotionally and sexually, none of what happened this weekend, despite the hurt she felt physically, and I did emotionally, had taken this relationship down one single level. I whimpered at the realization that this was stronger than I had ever expected.

Last night, I was spitting in anger over what Sharon had done to Paris.

Now, I was with her, giving her all the comfort she needed, and even as she was on a regimen of pain pills and bruising along her neck and cheek, she wasn't letting anything stop her. I let my eyes fall to her, taking in slow and deep breaths. Her eyes, so deep, so needy of me, full of love. Either she had the best pain pills of all time or she was just healing from my love alone.

I decided to see how far she really was going to go with this. Slowly I withdrew my fingers, lingering them along her stomach.

"You do realize this is a school night," I said softly. "So we have to be in bed soon. Separately."

I thought the mere mention of school would cool Par down. Make her see the reality of what she was instigating.

She took my wrist, brushing her fingers against it as she made clear despite the hasty arrangements of the weekend and her emotions, that she felt something for me I wasn't sure could be dealt with via a goodnight kiss.

Looking towards the door she heard Lorelai doing some things in there. She let go of my wrist and brought herself closer.

"I can get by on as much as three hours sleep," she proclaimed haughtily. "Ever since we picked you up in New Haven I wanted to do nothing more than ravish you." I could sense her scent strong in my nostrils. "When I know the coast is clear...I'm crawling in with you."

My eyes widened. My heart beat picked up steam, and my legs clenched up tightly. My inner vixen wanted this....bad. To make Paris feel better, even if only sexually. With my mouth drying, I tried to excuse it off.

"And if my mom happens to check on us later tonight?"

She shook her head, and knew exactly how to excuse my excuse. "The bed is leaky, Rory. I'll need all the support I can get." Cue at that exact moment, her eyebrows doing a light wag and bringing down a blatant look at my chest. "Remember after Thanksgiving? I swear, I'm addicted to you. I won't let things like a throbbing foot or some pesky door rule stop me." Her gaze was heated...

I knew it. I was not going to leave her dry. She needed me in order to be sane. My body was on such a tight thread in that moment I knew that I needed her too. To calm her, and myself from what we went through.

To remember that our love is why I'm going through all of this upheaval in the first place.

I know how this night is going to end, and it isn't both of us asleep in some kind of slumber party situation. The only way we were going to end up in Dreamland tonight was via sexual exhaustion.

Whatever is happening to my mind, I don't want to stop it. I give her a look.

Then a smile. And then...

"One condition. You are wearing underwear after we're done, and pants," I told her directly. "I'm not going to have my mom wake us up with my fingers inside of you because you decided to give me morning glory sleep sex."

She shook her head. "No underwear. I never sleep with panties on. Pants I can do, but the underwear is non-negotiable."

"But I--"

"I can't help it if I'm so damned cuddly," she asserted with swagger, letting the secret smile out.

_Fuck_ , I cursed to myself. _She knows I can't resist the smile!_

__"When we were at the Manor--"

"I did, but that was different. We were still under the rules, but not only that I was getting ready for bed before I stripped down for the night," she argued succulently. "Everything changed at the pond that morning. We've been physical at school. In the car. Even here, on your bed. And I can tell right now. I can really tell. You wish you were out of that shirt."

She had me there. All flustered, I knew it was true. "I do." Sighing, I knew I was sweating in the flannel material. "Alright...as I said before you corrupted me..." I nervously laughed. "I'm changing the rest in the bathroom and putting on a tank top beneath. When the all-clear occurs I'll have you tug at a shirt or something like that to get my attention." I looked at her in concern. "You can get on the bed, right? If you need help--"

"I will be fine. Just have to take it slowly. Thankfully she went with petulant foot-stomping over Kerrigan'ing me." My eyes widened at how casual she was taking her injury, and she could tell it was a bit too much. "That is, I wish she hadn't attacked me at all."

"She shouldn't have even touched you," I said strongly, grabbing one of the tops I knew wouldn't hide anything at all. "And she won't either if I have anything to say about it." Strongly standing I smiled at her. "Talk soon?" She nodded back and we said goodbye for that moment. I quickly changed into the tank and put my pajamas on over it, shaking my head at the image looking back at me in the mirror.

I used to feel weak in so many ways, unwilling to stand up for myself before I went into Chilton. I'd be the first out in dodgeball at Stars Hollow High; the other team didn't care that I was in the back of the gym behind everyone else, and completely ignored the rule against hitting me in the head with the ball. I would be the first out, no doubt.

I never liked to speak up. Defy authority or do the 'wrong' thing in the eyes of society.

Tonight though, I feel a little more assertive of myself. Willing to see this through with Paris, and at the same time, no longer take any crap from anybody. I knew I had to be strong for her and to show I wasn't going to back down.

I do have amazing strength. As I snap the last button closed, I stride out of the bathroom, wondering what exactly would happen when Paris hopped into bed. As I come out, I look in the living room to see Mom cleaning up before she heads upstairs, and I go in to tell her good night.

Something's different though. Much different. As I hug and kiss her goodnight, I pretty much expect a reminder of the rules we have to live by. Door open, no lights on, be quiet, all of that.

But then she pauses and gives me a serious look. In my mother's eyes, I see natural concern.

There's something else though.

An understanding. Between us, there now seems to be something unwritten that we can't voice out. And before I leave...

"Rory?"

I nod.

"Yeah."

She looks towards the door.

"I have locked the door and hid the turtle," she explained, hoping to be guarded. "Harold called a few minutes ago. Please don't alarm her, but Sharon...." Wandering off, I knew exactly what was going on.

She was out. "Mr. Gellar and Madeline have told nobody she's here. We want it to stay that way. But just in case, I do want you to lock your bedroom door."

I had never been told that before. I knew my lock worked, but very rarely needed to use it. Full of concern, I nodded as I let out a silent prayer that we could sleep without incident this evening.

"Tell her if you would like, but if you feel--"

"Mom, I have to. We don't keep secrets from each other," I emphasize. "I promise you, we will be fine." I prepare to turn away...

"Honey?" I turn back.

"Hmm?"

"If Paris gets scared and she does have to go in your bed?" My eyes pop up and I wonder if she's going to complete the sentence with an allusion to sleeping on the couch.

But then, Mom takes me by surprise. My own mother, who we hashed out these rules with, tells me what to do next.

"Protect her any way you can, and..." she then finishes with a flourish.

"Behave yourselves." A nod. "Goodnight, kiddo." She goes back to sorting the magazines on the table, and I...I...

I don't even know what to think anymore, except I left this weekend a girl excited to see her daddy, and somehow returned a woman protecting her girlfriend.

Maybe **this** is exactly what I needed. The swift kick in the butt that gets me out of my fantasy world where all is well, I'm valedictorian and Dean will be having my 2.5 kids.

Except it's certainly not that. I'm going back in my bedroom, and Paris is in there, waiting for me.

All I'm thinking right now?

I hope we make it to tomorrow morning.  


* * *

** Paris's POV, 11:45pm **

****By far, I am going to undersleep. I will not get the eight hours of sleep I require, or the seven I need at minimum to function. I may even need to actually acknowledge a snooze button for once.

But this has not been the most usual of weekends. I'm under a weight of wondering if my mother is going to find out where I am. What's going to happen at school tomorrow, how I'm going to shield this injury for the last week before the winter break.

Most of all though is the question of whether I can continue to maintain a neutral façade as to the nature of my relationship with Rory to the outside world. So far I've been able to keep it very quiet, contained in the family.

But with the way Rory has been to me this weekend, it has been about the best thing I have ever manage to acquire.

She has been treating me with kid gloves, caring for me at every single turn possible. Giving me this kind of nice sleeping pill that isn't like my prescription one, but is still pretty effective, an over-the-counter product Sookie bought for her at Costco which is actually more perfect for what I need than forming a nasty Lunesta habit.

And then there's this. I buy this air bed at HomeGoods for $200, one I think will be at least comfortable once it leaves the box and carry case.

That packaging turns out to be a lie. It's like sleeping on the raft I have in the pool at the Manor, but much less fun and comfortable. At least there, you can see needing an air raft, and it's very nice.

That bed though? No...God no. It's not **my** bed. My bed fits me. My bed knows me, it has my groove within it. My sheets and blankets. This thing? I'd rather sleep on straw or a beanbag chair. It's terrible. Every movement causes an air rushing noise in the mattress. The pump is very loud to inflate it.

I expected an all-night sleep with the door wide open. But then she came in and clicked the lock before explaining why. She went on for a little bit, and although it was a little shocking to know Sharon was headed to a friend's house for the time being to sleep...

Honestly all I knew was the door was locked. I looked at the knob and I knew, we were definitely going to follow through on my flirting from earlier.

Except I was honest to God tired from the day, being poked and prodded at Dr. Merton's office and having to be driven everywhere in the middle part of the state to get what we needed done. I was exhausted, and I did have to make **some** effort to try to get some sleep to start out with. In the time Rory spent out of the room I closed my eyes, actually attempting to rest after the book I read tired me out.

Rory eventually came back into the room and I heard her with my eyes closed. I heard her pout about me being asleep, but I figured that she was fine with it in the end.

"Hopefully you get used to the bed," she said, thinking I was asleep, before laying a kiss on my temple. I heard her ruffle the covers on her bed, then click off the light.

"Good night Par. Pleasant dreams." A little more ruffling of the bed and my thinking was that our night was now closed. Surely nothing more would happen and I would be able to get my sleep without any distractions...

Only the bed remained very uncomfortable. Even letting out some air to soften it had not helped in any way. I had my pillows, and I was in one of my more comfortable sleeping outfits. Yet, it was proving uncomfortable to get to bed.

The last thing I wanted to do was be an ungracious guest in Rory's home. I refused to complain about my bed farther than I already had. I needed to get to sleep, without complaint.

It just wasn't happening, though. Reminders of yesterday kept filling my mind. The moment I felt her hands clamp around my top, trying to wring the life from me. The slap and the stomp, I could still feel it.

That I could deal with; I could just shield the pain away. Twenty minutes after closing my eyes, I could deal with that. I know I could.

But the hateful words continued to echo. To hurt.

To make me bleed. I could feel the blood rush in my veins, desperate to get out of my circulatory system. To be rid of me.

That night she was drunk, she **wanted** to kill me. To see me bleed to death. It's then my memories rush through of the accident.

I had suppressed them all these years. Been able to stop them. The only way Dr. B was able to get the accident from me in the first place was rare flashes provided by my father that he recalled from my dreams.

The sleep-talking I have. It began with the accident. Before I hadn't. But during a night where my father wanted to find out why I was so cold and withdrawn, he had taken me to the hospital to be wired up as I slept to find out why.

That's when we found out. My graphs were off the charts at times as far as brain activity. During my stage 4 and REM stage I still had brain activity more associated with lower stages.

The memories of my accident rarely played out.

Now? I was awake. Somehow, my mind had found another memory. Of a few days before, when Daddy had left. I was playing _Mario 2_ with Louise in the media room, on the ice level. Both of us couldn't take our focus off the game. But then, I remembered it.

How, why, now? I don't know. But I concentrated on the sounds and the music of the game at the time, trying to get past some snow enemy as the Princess floated past them, only to hit some enemy on a robotic vehicle.

I heard Mother on the phone, in the other room. Probably chatting with one of her friends.

At the time, I knew nothing of death, much less crime. I had a Teddy Ruxpin taken from me once, but since it was annoying anyways I brushed it off.

Now, the moment was echoing through my brain...

_"Yes," she said into the phone. "Uh huh. Yeah." I looked in the other room while Louise took her turn with Luigi. My mother sat on the ottoman, holding a glass of sparkling wine in her left hand, a cordless phone with an absurdly long antenna stretched out in her right hand. One eye was to the screen. My ear was to my mother; somehow I heard her._

_"Yes. I would like you to authorize Paris's life insurance plan to be upped a half. You have the paperwork? Wonderful, then we are all set. Thank you."_

__Again, four years old. I assumed from what my dad said about insurance was that it was reserved when something 'really, really bad' happened to someone.

But then, there was another call. I was now in control of the game as that call was made. Before, it didn't seem unusual.

_I heard her dial out the numbers on. As I navigated the Princess towards the mushroom and the bonus slot machine coins, I held my concentration on that. A few minutes pass, and she's asking boring adult questions._

_"So, I have good collision, Paul? Really, that much?" I was getting to the toughest part of the level now._

_"And theoretically, if she was in the car, what would be the damages that would be claimed?" As I maneuvered towards the boss of the level, one ear to the conversation, another to the game. "Thank you Paul, you have been of most help." She hung up the call and then makes another._

_"Yes...yes. I know that will happen when you're over. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I just move to one side once I make the turn. I doubt that will happen, Fred; there is no airbag on that side of the car. If it happens, it would be a miracle."_

_I go on..._

_"She's fragile enough; this will surely show him that it was a bad idea. Once the payoff comes I will run off to the Turks. Oh, I'm sure. Even with the belt it won't work, she'll be thrown into the windshield because she's undersized."_

__No...nooo. _Brain, stop this!_ I demanded, to no avail.

_"I promise you, when this is all done, I'm out of here. If not for that sniveling little bitch I could have broken it off with him once the payoff came, or he hadn't noticed me sick. I could've taken care of it if he didn't know."_

__My heartbeat quickened...

_"I know, I didn't want her! I can't foist her off now, but now she can be my ticket outta here. It's foolproof; even if I am drunk they'll still award treble based on her in the car and some safety issues with the car. I claim spousal abuse, get that money and that's it."_

_"Paris? Paris?" Louise is trying to get my attention._

_"Huh?"_

_"You're down to one dot."_

_"One dot?" I bring my attention to the screen...one more hit and I'm dead. "Oh!" I move out of the way of the enemy that was trying to hit me. I have no idea what my mother's talking about. Or who she's talking about._

__Back in the present day, I know.

Fuck, do I ever know. Inside of my head, I remember the bare facts.

Fred was a friend my mother saw a lot when I was younger. He was claimed to be her personal assistant, but had left just after the accident happened. He never came to see me even though he was a big part of my life being by my mother's side for financial matters.

Except another bit of the accident came into play. In the aftermath, I'm bleary and bruised beyond belief. My ears are ringing from my head hitting the dash head-on. I can barely see. Yet...

_"No, she's still moving. She is! Dammit, I...right angle. All...her side and I...she has cuts and...hurt...I can't, Fred...Can't...fingerprints...faking asleep now...strong narcotics. She should've!"_

__No...this really cannot be what it was like. I feel dazed. Now I see myself just after surgery, in a daze.

_"That you would do this...Sharon. I am unbelievably angry right now." I turn my head, my eyes in a slight slit, the only movement I can muster without a major headache occurring. My head pounds as I feel a ringing in my ears. "You have four staff who can take you to the store at any time, but you should not have gone there in the first place! Or taken Par--"_

_"Shut up, Harold! I told you I'm sorry--"_

_"Our daughter is nearly in a coma because of your irresponsibility! She's lucky she's still alive at this point. I thought you were going to sober up!" I heard my father speak in an enraged tone I knew he never used. "She could have died while I was halfway over the Atlantic."_

_"Well she's OK now--"_

_"She is not! It'll be a miracle if she gets back to how she was before the accident." I heard a foot stomp. "I only let you in here because I thought you were truly sorry about your actions. That you not only didn't tell me about the accident, let me go on with a life for **two days** I could care less about right now while Paris was fighting for her life, and manipulated me into bailing you out before I knew the circumstances..." A pause. "Get out, Sharon."_

_"She is my daughter!"_

_"A daughter you almost killed! When you physically abuse her, it hurts me deep. But this? Crashing a car drunk? You may as well have cut apart my artery and let me bleed out. Go...get some painkillers or something. I don't care. I can't look at you right now."_

_"Fuck you. I didn't harm her," she insisted. I heard footsteps out the door. Then I felt a big strong hand over mine as the seat creaked next to my bed._

_"I apologize if you heard any of that," he said, his voice back to a bare whisper. "Sweet Pea, what she did, it was not right at all. And when you grow up, and I know you will, please...please don't be your mother."_

_Not understanding at all, he began to cry. "Stay with me, Par. I--I promise you I will never let her harm you...again. I should have been here. I should have at least called, but I was tired. It...was late in Moscow, and you know the Soviets with their tin can phone network. I...I can only say I'm sorry."_

_Even if I couldn't move or speak, I knew he was sorry. There's not much he could have done from Moscow, everyone knew that._

__At that moment my heart had to be at 150 beats per minute. Another recall from a few days later...

_The private guard at my door had taken a break, leaving Mother to come in unscathed. I was fluttering between rest and consciousness, numb from who knows how many drugs helping me not feel my broken body. She had managed to bribe a naïve nurse to get in my hospital room while my father had to stop at work._

_I could smell her...her hazy scent. A mix of some overpowering perfume and alcohol. She sat next to me._

_"Well I can't believe it," she bellowed. "Dr. Merton told me your lung capacity remained near normal even after how hard you slammed into the dashboard. How the fuck?"_

_OK, now I was waking up. But there was no way I was cluing her onto that. I could barely hear the theme to the Beverly Hills Teens playing on Channel 20; an insipid cartoon to be sure _(even now the peppy theme song plagues my head like no other) _but it kept me occupied._

_"I know I could've gotten off. That even if it was my second incident the child seat laws ain't in force. I'd be able to make up some shit. But no. You had to live. To make me see another day with you. And I had no chance to get near your breathing machine."_

_I heard her come close. The memory is foggy, but I know somehow even if I forget this, the effect will be remembered and irrevocably change how I relate to my mother._

_"You better not fuck up again, Par. One day, you won't have your precious daddy or nanny to stop me. I will make you suffer somehow. You were not supposed to be. I married Daddy because I knew he didn't like kids. But you had to show up out of the blue. Fuck things up for me. Blow away ten million of the inheritance when he eventually kicks it. One day you're going to be unprotected. You won't have anywhere to run to. And when you are..."_

_I then heard the sound of a 'slash' as she dragged a sharp fingernail across her neck._

__Before I realized it, I had let out the most primal scream my lungs could muster.

I was awake. In a cold sweat.

Apparently, I had also done something to the airbed, as I was flat on the ground. I screamed again. And again.

"PARIS!" I looked up to see Rory's eyes blazing in the near-darkness of the bedroom. "Par, what the hell?"

"FUCK!" I began weeping opening. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...no...obviously my mind is creating constructs of fiction to explain my reality." Before I even knew it she was flopped down on the floor with me and took my hand. "It's not real, it is not."

I really did expect Rory to ask what was wrong. She looked at me, full of deep concern.

"Paris, the reaction wasn't to being woken," she hurriedly explained, her voice wracked with what seemed to be a mix of anger and pain. "Oh my God."

"Rory--"

"You really do need to talk to Dr. Birnbaum," she said. "And I mean a **deep** talk." I felt her hand in mine as she got as close to me as possible. "My Par-Bear...shit."

"Rory, I--"

"I'm no therapist, but I heard you sleep-talking," she explained. "You relived the accident in more detail. I really don't think it's a mental construct."

"It can't be. Rory, it can't--"

"You violently thrashed in bed. Even with your nails you dug into the vinyl of your bed...it's busted." She pointed to the place where I managed to damage the mattress, a tear in the fitted sheet made by my pulling at it too hard. "I saw nearly everything. I just fell asleep when you talked about insurance and from there...it's been about a half-hour of this." My lungs were in pain, and I could barely breathe. "Crying for your father, calling for your mom to get away from you."

She moved closer, and I could see her in so much pain. "Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths. You're hurting and I don't want to have to bring you to the ER tonight."

I shook my head, a mess. "It was so real. She wants me to die, Rory. She wants me to die!"

"You aren't," she said with a cocky confidence only known by me with Tristan in the past. "She's going to die young and you'll be here a long time. With me loving you. Breathe...breathe..." She set her hand on my stomach. "Don't let that bitch get to you. She's wrong. She has been wrong. I would have a large void in my life if you had died that day. And if you had died yesterday, God forbid..."

I could tell she was barely holding it in. "I swear to God I would have made a completely selfish decision. I know it's fucking stupid to say this and you'd slap me silly for--"

I didn't even want to hear it. "Don't say it," I wrenched out. "Do not, Gilmore. No love is worth a terrible redux of _Romeo & Juliet_. Or one of those god-awful lesbian straight-to-DVD soft-core dramas written by a Holyoke reject with a $589 budget."

"They...have those kinds of films?"

I was able to smile at least a little bit. "Too many. You'd think in 2003 they'd be able to write a cheap movie." I began to take long and calming breaths. "I broke a bed. Most intense dream ever and..." I looked at the damage. Sheets all over the place and I'm sure I probably tore it in another couple places. "I'm not OK. I'm mental here and..." I mussed with my face, wanting to hide behind my hair. "God, when I tell Dr. Birnbaum she's gonna drug me up."

"No...no she isn't," Rory assured me. "You didn't do this in our time in Washington." She moved a little more, giving me a kiss and then resting her forehead against mine. "We've had an emotional two weeks. You spilled the beans about this to me, and your mind is seeing that the pause is off. That you can now vent. You're with me, so as far as the world knows, this didn't happen. We've had deeply emotional coming outs." She held my wrists. "You almost saw the white light. But you're still here. You're still my fighter, the toughest woman I know, the Queen Bitch of Chilton. And it's gonna stay that way if I have everything to say about it."

"I don't want to die," I said, feeling petulant. "I really don't."

"I wouldn't let you." Rory moved closer. "For one thing, The Plan and Harvard are screwed beyond belief with your passing. Chilton is your domain, we can't let it fall prey to Francie, now can we?"

I shook my head. "Oh God, no. She'd probably add stripper fishnets to the uniform."

"Your mom isn't here. She will never be here. If she shows up anywhere near the city limits and I hear of it, she'd have to get past me, I swear to God." Her voice was hoarse, but somehow sexier than her usual girly squeal. "Any woman who would ever try to kill their child? They are going nowhere near the people I love. And I'm sure Lorelai would say the same thing."

"You really mean that," I said, still and in shock. "You would take her on."

A simple nod. "What she did in the past, two days ago, the future? I am more than your best friend, and this love is something she can't do anything to stop. I promise you that my blood will spill before hers."

My eyes turned dark as I felt a chill in my spine from the threat Rory just made to protect me. "Lorelai Leigh Gilmore." I felt the air rush from my lungs. "Don't make that kind of promise."

"Too late," she said gravely, as if she was giving me that cold stare Lisa Rowe had in _Girl, Interrupted._ "Dorothy killed two witches. Cinderella fucked over her stepmother, shit Disney sequels be damned. Rapunzel abandoned her captor. I swear to God she **will not** get past me."

I was on ice. "You really mean it, do you? If anyone gets in my way, they're going down."

"Not even a thought at all. You are my girl, Paris. I'm not letting anyone get in the way of our love."

Slowly, we began to settle down. Even as the time ticked down I knew there was a sexual undercurrent to the aftermath of the dream. How Lorelai did not hear my scream is a mystery, but all I could dwell on in that moment was that a moment of fear and terror was shot down by Rory's love for me.

My heart was balmed. A half-hour before, I was scared to move and tore a bed. Rory began to calm, letting her vocabulary return to child-friendly territory as we talked over the ramifications of the dream.

Also, she had tossed off her pajama shirt well before she comforted me, leaving her in the tank top beneath. I was thankful that I was distracted, because when she's both comforting and angry, she kind of pops out.

I keep forgetting that her body visually turns itself on at the drop of a hat.

Damn it. I was still all shaken from her dream, wounded as hell and on a bed that I tore apart on the first night, and still turned on?

Of course on of all things, a school night. I looked up at the clock, reading 11:11. Some 'wish time' Madeline keeps talking about. It's Madeline, of course, but she's been the one giving out the best advice lately.

I look at it, and then towards Rory, who looks at the wreckage of my attempt to sleep in a bed that came in a bag. She quirks her eyebrow.

"So...we have to be up by 6:15. We should try to get to bed...except this one isn't a bed any longer. More of a tarp."

I looked down. "You wouldn't happen to have any duct tape around, would you?" The negative headshake suggested that even **Scotch** tape would be hard to come by in this household.

"Bert has duct tape."

"Huh?"

"That's what Mom calls Luke's toolbox."

"Which isn't here, so that doesn't help us out, does it?"

"It does not." Now we were looking at each other after hashing out the dream, wondering where to go next.

I made a wish on the 11:11 I wasn't sure would be fulfilled. Mainly because at this point it would be crazy.

"You have a cot? Uhh, I'm trying to think...anything?"

"There's a child-sized mattress in the attic I used when I was younger, but it has a hole in it. That's about it."

Finally, she acknowledged what was probably the only choice. "Par, I know you're being chivalrous, but my bed--"

"We really can't avoid it, can we?" I let out a long breath, my eyes wandering where they shouldn't. "My foot isn't doing too well anyways." I looked down at the bared and bandaged appendage, which still hurts to look at. "Hope you don't mind sleeping on the right so I can have some support."

"I'm game. Left, right, up or down. I can sleep anywhere." Rory stood up with a wide smile as she began to help me up as I got on my right foot first in the hope I could wobble my way onto the bed. She took my left hand to support me. "Careful, don't put pressure on it, keep it off."

"I'm trying, I swear." Surely this could go innocently....

Except her shirt rose over her stomach. Her wonderfully taut and smooth stomach with the cute little knot and...

Her cleavage then came into my view. Belly knot and lovely breasts I...

_FLOP!_

__"Paris, keep..."

I fell to the bed in an odd lump as my distraction meant I almost put pressure on my left foot. The combination of gravity and lack of focus on my health and more on my fair Gilmore's charms didn't exactly do wonders for my balance.

"...steady." I looked up to find her biting her lip. "Oh geeze."

"I'm OK," I insisted, rolling over onto my back. "Really."

"Oh yes you are." Suddenly her emotions seemed to go from worried to...

Curious? I looked up to find those inquisitive eyes of her gazing down on me like I'm some kind of choice cut of steak. Naturally it felt odd for that to play out in a 0-to-60 manner.

"You...do realize I just had the most traumatizing dream/image of childhood anyone could ever have?"

"I do know," she said, with a slight frown. "I really do. I...I'm sorry. I just don't...I...I..." She laughed and sat down on the bed. "I love you, and we're now in this thing where you're living with me, everything's so odd and our emotions are on a roller coaster." She slapped the back of her hand against her leg and turned to me. "This weekend has been exactly that."

"Isn't that the truth?" I sighed, laying down with my left leg propped up by a spare blanket I had before on the floor. "Although for me it's been all in the dumps until you got off the train."

"Yeah, the baby shower took off the sting of my dad. Although his disappointment wasn't much of a surprise." She looked over at me, somehow being calm and sane despite all I've just gone through. "Did you ever expect at the start of the school year ever being in this position?"

She lay down as I made my observation. "When I made the Hail Mary to make you the VP to save my election I never expected it to end up in this. Or even the first day we met."

"What..." _Oh dear, not the sly smile, Gilmore. You know that kills me._ "Louise did say I had a nice stripper name. I think the whole 'innocent Mary' train left the station sooner than we ever knew. It added on that layer of sexual tension from day one."

"That kind of thinking is absurd, Dixie Chick." I winked lightly, and earned a laugh from Rory. "Except, there was the matter of your ass ruining my project, literally."

"Well I can't help if I have an adorable derriere which was destined to become the factor in making you a frenemy for life. Well, we can dump the 'enemy' part."

"The 'frenemy' title is loooong in the past." I was able to smile as I felt her flesh against mine. "Though I still think it at times."

"Then, frenemies at school, lovers elsewhere?"

"A little complicated, but it works." I looked into her eyes, feeling a little asleep but not all the way there. "What's Lorelai going to say about the burst bed?"

"Sex joke." No hesitation at all. "Before you explain it, first reaction, without a doubt."

"And about us sharing a bed?"

"Well, we're behind a locked door. We don't have to explain anything." Suddenly the room was getting hot as I felt a hand sneak beneath my shirt. "Like I know you've been staring at my chest on and off."

I turned away, hiding a deep blush. "Gilmore!"

"What? The both of us have great boobs! We can't stop staring."

"Well I'm behind an oversized sweatshirt, you cannot possibly sexualize me! And I'm bruised up like hell, need I reminded you of my currently Technicolor neck?"

She shook her head. "I'm looking right past it. It's going to heal up by Christmas. All I can think right now is about how much of a badass you are. Anyone else, they wouldn't even blink in running towards an easy sick day, but you're going."

"I'm going because my mother isn't stopping me from Harvard," I observed. "Not really because I want to. If it was up to me I'd call it good for the year and start my vacation early. But the last progress report has me only ahead of you by .015 of a grade point. I need to make that up."

"I need to try harder, obviously." She sighed, but still smiled, as I felt deeply distracted by her hand roaming up just below my breasts. Along with her top seemingly fixed above her navel, which I couldn't stop looking at. "Are you okay to sleep?"

"I...I don't know," I said honestly, a softness to my voice as I was scared of doing so. I was tempted to go in my bag and grab a pill. "Maybe I should--"

"No." She took my hand. "Two hours before you could've been fine with the pill. You can't screw around with 'em, Par. You take them too late and you're still tired leaving the Hollow in the morning. Also, I just don't want you taking them. You can get a good night's rest with even a few hours."

It's like she knows my brain, my routine. Before I could realize it though, she was reaching beneath the covers. I didn't know why at all so I assumed there was something wrong with the sheets. "You're wound up. You need to relax, feel calm again. Stop thinking about her. She's not here. I am."

"It just seems like she's going to barrel in any moment," I confessed, taking in a deep breath. "I just can't stop thinking of the dream."

"I know." She kissed my cheek as her hand seemed to find itself sentry just along my right side. "But it's the past. You're still here, aren't you?"

"But my life is threatened. I don't even know what the police actually ended up charging her with. If she's out, it isn't attempted murder. Not that I'd actually expect that charge, I'd be fine with assault and battery."

"Hey..." She slid up against me, her other hand grasping my thigh gingerly. "The important thing is, you're not there tonight. You're here and you have a good lock protecting anyone from getting in." I felt her circling her index finger just near my breast, calming me in a sensitive portion of my body which always seemed to calm me down when I touched myself. "We're going to talk all of this out tomorrow, I promise you."

I fell silent for what seemed to be an eon. Just Rory looking down at me, looking so seductive and beguiling, yet acting like this protective guard dog who wouldn't let anyone get in her way. It was still unnerving to know that the one flash of anger from when she got pissed at me for making fun of her tardiness wasn't even her angriest.

She proclaimed she wanted blood. I mean, this is Rory Gilmore we're talking about. Who went along with the Puffs even as she knew it was a disaster. I can't get over it.

I was still silent, but I began to inch my fingers along her side. To give myself more access to her flesh. I knew I was playing with fire, that she could easily turn me down and say no. I just needed to feel her in some way.

Her hand was now resting against my breast, with the other just inside of my pajama pants.

I could feel her, teasing, anticipating. Fingers barely along the edge of my mound. Trying to keep still, but knowing how deeply I wanted her after a weekend apart.

Clothes were beginning to feel like a hindrance. I was sweating despite the boiler barely being on. My fingers began to move lower, her tank top as high as it would go without exposing the bottom of her breasts. I gasped as I let my fingers pinch at the hem of her pajama pants to lower them just a little. Letting them move down her hip just a smidge.

She noticed and hummed happily against me.

"Is that what you want, P? Flesh against flesh, nothing between us at all in this bed?" I nodded as she straddled me, the waist of her panties slightly appearing, revealing them as blue. "I want to make you forget and have that seduction we promised each other earlier. Just...forget." Her hand cupped my breast, which became aroused as her thumb stiffened my nipple. She immediately noticed.

"Ohhh, yeah." She looked at her arm up my shirt. "That feels nice."

"Other...one," I strained out, expecting her hand to move to the other one. Instead, she looked down at me, moving her hand up as half my hips were exposed, barely showing the trim of my fringe.

"I need to see you," she whispered. "And taste you." She pushed up my sweatshirt. "I can't stand it any longer; even in bed last night up in Boston the memory of your scent got to me all night." She left me to pull the shirt over my shoulders and I tossed it to the ground.

Unconsciously I wrapped my arms around my breasts.

"Paris, don't," she warned me, raising an eyebrow. "You have to stop that. I love seeing them." I slowly pulled my arms away and laid back as she continued to pull my pants down until she had my hips fully exposed. Her eyes stayed on my breasts, looking them over.

"I really wish you'd switch to camisoles," she grumped. "I love the days when you wear a slip but I can't get over how soft you are."

"Not all of us are blessed with Cindy Crawford-like ones," I observed.

She grimaced. "You saw _Fair Game_ too, didn't you?"

"Huh?"

"All the boys in school were excited to see her naked in that movie. I wanted to also, though I hid it under the excuse of it being a movie Mom could mock when I asked her to rent it. I don't know why I wanted to when I was that young; I guess I was odd in that I wanted to see it and then she finally got her shirt off..."

"Rory..." I smiled. "You little baby dyke. You just admitted to seeing a movie to see a pretty naked woman."

"Hey," she shot back, "you're the one who didn't know _Femme Fatale_ was going to be two hours of naked Rebecca Romijn."

"You're still going on about that?" I narrowed my eyes. "I think you learned a couple of things from that film."

"I may have..." She bit down on her lip, her fingers along my sides, thumbs circling the bottom of my breasts. "Hold on..." she lifted up from me for a moment, then stretched over to turn the lamp on her nightstand to its dimmest setting. My breath caught as I could see her puckering right nipple within my sight, her tank top sliding down. The material stretched out perfectly and...

Without any warning or sense of propriety, I grasped her hips to hold her in place, and scooted up in the bed while keeping my leg level. She shrieked at being held as I decided what I wanted for foreplay.

I needed it. I had a carnal need, the many car rides of torture, riling me up, causing what seemed to be a puddle on the back of my skirt. I looked up at her for but a moment, catching her completely unaware, with aching in her eyes.

I pushed her against me, moving my grasp to beneath her arms to keep her steady. With my mouth, I claimed her nipple, flicking it with my tongue through the material as the movement was made within mere seconds.

"Oh shit," she whispered, pushing up so she could be on my lap, but I lifted myself up so my leg didn't get pressure.

I've kissed her so many times, along her body, including her nipple. But I had never felt so wanting of her, knowing the door was locked and anything could go.

I was confident Lorelai could not hear us, and it seemed Rory was the same way, bracing a hand against the headboard, the other one tangled in my hair. Thursday seemed so far away, a wasteland to get to tonight.

I used my teeth to tug at the nipple, provide a little pressure and find out how much to the limit she could go. She panted, gasped, begging me to get the shirt off.

I didn't comply. I wasn't ready yet. I knew she wasn't. Until I saw her eraser-stiff, it wasn't enough. I suckled at the nipple like I was trying to draw milk, her gasps and moans guiding me further.

It was beginning to work. I began to feel her cunt warm against me as she rubbed against my right leg. I quickly moved my ass up so she could hastily pull the pants down to my knees, I couldn't deny her this skin on skin. My own hands fumbled with her pants, pulling them down with her panties. I continued to lick and pull at her nipple, as whispered profanities slid from her throat.

This was the Rory of 'Quippy, why so silent?', the one who stood her ground. Her father and my mother had aroused the beast within her beauty, and right now the birds wanted nothing to do with her. She begged me as I could feel my saliva dripping downward, leaving a circle of drool as I broke apart for a moment.

The shirt now was visible in that one spot, leaving behind a lovely brown areole clearly showing through, her nipple nearly 1/4" long as I broke apart. She groaned.

"Fuck, feel like you're milking me!" She gasped. "Other one..."

I complied, latching onto it through the fabric like my mouth had suction to go with it. She grinded her pelvis against my thigh and I felt her bareness deeply against me. She loved being this aggressive with me, I could tell as the friction built up.

I repeated the same actions, nips, bites, licks and suckles. I was injured and bruised up, yet controlling Rory as if we had done this many times.

Somehow our relationship is a loop of control. Sometimes I get to instigate, the next time she's getting things going. Our pants ended up on the ground as eventually the only piece of clothing between us was her tank.

"You...are...wearing this...tomorrow," I demanded between kisses, the idea of her wearing a top soaked with me enough to wetten my quim. She kissed the top of my head, and then my forehead as things went further than we imagined.

"Damn right." She agreed to my demand, gasping. "Fuck this shirt...feels tight." I pulled down the hem and could tell that my nipple play had pushed it out a little more, giving her cleavage that little extra boost.

I could feel her dripping with sweat, the scent of her underarms overwhelming, strong. An odor that was pushing me further.

Then, a hand slid between my legs.

"Your pussy is so wet," she stated matter-of-factly. "Fucking wet cunt."

"Keep talking dirty," I demanded, loving to hear clean-talking Gilmore filthy her mouth.

"Wear out my fucking body," she growled. "Missed you. Begged for you." Another kiss. "I fucking came on the train thinking of us going at it Thursday night."

"Oh, you did?" I rolled my tongue around her nipple while nipping it. "I wish I could've smelled you after that."

"Panties...still in my bag," she hissed. "I ruined them."

"If my leg wasn't fucked up I'd ask you to wear them."

"Just glad you're here yourself." Abruptly, she used her hands to pull me away as I could see anguish; she couldn't take any more nipple play.

I let out little breaths as I saw her, and then just like that, she stripped out of her shirt, pulling it up wildly at the hem before getting it up through her head until it landed on the floor below. Her breasts bounced, her body flush and needing of release. Her sexual glare was overpowering to me.

"Every rule is being violated right now," she stated simply. "Door locked, both of us naked, Mom in the house." She was trying to hit every trigger point.

"Nobody can stop us. Not your mother, my father. Anybody. With you, I'm not Mary. Not innocent. I get to think things that Dean dismissed as silly. Dangerous. Stupid." I wanted to see where this was going. How deep.

"I'm enlightened and know what I'm doing. I'm a woman, with a strong woman herself."

"Careful," I warned. "Just...slow, please. I really wish I was up to full-on, but I'm far from ready."

"I know, I just have to get this out." Hair sliding in front of her face I could just imagine many nights like this with Rory in the future. "I really don't mean to curse so much either. Something Sharon did let out the guttermouth New Englander in me."

"Really?" I shook my head. "You get me into your bed, we strip down and even though I'm maimed and turned on, your mouth is what you're worried about?"

"Mm-hmm." Her eyes were wide as she explained. "We've just holding all of this in for so long and even if I'm innocent and pious to everyone else and the town, I just can't help but have you know how I feel in detail, even in words I never use."

"Yeah..." I loved hearing her side of this. "I don't care though. We're a couple, we can tell each other whatever we want, and if I'm the only one who gets you like this, I love being the only one to know." I slid my left hand along her side as she relaxed against me, smooth flesh guiding me until I felt her trimmed mound at the heel of my palm. She moaned just at the nearness of my touch.

"We're really doing this," I said, stunned at the position I was in. "Despite all we went through, this weekend is going to end with us in bed. I'm hurting, you're pissed, and yet..."

"That's right." My hand moved lower as I could feel the slightest bit of dampness. She let out a small whine in response as I let myself tease and linger her. "P..." I could see her eyes even with the dimness of the room. "Please." She lay flat against me and my other hand cupped her ass to give myself leverage.

I began to stroke her, letting my fingers slowly seek out between her lips until I found her clit easily and blindly. I pushed them together and hooked them inward, circling the flesh. She quickly dampened up, her body tightening against mine as she continued to hover above me with the occasional heated kiss here and there.

I continued to lay flat against my back, taking advantage of the bed's thinness as Rory had nowhere to go but against my fingers. Some hair fell across her face, shielding it and I could feel the bed shifting slightly with each stroke with a small squeak and bump of the headboard against the wall. I felt like I was sinking in it somehow; this bed definitely was not designed to hold two adults, and even one was questionable.

She whinnied and gasped as I brought her clit to a fully erect state. It was not going to be long for her being bottled up since Thursday. She held my back, careful to avoid my wounds and bruises. I could feel her nipples digging against my skin and it felt so deep, so wonderful. I bit on her lower lip, teasing and antagonizing her into the same time into fucking my fingers as deep as she wanted.

Rory is wild, untamed in bed. I had never expected her to be this way, but I knew I had a special girl when I had my naughty monologue in the car. I slid in one finger, then two, pushing them in while using my pinkie to continue the clit stroking.

"Goddamn Par, get me off," she said in a guttural manor, her voice barely carrying. "Yesss..."

I loved feeling her like this as she rode my fingers lightly, keeping her mouth closed, muffling into my neck as she kept her consideration while riding my hand. I could feel her just slickening against me and I knew it wouldn't be long.

Her voice barely carried as I could feel her teeth biting lightly into my flesh. I kept the little circles going, keeping my fingers angled inward as I knew I could feel her muscles begin to contract inward.

This was beyond hot. Despite my minor handicap we found our rhythm easily as her stomach constricted in and she welcomed me in, rocking in against my hand, her hips circling in and out in the small compressed space. She barely made a sound, content with my fingers guiding her through, her breath deep and shallow.

Her forehead settled against mine as she shared slow and torrid kissing. She was getting tighter, I was feeling even more wound up...

How this became me pleasing her I didn't know, but I knew the reciprocation would be divine.

She continued to push up against me, her clit fully aroused. I quickened the strokes at her encouragement, taking her closer and closer to coming. I needed this.

"Please...love you," she gasped, and I moved a third finger in. More circles, more furious. I needed her to spill over. Her body stretched out in this way where her feet were fully curled in and...

...and...

"Christ, Par! Oh shit..." She bit down on her lip after that light outburst as I pushed in for the last few strokes, her panting harried, a pull against my back...

And then I could feel her come against me. She ground against me harshly and I really knew that was it and I let her do so against my uninjured thigh as I released my fingers from her with a deep gasp.  Her face flushed deeply as she relaxed me, finding herself deeply and completely fulfilled after four days since our last time.

I snorted thinking about that; three months before we functioned just fine without sex. Now we can't get enough of it.

Soon she was relaxed, and calming down, within the crook of my neck.

Almost settled down that is. She was still kissing my neck, applying little points of pressure, just enough to not leave a mark as she peppered my neck with kisses,

"Just about my turn," she said breathily to me. "Are you sure you're up to this?"

Beyond the ache in my leg and triggering some minor pain in my wrist, I was good.

We continued on a torrid pace as she wound me up, continuing to leave fluttering kisses on my neck, my chin...I can't get over how she makes me feel. I made little sounds of mewling as her hand drifted along the underside of my breast, making me quiver as just small touches wound me up just as much as the big ones.

Then she moved to my stomach, sliding her finger along the rim of my navel as we got into position. She was careful and slow, whispering things to me in order to rile me up. My breath was shallow and I needed this sooner or later. I knew I wasn't going to last very long at all as I opened my legs to let her in.

"Remember; quiet." My exhaustion began to overtake me though, so that was easy to do. My clench was light and she began to work me off. This wasn't going to be as physical as I did to her and I understood that for the sake of my condition, but it still felt just as deep and loving as she is when she's a little rougher with me. I lay back relaxed against the pillow as she continued to touch, stroke and tease with her mouth and her hands with her thigh against me.

I groaned and gasped with each sensation, careful with my body. I was limited, but certainly not unfeeling by any means. I felt a building bubble in the pit of my stomach as I knew I was approaching my release.

"Little faster," I rushed out. "Need this." I yelped as a hand grasped the small of my back on the right side. I truly did need this, I wanted all of this. To let the ugliness of that ten minutes on Saturday go away. I began thinking of that and looked at Rory above me.

I forgot how I was feeling sexually. I let my emotions guide me from then on as I felt overwhelmed by my love for Rory. This should not have happened in this way. If not for a call to her house I would've been miserable at the Capitol Hilton, alone and loathing myself.

But she's here. I'm here. That's all that matters. I quivered thinking about all of this, what it all lead up to.

A little bed in a small town feels more comfortable to me than anything involving my wealth.

I focused solely on that as I just went with the flow of everything going on around me. I let my mind fill with good emotions, letting the ones that had wounded me just go away.

I wasn't going to let this get to me. This was just a mere misstep. An error.

Before I know it, I'm going to be fine, not hurting any longer, and Rory is going to be even closer to me...

I stilled and my heart constricted, along with my body. My muscles clenched in and I clenched Rory for dear life as I felt boneless in my own body.

Really it wasn't much of an orgasm. I've had much deeper ones by myself, by miles. Feeling her against me, sorting through my emotions and hearing her continually tell me how deep in love that she was in with me, it was all enough, I didn't need to faint or pass out from my come.

All I needed was to relax, and this was definitely helping. I hummed happily as I reached my hilt, and the comedown, with Rory's lips on mine, had definitely tired me out. The fears of earlier were gone, no longer keeping me in a state of paralysis.

"Par..." Her voice was filled with exhaustion, looking down at me. "So much love for you right now." I nodded in shaky agreement as she pushed the blankets above us and I knew we would probably continue to...

OK, I'm still talking about these rules, it's ridiculous.

I smiled up at her through slitted eyes. I knew we weren't going to stay up much longer. "You...you did that."

"I did." Her face had its usual shine of innocence. "You OK?"

"Mmm." So much for my typical need to fill every moment with words. "Should sleep with you every night."

"One day at a time there, Par-Bear." I snorted. "We're going to make this week better than this weekend, mark my words. Everything is going to be alright."

"Hope so."

"I **know** so." She was being bold. "I'm not going to let anyone take this away from us." She gingerly slid from atop of me to bring me into a spoon, wrapping around me at my stomach, her chin resting on my shoulder. "Don't doubt yourself for me, please."

"I...I won't." Though I was still unsure, scared of the future, I had to share my girlfriend's optimism in some way. She has had a life where everything has worked out; I need to stop looking at everything with dread. "So...tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, tomorrow morning." A kiss on my lips. "Goodnight, Par. Love you."

I returned it softly. "Love you too." She slipped into sleep rather easily, and I though I'm still up a few minutes after, I'm following soon.

I'm still deeply unsure of things. There's still a lingering fear that my mother will attempt to reenact the final scene of Steven Spielberg's _Duel_ and run us off the road or into the oncoming traffic lane, and of course, I could be running right into a whole quagmire at school tomorrow.

But at least it'll be together, with Rory. At least I'm alive at the end of this weekend and she's here to calm every one of the fears that I used to have to face all alone, without any support.

What my mother told me this weekend is deeply false; I am no longer a 'lonely little bitch'.

The 'little bitch' part? Oh yeah, true. I wear that as a proud badge.

But I have Rory, Lorelai, Madeline, Brad, Dr. Birnbaum, Dr. Merton, my nanny, Ms. Peters, Ms. Salmon, Nora and the RTS, and my entire staff behind me.

She thinks I'm lonely? I'd love to see her try taking me on now.

Go for it, Sharon. I'd love to see how far you're going to get with everybody supporting me, you bitter hag...  


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  ** _To be continued..._**  



	25. A Burden That Was Hers Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of classes for Paris and Rory after their rough weekends brings them challenges to deal with, obstacles to overcome, and many unexpected reactions to their new relationship, along with Mrs. Gellar returning to cause more trouble for the girls.

**Title: Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-Five | A Burden That Was Hers Alone  
Author: **Nate  
 **Pairing:** Paris/Rory, alternating POV's for this chapter.  
 **Spoilers:** Unless you're somehow connected to my thoughts this doesn't spoil anything in season three at all and is pretty much all original plotting  
 **Rating:** R (homophobia, antisemitism and rape threats, sexual situations, profanity, domestic and parental abuse, violence, along with a trigger for minor thoughts of suicide, emphasis on 'minor'. Also alluded descriptions of sexuality between minors, and yes...Dean bashing. You have been warned)  
 **Disclaimer:** Still can't claim credit for the show; Amy-Sherman Palladino still created it with Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, and Hofflund-Polone and Warner Bros. Television brought it to the world. All products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied.  
 **Archiving:** GilmoreGirlsSlash, RalSt, AO3, aff.net and ff.net. Anywhere else ask first.  
 **Summary:** The first day of classes for Paris and Rory after their rough weekends brings them challenges to deal with, obstacles to overcome, and many unexpected reactions to their new relationship, along with Mrs. Gellar returning to cause more trouble for the girls.  
 **Author's** **Notes:** So...yup. Here I am again pleading forgiveness for a chapter that took just under a year and a half to update. I wanted to do so by Christmas, but I have going to school to go to IT network support, so I at least have the excuse this time of trying to earn an education which has kept this from being worked on less than I wanted to. But also having to put Paris through even more anguish pains me to write, and choosing whether a love scene was appropriate after this; I chose not to because of how sensitive and close what happens to both Rory and Paris in this chapter has affected them. Especially writing the scene with Paris's therapist, which for someone who hasn't needed one for a long time, was tough to write and present appropriately. I based Dr. Birnbaum's character on Marcia Cross since she is a real-life psychiatrist and it just made sense to show that Paris would have a long time relationship with someone who knew her in that manner. Other plot points I will discuss in the author's note at the end of this chapter.

Keeping the rest of this note short, I of course recommend that you watch _How to Get Away With Murder_ (and not just because Liza Weil followed me on Twitter... **ME**! OK, maybe a little bit ;).). Besides Liza being such a mystery as Bonnie Winterbottom and torturing my pour soul at the same time, I really enjoy it so much, especially Laurel and Karla Souza, who just steals the show for me there (and yup, I ship Bonnie/Laurel, though wacky Bonnie/Asher comes in a close second for a het ship). It's awesome and don't let the haters get to you on that.

This chapter is dedicated to my former beta and longtime friend Danielle, who announced her engagement with her lovely lady over the holiday season and who I'm blessed to know. Here's to many happy years for them together, and since they're both fic writers...don't let anyone say writing fanfic isn't a worthy thing, ever. Chapter title comes from a lyric from Sarah McLachlan's "Home".  


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****  
Rory's POV, 11:30 p.m.

You know what I've never told anyone?

That my first day at Chilton was a breeze compared to Stars Hollow High.

Yeah, you may look at that day and think, 'Rory, come on. Based on that day alone how could you ever fall in love with Paris, much less tolerate her without suggesting a fistfight at the flagpole come 3:15?'

Well, for one thing, it was all my fault. I should've looked where I was going when I destroyed her castle and it's totally on me for not paying attention. Sure, I one-upped her on the questions and came off as dense around Tristan, but at least it didn't end up with either of us at blows.

Also, with two years of hindsight behind me...it was a hot first impression.

Yes, you're looking at me as if I'm crazy, saying 'she intimidated you, that's not sexy'. But the thing is, she asserted herself, got right in front of me and told me it was on and I wasn't going to glide through like I did at SHH.

Also, when I got a glance of her legs as she picked up the pieces of her project, my mind, which I assumed was fully heterosexual, found it fit to make it the first piece of fantasy material for the memory banks where I hold my forbidden thoughts of Paris. I certainly didn't act on it then, but occasionally my dreams would be 'she's got great legs, doesn't she?'

Damn my dreams, but anyways...

Really, compared to the teasing for being the 'loner girl', the 'nerd', the 'prude' at SHH, my first day at Chilton was pretty much what I expected. But also certainly more anonymous.

So Tristan tried to make his moves. At least he knew the concept of personal space. Unlike much of the teasing I received at the Hollow, I could deal with all of this.

Especially the important thing; Lorelai was off limits. People knew I would throw down at Chilton if they dared made fun of it. But at Stars Hollow High, it was an everyday thing.

Why do I say this?

As one of the most intense school days of my life, I've definitely had things I don't want to face again. All of the emotions I felt today twisted me in so many directions, and I know now I have the iron stomach to deal with it all.

At the same time though, Paris and I have lots of support. More than we could ever know. Sharon Gellar may have ripped the control of our destinies out of our hands and tried to turn this day into a living hell that would have me never leave town ever again and keep Paris in the Manor forever, but we fought back.

I can't call it a victory yet; we'll know that as time goes on. But for now, Paris and I are strong. This day didn't make things worse at all.

In fact, it's more solid than ever.  


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****  
Paris's POV, 6:00 a.m.

I wanted to hope for the best. That I would get to Chilton this morning and nothing would happen and it would be a normal Monday.

Except it wasn't. From the moment I woke up to a foreign alarm clock and realized where I was, it wasn't going to be normal.

Normal was gone. I struggled out of bed in a daze, slipping back into my wrinkled pajama pants as I slid out quietly from Rory's grasp, putting down my uninjured foot first before the other one. On the ground on what remained of the airbed, I found my sweatshirt and put it on, preparing to get ready as I crawled further on the ground towards my luggage to get a fresh uniform, toiletries and underwear.

Just enough light in the room to make out the bag, I slowly unzipped it, knowing Rory was on her own schedule. I cursed how I put together everything in the haste of packing as my blouse was terribly wrinkled, and I could tell my skirt needed a nice dose of Static Guard before I put it on. Gathering everything I slowly got up, grabbing my travel toiletries and meds....

Then I heard a soft yawn. I turned my head to find Rory slowly lifting her head off the pillow, her mouth wide open in a yawn and with the duvet barely covering her modesty...

OK, not really; the top of her breasts were very visible and I whimpered at the sight. Slowly opening her eyes, she smiled.

"Mmm, morning there," she said in a sleepy voice. "What are you doing?"

"Taking a quick shower, bag over the injured foot though." I propped myself on the door jamb before sliding the lock. "Unless--"

"Mmm, don't worry about me. I got in a shower at Sher's yesterday, you need it more than me." My mind ran a mile a minute looking at her and....

I'm going to need to figure out some way to get ready for school that doesn't involve wanting to ravish Rory senseless.

"Stop looking at me like that, Gilmore," I insisted, wanting her to concentrate on the day ahead, but she wasn't having that, sliding up in her bed.

"Like what?" She drew in her eyebrows, her innocence such a façade at this point. "I just said good morning."

"In a way that suggests if you had different equipment, you'd have a certain problem to deal with."

"Are you admitting I'm the man here?" she teased. "Sorry to say, I don't play the gender game." She let off the sexiest little sleepy giggle I think I ever heard. "You're dealing with all woman here."

"Oh, I know." I opened the door. "Man, whatever I did to you...I do like having you flirt with me."

"Me too." I shuddered as I left the bedroom to get into the bathroom for the most awkward shower I would ever have.

I was so not used to having only a curtain rather than a door keeping me in, along with the bag protecting my injury. The curtain kept blowing in and I felt awkward not having my rails to grasp on to as I got through the shower. But it was what had to be done for now and I lived with it, even as the shower curtain took several opportunities to cling to my leg, much to my chagrin. I took my time on shampooing and cleansing under the knowledge I did have a seven minute maximum on my shower time. I had no thoughts except a hope I would be able to get back on both my feet soon, and that I wasn't looking forward to navigating with the one crutch.

Thankfully that was for two hours later. In the meantime I got my grooming and pill-taking routine in as well as I could get it before hurriedly dressing and coming out of the bathroom, where I found Rory preparing her breakfast, and seemingly mine.

OK, not really preparing breakfast, more she put two plain strawberry Toast 'ems in the toaster for me. I was surprised.

"Hey...how did you know I'm more of a Toast 'ems girl?" I asked, feeling a little awed that she knew my type of toaster pastry.

"Madeline told me once you have a hoard in the bedroom in case you get hungry during studying. Something about Pop Tarts coming in too many ridiculous flavors and the frosting being too hard to bite into?" I pecked her cheek and sat at the table. "I bought a box a month ago though you always had Luke's before when you slept over, but we're on a time crunch this morning."

"And an 'I can't be seen in public' thing. We'll let the Chiltonians deal with the weekend before we tell the town." I waited as the pastry heated in the toaster as Lorelai came into the kitchen racing for the coffee pot.

"Morning girls," she greeted as she swiped a throwback Strawberry Shortcake coffee mug from the expandable cup peg. "Sleep well last night?"

Well, this is the perfect way to start the morning. I whimpered. "I did...once I got into Rory's bed." Her eyes popped open as I stated why. "The bed burst." _Damn it, Paris, **that** didn't help at all!_ I thought as I innocently quadrupled an entendre.

A pause and then a groan. "OK, that's way too much information--"

"And she was about to tell you why," Rory broke in softly. "Not...that. Paris had a horrible dream last night and somehow tore the mattress."

"Oh...oh God." Immediately she went from snarky to concerned, as she ran into the room to examine the damage. What had been the airbed lay in a formless heap below blankets and pillows on the floor next to Rory's bed as she tore away the fitted sheet to reveal a five-inch gash on the left side of the mattress. She looked up on bended knee at me. "Was it...Paris, what was it about?"

"Sharon and my accident," I responded shakily as I was jarred by the toaster popping up my pastries. "I...I think there's been regression I held back for so long. A bandage got ripped with everything that happened Saturday and...I...I can't..."

"No, don't. Honey, you tell me you're going into school a sobbing mess." The older Lorelai showed her deep concern for me. "Damn the thick ceilings in this house. I never can hear anything from Rory's bedroom."

"I...I'm shocked too." My mind fell away from the conversation suddenly, jarred by the knowledge of insulated ceilings. "I about rattled Rory half to death with my screams. But she helped me get back to sleep as best she could." I glanced at Rory, who had about the most neutral gaze she could offer before Lorelai offered her own unexpected but welcome interruption.

"Rory's room used to be a sort of makeshift recording studio for the old owner's son," Lorelai said, getting into a small sliver of history of the house. "His father layered the ceiling and walls in there, along with getting triple-pane windows and reinforcing the joists so squeaks couldn't be heard; he played with Babette, Morey and the troubadour from time to time before heading to a music school in SoCal. One of the curses of this house, but a girl like Rory wasn't going to have me pull it all out to disturb her studies, that's for sure."

"Yeah." _Thank you for indulging your son's request_ , I thought to the former owner as I was relieved Lorelai couldn't hear Rory's dirty talk at all. "We talked and got to bed after it, so it worked out."

"That's good." We all looked at each other as she decided it was time to head into the shower. "You left enough water?"

"I did, in and out in seven minutes, so you should be good." A smile from her.

"Great, thanks." She looked towards the bedroom.. "Sorry again about your bad night."

I nodded, and as Lorelai went into the bathroom I drew my attention towards Rory, who was just about scarlet at her impossibly soundproof bedroom. I grabbed my Toast 'Ems from the toaster and placed it on a napkin as she just kept looking at me, wearing that tank top from last night just like she promised. I bit into it as she waited for the shower to turn on so she could go on the defense, but not before I could get my piece in.

"I knew the bedroom door felt heavy for a reason," I observed as I bit into the hot filling.

She responded by collapsing her head onto the table.

"I need my mouth washed out with soap." She looked up with her eyes barely peeking. "I never remembered the amount of insulation in there until just now."

"Well, she didn't hear it, so that's the important thing." I grimaced. "Unlike your grandmother's ceilings made of Contact paper."

She went from having her head on the table to banging it lightly upon it. "Oh God...do not remind me," she groaned out with her voice muffled. "I will never have sex like that again."

I snorted, moving over to her side and setting my hand on her back. "We all do things we're not proud of in hindsight. I should've thanked you for the date with Tristan, not walked out on you like that."

"Well, it turned out to be a bad bet. I should've been a bit more thankful on the night you came over that you bailed me out by confessing your 'feelings' for Jess."

"Why, because it proved that Dean was jealous?"

"Not only that...but that you found it the time in our 'bizarro friendship realm' that you could come to me for help without needing some kind of nefarious excuse to do so. It was the first time you came to me as a friend and we solidified our friendship. You came on your own volition, not because you wanted to undermine me or find something dirty underneath the perfect veneer of this town."

I raised my eyebrow up. "Seems like I found that dirt right in you."

"Oh, God, you're on fire this morning." She groaned, but I still knew the heart in her previous statement as I ate. "I try to compliment you and you're worse than mom when she goes on about Justin Timberlake."

"I guess we need to clean up the post-sex banter a little."

"Hey, I didn't say that. Maybe...sanitization?" Rory brought herself up and smirked. "Using the secret language we came up with when Jamie came around?"

I took in a deep breath. "We have a sex life, don't we? It used to be so simple, but now, we're a couple of crazy girls in love who can't stop thinking of each other. So much for the simple life."

"Simple's overrated." She looked at my face. "Paris, you..." She pointed at the right side of my lip. "A little fruit up there."

"A little fruit?" I wondered what she was playing at. "I'll grab a--"

I stretched over to grab a napkin from a holder she no doubt created (or tried to, judging from the terrible handiwork in clay painted yellow) in her elementary years, but she instead grasped my blouse at the sides and pulled me close for a lingering kiss to rid me of the cursed Toast 'Em crumb. Her breath was deep as she pulled me in and before I knew it we were in a full-bore kiss as I sucked in my breath at the tingle along my face and my chin. I felt lost. Thrown off. She had amazing strength, bringing me right into the moment without a pause. Her tongue edged up along my top teeth as I could sense the strong scent of the coffee she had drank.

I admit I fell into it. Forgot everything. Suddenly, nothing hurt as I allowed her to pull in further against me, and then actually allowed her gingerly onto my lap. I panted as I felt her against me, and then unprompted by any of my known emotions I placed my hands against her breasts.

"Paris..." she moaned breathily against me. I had always imagined them to be firm in my fantasies of her. The reality is much more amazing, and indescribable. Even through the tank and bra layers her nipples were very prominent and I let my fingers linger against each of them as the kiss became hot, torrid.

I felt a hand inch down my skirt on my injured side, feather light to move beneath my blouse. My breath became heavier. I could feel my lips plump from the long and lingering kiss she was giving me. I moaned into her touch, forgetting where we were and what time it was. We looked at each other, breaking apart for a moment as I nearly felt the need to tear down her bra and feel her up beneath the tank top strong with her pheromones and some form of Secret I could barely sense at all.

Her eyes were wide as she took me in, bruised, but strong and my eyelids were lowered as I felt the walls I usually have up, especially in a situation like this barely rising up. I could feel my lips cooling, layered with saliva as we broke apart with that little string of it between our lips. Her bra strap somehow lowered on one side with my ministrations and I felt a bit guilty.

But she wasn't. Instead, she was awed.

"Got it," she whispered, referring to the crumb. "And you." I felt a russet blush upon my cheeks as I turned away.

"A little complicated method to clean my face, Gilmore," I demurred with an innocent grin. "Also it doesn't usually take undoing my precise shirt tuck to do so."

"Oh, I know it doesn't. But my tongue, much better than a napkin. Do you deny that?" She slid off the chair slowly, and it was then I realized the exact position she sat in bunched up her skirt so my bared leg only met the cotton of her underwear, which she then took as an excuse to 'adjust' herself by sliding her skirt up to bare herself to me.

My mind wanted to scream at her _we're in a kitchen! **YOUR** kitchen! With your mom about to finish her shower!_

 __So despite all I wanted to do to continue this further, I did the chivalrous thing and slid her off my lap.

"Down there, lady. We have a whole day to face and I can't do it with my brain clouded with lust," I said as I could see her forming her lips into a needy pout. "Also, I have a half-hour drive ahead of me."

She harrumphed, obviously feeling disappointed rather than the usual surprise she expressed at going too far. "I just wanted to kiss you."

I laughed softly at her discomfort. "And you did. But I don't think Lorelai would appreciate us going at it full-bore when she came out of the shower."

"Yeah...I guess you're right." She straightened out her skirt and sat right back in the chair next to me. "I'm still trying to get used to this. I haven't been this consumed with love before." She whimpered saying the word, and I admit my heart skipped a beat at the implication. "Winter break needs to come already."

"I agree, but we still have to get through the next few days." I could tell she was still kind of thrown off and we found an unsteady bit of conversation before Lorelai darted out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her as she ran through the kitchen to get upstairs.

"Crap, crap, crap!" I could see Ms. Gilmore was a little flustered and...

Shivering.

 _Oh shit_ , I thought to myself as her teeth chattered briskly.

"I...didn't leave enough hot water, did I?"

"Five and a half...minutes then I became an icicle." She wasn't really mad at me, more a bit annoyed. "I thought it was up for twenty minutes but it's been varying between ten and fourteen minutes of hot water lately. I'm gonna have to have Luke look at it; it should recharge a little water between showers." Grumbling, she headed upstairs as Rory cringed at the tiny capacity of the water heater.

"I can usually get mine down in ten minutes but it's been declining lately, especially after we had to get the termite problem fixed and it was exposed to the elements. Just hasn't worked well since then."

"Yeah, that's not good." I shook my head. "Maybe I'll just take my showers before bed for now?"

"Might be for the best, I'm sorry."

"Well I'm just glad to still have a shower at all." Rory nodded and I hoped I didn't hit a sore point with her. "You know--"

"No...no, I do." Rory assured me it wasn't on me to worry. "This isn't going to be like the night of the sleepover, is it?"

"It already isn't." I laughed as I recalled the night. "Lorelai won't let you have Indian food."

"Smartass." Childishly my girl stuck out her tongue and I rolled my eyes, finishing my Toast 'Em as I began to focus towards what was inevitable;

Leaving Stars Hollow. Being out in the world again, with all the questions and concerns to come. Hopefully there won't be much and the both of us can go on with our days scot-free.

Then again, I expected Saturday to be the same. And if I know my mother, something is bound to happen.

Whatever it is, we both have to prepare for it...  


* * *

****  
Rory's POV, 8:15 a.m.

There's one thing I have learned so far today;

My first day at Chilton was actually kind of nice. Sure, Paris was a bit nosy and definitely brusque along with Madeline and Louise, and yes, Tristan may as well have already pictured me in graphic detail as the November 2000 layout in _FHM_ , but I could deal with all that.

Seriously, I could. You look at that on the outside and wonder why I didn't just quit after Paris belittled me when I was late for that test.

I could've quit a few times, ran from Paris and just ended it all. Been content to go on and on in Stars Hollow High with a bright, but unexceptional academic file that would easily get me into UConn, but nowhere near Harvard. Eventually though, I dealt with what Chilton threw at me.

The Puffs? Shrugged that off. My position on _The Franklin_ was rewarded with de facto co-editorship through hard work and long afterschools in the newsroom. And you know how I've dealt with Francie...

Well, so far it's been easy. Just a shrill girl who I just have to out-fox, out-plan and out-pro-con.

Going into the dining hall this afternoon however, I am so tempted to not be so nice. I can feel everything on my shoulders right now, l the entire student body with their eyes on us. Confused about what's going on, wondering why this is a big deal. Or on the other side, feeling like they were deluded into a vision they were blind to for so long.

I don't know how Paris truly feels. She's been so quiet, at the point of feeling guilt, welling up and being talked down to for how she is now. She's wounded, broken and I don't know why, but I expect her to just give up and say 'I don't want to do this any more'.

The sad thing is, I would let her. Despite how much love and affection I feel for her, this has been even worse than Saturday could ever be to her. With her mother Paris can easily face her down and not feel affected unless terrible things are said to her. It took her memories to bring her to anguish last night as she lived out the real nightmares held back by her brain for so long.

But now all I see is hurt. Shame. A loss of pride in herself, a need to rebuild her walls. She didn't ask for this, I didn't ask for this, but it's easier for me to deal with. I have the outside life, the love of a town, an open mother with an open heart, ready to take on all comers.

Paris Gellar has few allies outside of Miss Patty, Brad and Madeline, along with her nanny and therapist, and we don't know about Louise yet. They can only offer limited protection. I can only do so much.

But the fear I felt when she was reliving her mother threatening to kill her last night, her own personal Freddy Kruger, is just overwhelming.

As Paris pulled into the Chilton lot after a drive from the Hollow that she felt tenuous about because of her injured foot, she headed towards her usual parking space in the lot, not right next to the building, but a few rows down. She doesn't have a reserved space like you'd think; all student body presidents are offered a first-row spot with their position, but Paris chose to auction hers off to benefit charity to the regular student body, getting $2,000 worthy dollars for her various causes.

But everyone does know the space Paris chose, it's hers and not to be trifled with.

Not this morning though. Just as she made the turn to do her effortless zig from the parking path into the space, I noticed something off right away.

"Crap, Paris, stop." She applied her brakes with a squeak as she saw what I did.

"WHAT?!" she shouted, looking at the car in her space, then pounding the bottom of the steering wheel. "Come on!"

A large and obnoxious SUV was parked within half the space, taking up more space than needed. We didn't know who it belonged to, but whoever owned the SUV was trying to make some kind of point. Paris took a couple breaths for a moment before proceeding towards the back rows of the lot to calm herself.

"It's not worth it," I told her, and she agreed, grumbling that at least she would get a bit of exercise as we ended up near the tennis courts instead for the day. I helped her out of the car and brought the crutches out of the trunk, hoping that this day didn't, pardon the pun, get off on the wrong foot.

"Everyone knows I park there," she said as she struggled on the crutches, trying to remain calm. "I've parked here since I got my license."

"I know." I set my hand on her shoulder, looking around the lot and seeing instead of the usual 100 feet to the door into the Ambrose building, we had 300 feet.

It was going to be a long day as Par struggled with the crutches, hating how she had to walk. Hopping on one foot, pushing the crutch further, repeat on and on. I wanted to help her but I knew she'd be stubborn about it, so she grimaced her way to the door as I carried her messenger bag along with my backpack, making me feel like a teenage Weeble Wobble with a terrible counterbalance.

Thankfully we hadn't found any problems in the lot as I opened the door for her. But as we walked into the front foyer, we were both surprised to see Madeline in front of us, sitting on the bench, waiting.

I expected a cheerful greeting, a smile or a hug.

Instead, she came towards the both of us shaking her head, looking down at her hands and having a facial feature I never expected Madeline Lynn to share.

Concern. And a frown.

"Mads, what are you doing--" Paris tried to speak but she quickly guided us towards a different direction.

"I need the _Franklin_ office," she said, softly, looking around. "Come on."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Can't talk about it out here, let's go before someone sees us." She grabbed my arm and without losing a beat we headed to the paper office close by, Paris fumbling for her keys to open the door as I grabbed them, opened the door for her and Madeline and went in.

"Get in...get in!" Madeline was panicked, looking outside the window one more time before closing the door and pulling over the shades and blinds as we wondered why she'd need us in the _Franklin_ office.

"What's going on, Mads?" Paris asked again. "You meet us at the door and--"

"This...this is what's going on." She reached into her blouse pocked behind her sweater and pulled out her cell phone, handing it over to me. "I swear to God, on my mother's grave I said not one word. My stepmother did not. Brad...he didn't either. But this morning I woke up to this."

I took the clamshell Nokia from Madeline and opened it up, worrying about what she was holding from us. I glanced at the letters on screen, then read the words of the text message upon it out loud.

_Jezebel,  
We know about your friends. Prepare them for hell. Paris is gonna wish she was in Maine when this day's over, and Gilmore's a naïve cunt._

__I let out the last word with a shocked bite.

"There's another one. Scroll to the next message." I made my way to the other...

_Also you and the animal mounter nerd. Say bye to your social standing._

__I reeled back reading the last message. Both were unsigned. I glanced at Paris, who was clearly winded as I closed the phone and handed it back.

"She did it," I groaned out. "Madeline, this isn't a shock, we knew Sharon was going to play hardball."

"But I didn't expect it so fast at all. The last time this happened a few years back with another kid it took a few weeks to leak out. Mrs. G didn't even leave the jail grounds before she sent this to someone. I don't know who; their number isn't in the directory. But it's official; we're all on defense now."

"How did they find out about Brad?" Paris asked. "I never divulged a thing."

Madeline shrugged. "I expected it. There's a girl at your temple Brad turned down for a date and it just became convenient to load the cannon charge with that too."

She gave us a concerned glance. "It's already happening, the ugly things. I know some have probably slipped barbs into your lockers. Whatever strategy Sharon had with her lawyer during the divorce? Forget it, she's on her own, unhinged and she's on a full-court to make sure you flunk or flee Chilton, either of you. RTS knows and I talked to Nora before I did you; they can offer protection but there's only so much they can do."

Paris rested her left hand on a table, trying to hold off what I'm sure would be an ugly panic attack. "I...I don't know what to do."

"Be iron. Just try to ignore all of this, but I know it's going to be hard. I know I'm screwed when it comes to explaining Brad, but I have to do it. You two can either deny or just go on with life as-is. I suggest the latter to try to throw them off."

"I don't think it's going to work," I said.

"We have to try anything, Gilmore." She nodded and even though I felt strong on the outside and ready for all comers, the Rory of day one at Chilton was still there, knowing a massive reset button on my personality had just been reset.

"I guess I'm no longer 'Mary'," I stated grimly. "Ready to hear me called 'small town dyke' about 78 times this week, Par?"

I clutched her hand, knowing this was going to be the toughest eight hours of our high school careers. She looked down and I could feel her love course through me despite the struggle she felt in her soul, knowing her own mother was trying to make her capitulate to her demand to isolate herself in Maine.

"Only five days," she gasped out, unsure. "By then Duncan or Bowman probably will do a stupid pre-Christmas prank, right?"

"We can hope." Both of us looked towards the door, knowing by the end of the day how much we could endure. Madeline slipped in between us, offering us both small pep talks and hugs. She whispered into Paris's ear things I don't know about their friendship, then turned to me with an encouraging grimace.

"Remember how you were at the Formal?" she said.

"When I was a bitch?"

She nodded, patting my back. "Be that, but kill them with kindness. Paris is yours and she's depending on you to keep her safe; do it."

"What about you and Brad? And Louise?"

"It's handled," she said, releasing me, and that was it. A minute later we were outside the office, Madeline in front of us as we made our way to our lockers. If only for the use of the elevator Paris had this morning, I was glad to not have a stairway confrontation of any kind. The halls were crowded, more than usual as the jocks cranked down to wring out a passing grade in their classes before the critical mid-point of winter sports season where eligibility would be checked. I held my head down as Paris and I made our way to our lockers, nervous about what we would find in them. Madeline kept glancing at us, making sure nobody was about to confront us.

Finally ten minutes after parking, we were at our lockers. We sidled in, not finding anything written on them, and opened our locks up, winding the combinations hurriedly to unload our books. Things were somewhat normal as we opened up each of our lockers...

And as predicted, there were two or three notes on white notebook paper folded in fluttering out the door. I ignored them and let them settle at my feet, putting in my books and preparing my supplies not paying attention to Paris until...

SLAM!!

I was startled back as I heard her yelling out.

"Really? Are you fucking serious?!" She collapsed right down to the ground in frustration, pounding the locker door again as she slid her back against it and slumped, red in the face.

"Paris--"

"I fucking hate people. I fucking hate my mom." She held a hand to her face, grimacing as she remembered her mother's injuries. "I live my life. I do good. I don't do drugs or hang out with the wrong crowd." She handed over a wrinkled piece of paper. "This is what I am now. My life...is now an offensive playground taunt."

I took it, opening it up. In beautiful writing with an ugly message, was a threat intended to hit my girlfriend right in the gut.

I couldn't even read this one out loud. If I did, her ancestors would scream from the grave.

_DYKE KIKE...YOU AND HAYSEED WHORE ARE DONE!! WE'RE ENDING YOU TODAY; TIME FOR YOUR HOLOCAUST._

__The words were so fucking offensive in that form, I couldn't even muster a response besides anger. I took one of my 'notes' and opened it up, expecting hate.

I wasn't disappointed in what those chickenshit letter writers tried to throw at me.

_You're a useless twat and terrible reporter. Nobody's gonna take you becuz you eat Gellar out._

__Another one was just as ugly.

_Born from a whore...like mother, like daughter._

__I didn't even want to read the last one, but I knew I had to. As I held Paris hyperventilating in my arms I took her other note, both of us in full-scale realization that we weren't going to be the quiet coasters we had been for years any longer.

An ugly masculine script appeared in Paris's last note.

_I wish your mother would've killed you. Useless bitch._

__And then my final one. A lovely little missive.

_You won't get to February, Gilmore. Better watch out, better not cry..._

_RAPE._

__"Fuck you," I gritted out, shoving the notes into a pocket of my backpack. Paris was still, white as a sheet. Rape threats were **not** going to get me.

Especially because my mom had to deal with them when her pregnancy was revealed, or they were a regular part of SHH life. I turned to her, helped her up and clutched her hand.

"Paris, we're going to get through this," I promised. "These...we tape up our vents."

"Rory...face it. We...we're moving targets. All we do is...this, and it's enough. Enough to bring this out."

"I know....I know." I wished I could kiss her, or hug her deeply, but this had to be enough. "Let's get to class." We both got up, just as one of our mortal enemies made an appearance.

Why did the gods curse us to still share a locker bank with Summer Sheffield? Tristan's ex was still strong, still loving every guy possible in school and making her academics low in priority. She glanced at us after turning her dial and opening her locker to throw her bag in, and gave us a side-eye.

"The hell are you looking at, Small Town?" I expected a slur next and squared myself up in preparation for one.

Instead she smiled at the both of us. "What? You two hooked up. Not a shock to me. Live your life, bygones, all that crap. Doesn't bother me." She closed her locker with a side shrug. "Just don't make out in front of my locker and we'll be good." She turned to walk away and I let out a bit of relief.

"At least we don't have to worry about her," I said, but Paris was still unmoving. "Hey..."

"I can handle the gay slur against me. Par for the course but..." She shook in my presence. "The 'K' word? A Holocaust taunt? How dare they. How...how do they even write that out and find it acceptable? A couple of my overseas relatives died in it!"

"I don't know. I wish I did." For being in this kind of situation, I was calm, unlike Paris. It was the exact reverse of our first day ever knowing each other. I helped her recover, locking the doors and knowing we'd need duct tape tomorrow to seal off the vents so we wouldn't get any more 'good morning notes' like this.

Our first class seemed like a mile away and we could feel everyone's eyes upon as we headed towards Econ. I hoped that it would go quietly but as we got to about four doors down from the class...

I firmed up. The sight of wild red locks trained in my eyes. Narrowed green eyes stared the two of us down, a couple of lackeys next to her. She was staring right at us, ready to charge as if I was wearing that certain irking color in front of her. We tried to evade, moving over the furthest left we could go.

"Block," I saw her mouth to the girls, one blonde, the other with black hair and having a large build. I knew it wasn't going to end with us passing silently. Paris seemed to shirk back behind me. I was honestly scared of her collapsing façade, scared, limping behind me on her crutches.

God, how I just wanted to shoulder-block this bitch. Shove her down. But I was going to be the good little girl. The Mary. The one who told my future girlfriend that money makes people shallow and walked the hell off without a glance back, giving her shade.

I found the muscle girl in front of me, ready to bump into. To ire.

I wasn't having that.

Instead, I halted, knowing Paris would give me grief later, but I had to do this. Prove I was level with her. That we were equals. I widened my eyes, brought on a full force smile, and turned on the small-town charm full blast.

"Good morning, Francie." Her move was next, and I had her flustered. She squared her jaw, looked me over. I didn't look back at Paris. "Last week of school before winter break, hopefully it's good for all of us."

She nodded. "Good for me, you mean," she said, the haughtiness heavy in her voice. "Guess what, Gilmore? I have all the ammunition I need to take over now."

"Ammunition?" I giggled. "Why Francie, you cannot bring weapons into Chilton, what would the Headmaster say?"

"Oh, can the act, Farm Girl!" Not a flinch. "You and Paris. I know."

"I know you do; the friendly correspondence in our lockers told me you did." I dared her with a suggestion. "Did Sharon call you on the Bat-Line last night and offer you the inside scoop?" I didn't know what Paris was feeling as far as her reaction, but I sensed it was between an 'Atta girl' and 'I'm kicking your ass to Uncasville'.

Francie gritted her teeth, standing straight. "Whatever. Both of you better be prepared to give your goodbye speeches soon. Parting usually is such sweet sorrow, but in this case..." she moved close to my face. "It shall just be fucking sweet."

I shook my head. "My, oh, my, Miss Jarvis. Profanity in the Chilton halls? What would the Headmaster say?"

"Watch your back, girls. This is gonna be fun. Ladies, we're done for now." She snapped her fingers as if her girls were the Jets or something ridiculous. "And don't you dare look at my ass when I leave."

 _Like I would, you bony bitch_ , I thought to myself as they left us aside.

Soon, we had to break apart, me for Advanced Econ, her for Psychology.

"Paris, are you going to be okay?" I was concerned for her as I knew she'd be at the mercy of everyone, but I knew that her defensive side would also be out soon enough. She nodded, grimly taking in the situation.

"I have to be," she said softly. "I...I guess I'll see you in fourth and hope for the best?"

"If you need anything though, let me know." I broke apart from her, uneasy and knowing this was one time that I would be worried deeply the next few hours until we saw each other again. Hopefully the three periods we had apart wouldn't be too bad.  


* * *

****  
Paris's POV, 11:15 a.m.

Out of sight of a Gilmore for the first time in a day and a half, I hate to express this opinion. To know it's true. I should be completely above this, able to shrug it off.

But I'm not. For the first time since eighth grade when I had to prove I hadn't been cheating off a neighbor's paper, I was thrown off, unsure of how I could get through the day, much less all the threats being thrown at me.

I have no idea how to be myself any longer. I feel lost in the shuffle, my classes seeming to become a blur.

Thank God they were, at least the first three classes. Besides navigating the desk rows in crutches there wasn't much to navigate, as those teachers usually want us to sit up, pay attention and shut up. It was a perfect safety blanket to keep me away from the expected reactions. Nobody cared and the relief of monitored book work meant everyone was focused on their own grades rather than petty gossip.

What stuck to me though is that while Rory pretty much wants to face Francie in combat, I just want her to go away. I don't want to confront her, acknowledge her, even think that she exists. But Rory took her bait and I hate to say it, but I don't want her to.

I don't need her to protect me. I want to just go to class, be graded on my own merits and move on with my life.

That was before fourth period, however.

Fourth period, Russian Novels. Usually the dullest class of the day and where Rory's touches kept me sane through the entire endeavor.

However when Rory and I got to the classroom, there was an obvious change in the class, one that definitely noticed, especially in a class where the only challenge was trying not to fall asleep while you read or took pop quizzes apparent from a mile away.

That wasn't what got my antennae up though. I narrowed my eyes looking at what exactly had changed in the room.

For years upon stubborn years, Mr. Mercurio had the same layout to his room. A 6x5 desk setup, all the way to the back of his class, assigned by alphabetical order. It's how Rory ended up behind me. It was so telegraphed that Mercurio's syllabus, copied to a poor extent about seventeen times and **typed** out on a typewriter with copier spackle all over the place, told you what you needed to know.

Tara Garvey, who sat in front of me came in and also was thrown off. "No...this isn't right. This isn't that kinda class."

"You find it wrong too?"

"Yeah, my sister was in this class and...no, this is odd."

"What's odd?" Rory wondered.

"The classroom layout."

"It's not unusual--"

"Gilmore, this doesn't make sense. He's been 6x5 or 5x5 for years. Never in the round; the room doesn't work."

"Maybe he wanted to throw us off before the end of the year?"

"Not sure." We looked around the room, wondering what was going on, all of us students running around the class trying to figure out where the hell to sit. All of us grouped off according to Mercurio's seating chart, and now we didn't know what to do.

"I...I guess we sit next to each other?" The desks weren't designed for in the round at all, forcing us to wedge in.

Unless it was in a classroom designed for it, Chilton teachers never do in the round. Studies the Headmaster has promoted have discouraged it as promoting cheating and bringing students off-focus because they're looking at the front boards on an angle rather than straight on. Tara sat next to me to my right, Rory to my left, and everyone else came in and just took whatever seat they could find. Surely it wasn't a problem as the bell rang and Mr. Mercurio came right in the classroom, as usual more concerned for himself rather than his classes as I sensed the cigarette smoke wafting off from his suit.

Immediately he looked at us and squared his jaw, looking at us with unexpected anger.

"Mr. Moriarity, I told you to give out the seating chart!" he bellowed out. "I trusted you with one task and you could not handle it?"

Derek Moriarity stood up in the back of the classroom. "I'm sorry, I--"

"I really don't want to hear your excuses!" He headed to the room and grabbed a heap of sheets with a seating chart that seemed to have been done by a convenience store clerk guiding somebody to Foxwoods. "I asked you to provide this seating chart." He split the pack and handed them to the right-most people in each row. "Class, for the last few weeks, we will be trying something new. I have heard some rumblings that this class is 'boring', 'uninspiring' and 'insipid'."

 _And that's just from the teacher's lounge_ , I snarked internally. _You should hear the actual students talk about this class_.

"Well, that changes now. I have separated the troublemakers and the socializers in this new seating chart that will go forward to finals."

Suddenly, and without warning, he looked towards me.

And Rory. His eyes trained on us, together.

"For instance, the purpose of this class is to read and discuss the finest authors in Russian history, and the folklore behind it." I trembled as his tobacco-stenched form moved towards me.

I had never expected this to happen. Not from a student, much less a member of the faculty.

"Please proceed to your assigned seats." He pulled away, just in time for us to take our assigned seat papers.

I didn't even need to look at the chart much further to see what the problem was.

Every single teacher in every single class I've had since second grade has known if I don't have assigned seating, I prefer the second row, more to the left because of my writing hand. That doesn't ever waver. All the other kids know that too; they have never denied that seat to me, ever, because they know I will give them hell for it.

This seating chart?

Extreme right in the back row.

No big deal, right? Maybe just a throw off.

Except something clear stood out on that chart.

 _Lori. Gilmore_. First row, extreme left.

His favorite student, the one who pretty much did anything for him? Middle seat, first row.

I prepared to move. To take my humiliation and remain silent, just letting the next four weeks of hell go by because I knew that he knew, the son of a bitch. Mr. M lived on humiliating us through gossip, and I'm pretty sure his pathetic bat of a wife told him once it hit the grapevine.

I got up...

"I'm not moving."

I heard a strong and pitched voice to my right. I darted my head. Surely I was just hearing things...

"Excuse me?" Rory crossed her arms over her chest as Mr. Mercurio heard her. "Miss Gilmore, I made this seating chart--"

"Most seating charts are made on the computer or using a page in your teacher's attendance planner. Not on a piece of notebook paper that looks like it was done in one period of passing time. They're usually well-planned and in theory, should stop troublemakers, but in this case, you have David Childs and Mark Wilke next to each other. They have 24 in-school suspensions between them in their Chilton careers, many of them together!"

She got up and pointed at the chart. "I'm sorry, Mr. Mercurio. I cannot see the board from your assigned seat. I'm asking for a new assignment closer to the front."

"You're not getting it, Miss Gilmore. This chart is final." He growled, almost snarling at her. "I don't care about what your eyesight is, as long as it can read a book. Now sit down, we have a lot of work to do."

She sat right back down in her unassigned seat. "I meant in your **assigned** chair."

Nobody had moved yet from their chosen seats, even David and Mark, who knew better than to take their desks together. Rory glared at him.

"Oh, so I'm a troublemaker, Mr. Mercurio? Is that why you're sticking me in the corner of the classroom?"

He shook his head. "It was the only seat I could assign which made sense as to how I wanted the order to go."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's it. Not a certain revelation I had this morning come out, didn't play into anything." She began to open her book and I could feel the tension building in the classroom as the small man glared at Rory. "Now we were on page 784, right?"

"Class, I have told you to move into your assigned seating. Please do it, now." He then did something that no teacher should ever do....

He closed Rory's book and took it from her, slamming the volume shut. "As for you, Miss Gilmore, if you're suggesting I have moved around the seating because of some whim, I have not."

Someone in the back raised her hand. "Lupe?"

"Then why were the desks still in a grid when I passed the room second hour?" The Latina questioned the chart herself. "I'm also in a position where I can't see the board; I could in my original assignment." She looked at both of us, then back to Mr. Mercurio. "Excuse me if I am wrong, but I find this chart reactionary and prejudicial."

"That's your opinion." He began to sweat. "I am going to ask you one more time; move to your newly assigned seats."

A few began to get up, afraid to move their assignments, but then from the right side, Lemon, who had just revealed her sexuality only last week, called for the teacher's attention.

"This is interesting; I'm behind Derek, who is a seven foot forward for the basketball team." Her small voice rang through the room. "Mr. Mercurio, I also disagree with my seating."

"If nobody moves, everyone will receive a zero for today's class!" he bellowed raising Rory's book up in his hand. "Now move!" He directed a look at Rory. "Young lady, I am not prejudicial!"

"I did not say that," she said sweetly. "I just want a different seating assignment."

"No..." he got up close. "You want to spend this class cuddling with your girlfriend! You do that off campus, but not here!" A group of gasps went up in the room. I stayed silent, wondering how Rory would handle this while feeling a sinking in my stomach. "Now move--"

"You're wasting class time, Mr. Mercurio," she responded with her trademark sugar and sass. "Maybe take in everyone's concerns about their seating and try again tomorrow. Now, we have a book to finish." She reached out her hand.

He didn't hand it back, his brows furrowed, everyone in class shocked that after an eon of having to suffer with this idiot, it was Rory Gilmore who was facing him down. "Mr. M, the book, please?"

Instead he turned around and rushed to the desk. I knew what he was pulling out.

"For God's sake, just start the lesson," Tara cried out. "None of us in this room care at all."

She was right. I'm sure at lunch we'd finally get the torrent of hate, but for now nobody was objecting to us sitting together.

"Miss Gilmore, for defying my authority you are being sent to the headmaster's office." I would have thought that would chill Rory and lead to a bunch of 'I'm sorry's and 'I apologize, sir'.

It wasn't happening.

"Nice, Mr. M. You're going to make Paris, who is injured and has to stay off her feet, move her seat again?" He wrote more on the sheet of paper describing Rory's behavior. "We're all comfortable here, why should we move based on a seating chart you created out of thin air?"

"Because I'm your teacher, young lady!"

"Really? A teacher? Who doesn't mind discriminating and giving into the gossip cycle?"

"Lorelai Gilmore--"

She got up, to my shock. "Whatever. I'm not expecting this from Ms. Caldecott, Ms. Peters or Dr. Eure. That you'd actually do this though? It's kind of low. We behave in your class. We contribute. This entire class has endured a semester with you and a syllabus that hasn't been updated since Ella Grasso was in the governor's mansion, and you're as stubborn as a mule."

"Ignore her, everyone. Move to your seats, **now**!"

Nobody moved, finding the whole move pointless. This was a desperate man being undone by an act of civil disobedience that I was sure would lead to Rory's expulsion in the next hour.

One side of me felt proud of her, while the other wondered if she would get into freakin' UConn at this point.

"Move. To. Your. Seats."

Tara narrowed her eyes at him. "They just got pushed out the closet by Paris's bitch of a mom and you want to make it worse?"

"And you just joined Rory in the office." He ripped out another sheet as Lupe got in.

"Just put the desks back like they're supposed to, this feels vindictive."

We were now watching a man break down. "You know what's vindictive? An F. Welcome to the Headmaster's office, Miss Mendez."

Rory smiled as she saw the domino effect happen. Tara and Lupe got up ready to follow Rory.

I decided to raise my hand.

"Are we actually going to learn something today?" I said in my irritated tone. "This nonsense about seating charts is ridiculous and frankly, I'm not moving because my foot aches and my next painkiller dose isn't for an hour."

"Ahh, wonderful, Miss Gellar. You can join the other girls now." My eyes opened up wide.

"I didn't say anything!" I barked out. "I'm just not moving!"

"Well you should've thought of that before you talked out of turn." Well, I couldn't really defend his side any longer if he was forcing an injured woman to move.

"My foot is immobilized!"

"So?" He went on writing up the slips to send us to the office. Still, nobody was moving. We also still had our seating charts and a united front of four girls...

Make that five girls. "You're an idiot," Lemon said from her seat.

"Miss Monroe!" She got up and laughed.

"What? You're being ridiculous, Mr. Mercurio."

"The only ridiculous people in this room are you five...why is nobody moving?"

"And that's officially five minutes of class time lost," Rory said. "Tomorrow we're all going to have to speed-read. Great. Really know how to do the time-management well."

"Miss Gilmore." He was seething, turning red.

"You're creating a seating chart with four weeks to go in a class where 1/30 of the students are actually enthusiastic about the material."

"Hey!" The student cried out, offended as Mr. Mercurio continued to make out the trouble slips.

"Nobody cares. This is a class we need to finish out our reading requirements, and you're offended because..." A dramatic pause. "...of a private matter. Ridiculous. And again, making a hurt girl like Paris get up? I don't think Dr. Merton would be receptive to this."

"Young lady..." Rory shook her head, grabbing her materials.

"I'm going, sir. I don't understand why, but your class, your rules." I began to slowly rise up too, feeling a little emboldened, though there was that part of me who hoped I still had a class to go to this afternoon. Her eyes drew towards the other 'punished' girls. "Come on, let's get this over with." They began to follow her as Lemon helped prop me up with anguish. I gave Mr. Mercurio a glare for this behavior, while at the same time scared for my grade because of this odd act of civil disobedience.

"Come on, Paris." Lupe took my other side. "We'll work this out." Rory came towards me and I felt a lump build in my throat as he shoved the slips into Tara's hand.

"Unbelievable," I whispered, scared of the trouble I was about to be in. Five of us, defying a seating chart.

Again, I repeat; a seating chart.

That'll look odd on the transcript...  


* * *

****  
Rory's POV, 11:45 a.m.

This had to be it. My third strike. After the deer incident and the Puffs initiation, this had to be the point Charleston cracked and just went off on me.

I was running on adrenaline the entire time I was taking down Mr. M for his seating chart. Definitely not logic.

I know that now as Paris is keeping a bit of distance from me. I could've let it go, but nooo, I had to play the hero, the Patrick Henry of seating charts. _Give me my old seating chart position, or give me death._

 __Death seemed to be a viable option. Making an issue out of this was a bad idea. Us girls sitting there, looking at Ms. James as if she was the gatekeeper to Hell.

Yup, I screwed up things, big time. Just should've kept my big mouth shut.

Five minutes passed before Ms. James comes back out of the Headmaster's office after talking with Lupe, Lemon and Tara and getting their sides of the story. They all looked at us with a neutral gaze as Ms. James approaches us.

"Miss Gellar and Miss Gilmore, please go in," she intoned. "The Headmaster shall see you."

I heard Paris talking to Lemon for a moment, probably probing what's going on. She had no new clarity and limped to my side as we make the walk down the short hall to the office.

"Paris, I--"

She quieted me quickly. "Let's not right now." Her voice was stern as Ms. James opened the door for us, and we gazed in to see the Headmaster at his desk, the fire in the fireplace on a low setting as we walk in.

"Good day, ladies," he greeted us. I couldn't tell if he was angered at us or not based on his introduction. "Please, take a seat, the both of you." We did so, the both of us girded for some kind of suspension.

Well, Paris might have been a little different; she was probably making plans to go Amish. I wanted to be brave in that classroom, but at that moment I just felt like I should've probably clammed up.

The headmaster slid his chair forward and began to speak.

"So, I hear there was an incident this morning with you and Mr. Mercurio, Miss Gilmore."

I nodded softly. "There was, yes." Best not start a rant like I did the first time.

"I understand from the other girls that there was an issue involving a change in the seating chart given to your class and that you refused to comply with it."

"There was."

"And you chose instead of obeying this impromptu chart, to contest it on the grounds that it was ill thought out and retaliatory."

"You could say that, yes."

"And what would you have to say about it, Miss Gellar?" He looked in her direction. She was thrown off by the sudden direction of questioning towards her, but within a few moments she had been ready to answer.

"In what way? Personally, or guided by the emotion of the moment."

"Your own personal opinion."

She nodded, looking towards me. "Although I disagree with how my friend went about contesting the change in seating chart, I would have to say that I also did not agree with it, especially as I'm at an obvious disadvantage right now with this injury I have."

He crossed his arms and took a look at the both of us. "From my understanding of what is out there from my wife, there was an incident with your mother this weekend?"

"There was, yes." Her voice quivered slightly. "I'm not at liberty to discuss the details--"

"I actually do want to discuss that with you, as I received a withdrawal form from your mother that denotes that you will leave Chilton after the holidays and finish your senior year in a boarding school in Maine. However from a call your father made the moment I came in this morning, you do not have any actual intentions to withdraw from Chilton and I am to disregard the withdrawal form per the agreement made by your parents in the divorce. Is that my understanding?"

"That is, yes. I have no intentions of withdrawal from Chilton." Her voice found courage. "Now, or ever.  In fact, I intend to submit an emancipation form next week since I will be eighteen and able to nullify her intentions without any intervention."

"Excellent. Now that I have that issue cleared up, and I do apologize for wanting to bring it up now, Miss Gilmore, in that same call I received another request from Howard that we should be protecting you and Miss Gilmore due to those issues with your mother. While I'm not usually apt to deal with requests like this, your friend Miss Lynn also brought up the same concerns after seeing you both this morning, mentioning that your mother revealed that you and Miss Gilmore are in a relationship with each other."

"Oh God--" I gasped.

"Miss Gilmore, I assure you it was not to perpetuate gossip, but due to threats she had found out after this revelation, which resulted in Mrs. Gellar's arrest for assault upon her daughter. Frankly, I am particularly troubled."

He sat back, and I wondered if he was troubled by our sexuality. Paris seemed like she was going to faint right then and there.

"What troubles me is that your mother would intend to withdraw you from school, two days after harming you in a manner that frankly, sickens me. And now, it seems suddenly after I had passed Mr. Mercurio's classroom in second hour with his seating layout as it's traditionally been, he has suddenly seen fit to change his seating chart in the matter of two periods for what on the surface seems to be unexplained reasons."

This was it; we were either going to be suspended, or worse. He raised his eyebrow and gave us both a glance.

"After talking to the three other girls involved, and surmising from Mr. Mercurio's past behavior, I can only come to one conclusion."

 _You won't be going to Harvard_ , I thought, thinking we were both doomed.

"Your disobedience, in this case, was justified."

I nodded involuntarily, expecting to ask him for clemency.

Instead...

"Mr. Mercurio has had a long history of discriminatory behavior against students who do not meet his political or social views. I cannot go into much detail about what he has done in the past due to privacy issues, but he has been on a probationary period the last five years for an incident that involved a Ukranian-American student and him throwing them out of his class violently after what I lightly term a tantrum for respectfully disagreeing with his views regarding the Tsarist and Soviet eras, and another incident where a slur was used in reference to a gay student. I also expected him to update his syllabus to contemporary standards after a meeting this summer, but judging from the comments of the girls, he continues to use the same antiquated lesson plan the Regents and I told him to end use of."

"But...we're still in trouble, right?" Paris asked. "We refused to take the chart. I know we're in the wrong."

"On the surface, you certainly are. And I still must assess some kind of penalty from that, which will be the failure of one pop quiz." Paris frowned, her mind in a panic about an A-. "However, since the action seems to have clearly been caused by this reaction to petty gossip, an inappropriate and frankly appalling seating chart where the instructor was just asking for a reenactment of an early violent classroom scene in _Stand & Deliver_, and his uncalled-for reaction against your objections, I will ask you both merely to write an independent essay about how civil disobedience is a concept that must be used in selective circumstances, and why it might not be appropriate in others. Four pages, double-spaced, by Thursday afternoon in my mailbox; an acceptable essay will make up the points lost in the failed pop quiz."

I nodded. "And a suspension, right?"

"What?" The headmaster shook his head vehemently. "There will be no kind of suspension or detention, Miss Gilmore, for either you, Miss Gellar, Miss Monroe, Miss Garvey, nor Miss Mendez. No marks will be rendered. You were given an appalling seating chart and rightfully fought it. And if God forbid, Miss Gellar was further injured for having to move, the school's damages for her injuries would have been for a preventable accident. We would have been 100% in the wrong and paid out any claim she might make. Clearly, Mr. Mercurio was being vindictive against the two of you and took it out on the entire class, and I cannot accept that as proper behavior from an instructor in this school."

He continued on. "I have already offered the other three girls this opportunity. You may withdraw from the class and use the period time for independent study for the rest of the semester. You will still receive the final exam as scheduled, but it will be rendered by an independent proctor rather than Mr. Mercurio. I will be letting him know he will not have further classes for an indefinite period due to this new incident, and that based on his past behavior and inactions, I will use my powers as the Headmaster to terminate his employment with Chilton Academy as soon as the union channels nullify his appeal; thank God we don't have a layered union that would drag this on for eternity."

"Sir, you really don't have to do that!" I said, surprised by how firm he was about this. "I don't want to have him fired."

"Miss Gilmore, one of the tenets a Chilton instructor must meet is respecting their students, especially their lives outside of the school. He has not done that several times in his career. I cannot accept having an employee do that, especially to the brightest students in the next graduating class. What goes on in the privacy of your homes is not any of our business, and as long as you are not being hoodlums or acting like total fools, I cannot judge you for your relationship with each other."

"OK." I could only take in what he said and try to understand it. "But you said Madeline was warned and--"

"And regarding that, I have been in contact with Ms. Peters, who you and Paris did divulge the information to before this...I don't know what to call it, except an inexcusable action by your mother upon her departure from the Department of Corrections last evening. She is aware of this, and you can be assured that any further malfeasance by students involving those puerile messages in your locker, such as what occurred this morning, it will not happen again. As for your parking arrangements, Miss Gellar, I have already ordered security to ticket and tow the vehicle that obstructed your space this morning. You may move your car back during lunch."

"That's all well and good...but...but..." she whimpered. "What about Francine Jarvis?"

"Again, appraised by Ms. Peters, Miss Gellar. You have my word that she will not be out of line. However, Miss Gilmore, I will warn you not to seek any kind of reprisal against her outside of parliamentary means within student government. Considering your verbal fireworks with her at the last meeting, consider this your 'bench warning'." I felt the serious tone burn through me. "Do not seek retaliation."

"No sir, I will not."

"Great." He looked at the two of us. "Really, this is what I've been looking forward to since the Regents dumped Cameron and brought me in. A real capital opportunity to show hate is not a part of Chilton. But enough about that; you are all in the clear, and hopefully this will be a non-issue in the future."

"And if it is?" Paris wasn't so sure.

"Paris...I am going to say this once, and only once to you. As editor-in-chief of the _Franklin_ and the leader of student government, you have my backing. No matter who you love, I don't care, as long as you're level-headed, and in control. I'm not using my authority to force you out anytime soon."

With that, Paris relaxed a bit. "Thank you sir."

"Although, I will note one thing before you both depart." He shook his head. "Please, for the love of God, don't be like Mr. DuGrey and Miss Sheffield a couple years back. I don't care what sex you are, but keep your displays of affection private. I still haven't recovered from that knucklehead trying to defend sucking face in front of the entire student body."

"Trust me, you have nothing to worry about, sir. No PDA's from either of us." I blushed, knowing there was no way Paris would want a locker PDA on that level. We both got up. "Again, I do offer my apologies for what I did, sir. I assure you it will not happen again."

"Please hold yourselves to that promise then, ladies. Now, if there's nothing else here to be done..." Feeling the meeting was complete he began to usher us out of the room. Paris began to find her stride with her crutches and exited quickly with the weight on her shoulders, but not before the headmaster grasped my shoulder.

"One more thing, Miss Gilmore." I turned to him, wondering how he'd complete this lack of punishment.

"Yeah?"

"I did hear from your mother too, earlier this morning after a call to her workplace from Mrs. Gellar intending to 'make life difficult' for her and you," he said. "To put it lightly, she would 'raise hell' if I didn't handle this appropriately. As I've heard from your grandfather that she knows me as 'Il Duce', I felt it appropriate that I should probably regard this as you being like your mother."

"Indeed, yes." I chuckled. "I did get it from her."

"Let's not see you in here again until I give you a Harvard recommendation then, please. Behave, young lady." A smile. "Off you go." I left the office, feeling relieved, yet unsure as I came upon my girlfriend and the other four girls talking, relaxed and at ease.

Though I knew I was in a bit of trouble, it came off much better than it could have. Lemon motioned for me to come closer as Paris glanced at me with a neutral look.

"I felt...I don't even know how I felt, but it was empowering! If I would've done that in front of Francie she would've kicked my butt!"

"I may have done that, if I could kick you," Paris cracked. "But I guess you did the right thing, despite my disagreement." I approached feeling a bit apprehensive even if we dodged a bullet. "I was expecting expulsion. Or him to pass through the Milo Hall app anyways."

"Paris, you're not mad at me, are you?" I said, finally asking the question I held in since we were sent off. She was silent for a few moments, chewing on her answer. "I really am sorry I dragged you into this. Maybe--"

"This isn't how I wanted it to be. I know you didn't want it to be this way either. But...this is the right now and we've got to deal with it, even if you suddenly went off the deep end." She grasped my hand lightly. "I am mad. But it's going to pass, because you did the right thing."

"I don't feel like I did," I admitted. "It was stupid."

"You grew a backbone, Gilmore. That's what I've wanted you to do; to fight, to be an equal here, prove that you deserve to be here as much as us Chilton lifers have. It may not have been at the right time, but...you did good."

"If you're sure."

"I am." She glanced a warning at me. "Just please, the next time, don't make it this big."

"I just got into the moment. Too much." I could easily admit I could have handled it much better and we did get lucky. "Could've been worse."

"A bit." She was able to offer a small smile, a solace we had done right. "You could've called him 'Quippy'."

Lemon snorted at that moment, reminded of one of the moments I continue to dread to this day. I wanted to glare, but really couldn't muster it.

Because I was happy about one thing that came out of this.

"Paris, you realize what happened today, right? We finally got out of RN. We just have to rote read the books for the next few weeks and this nightmare of a class is over."

"I didn't even realize that." We left the headmaster's office, feeling a little lighter, and if still with the knot in our stomachs. "I don't care how it came, I'll take that." We were relieved, although still uneasy as lunch approached that our first few hurdles to being outed had been a bit less high than we expected.

But we both knew, uneasily, that there were still roadblocks ahead...  


* * *

****  
Paris's POV, 2:00 p.m.

The time seems to be drifting slowly. I don't know how to make much sense out of time right now. Sometimes it speeds up, but at other times, it slows down.

Most of the time over the last few weeks, that's been good. Because those are the private moments I spend with Rory. The ones I want to last much longer than they really are.

But then, there are these times. The portions of your life you wish you had never lived, that you wish you could just rip off like a bandage, or warp through like in _Mario 2_.

Funny how I remember that game and the entire three Louise and I spent playing through it. I treasure those moments spent with her, feeling less like an obligation and more like someone who knows me through the thick and thin.

Will I ever get that back with her? Can we get back to those times where we did more than tolerate each other for the sake of society?

I'm mad at myself. Holding massive disappointment. I remember my childhood, when Louise and I made all these promises to share anything, no matter what.

Regret just keeps settling in my stomach, making me feel unsure this is all worth the hassle and hurt of going through. This day has been confusing and a jumble and I don't know how to feel.

Except I know that not having Louise hurts me even more than my mother's disownment.

It's probably best to just recount all if it straight, or else I'll lose the thread too easily and go into dramatics over it all.

 **Earlier...  
** Coming out of the chaos of the Russian Novels situation I knew this day just was going to keep throwing hurdles at me. Even though I got off light with the Headmaster I still was feeling perturbed at Rory for dragging me into her conflict with Mr. Mercurio. We talked about it as we headed towards the dining hall.

"Next time, would you give me a little heads-up, please?" I plead with her. "We could have just approached him after class and made reasonable accommodations."

"Reasonable doesn't exist with him," Rory argued, glancing down. "He doesn't have any cause to be reasonable."

"I just don't like disrespecting teachers though. It's an awkward position, Gilmore; you don't see me arguing with Ms. Peters about every issue involving the _Franklin_."

"But what if she was opposed to something?"

"Then it's discussed rationally and we come to some kind of agreement."

"You're more idealistic than I am, Paris." She sighed as she opened up her locker and put her books in, exchanging them for her afternoon classes. "I was getting tired of him anyways, weren't you?"

"I was, yes. But I guess I'm just easier about handling teacher quirks." I hissed slightly as I felt my foot hit the flooring a bit too hard on a step. "I hope this heals soon. Not that easy navigating the halls when you have this lingering." Rory gave me an apologetic look, knowing I was tiring of the subject.

"I guess we can agree to disagree then." Getting our books the both of us headed for the dining hall and our usual table, and I was thankful for a good chair for at least a half-hour to sit in. Madeline had been kind enough to slide a spare chair next to mine to rest my foot. I sat down, handed Rory my ID so she could get my food with my account and sat in front of Madeline, who was waiting for Brad to appear.

"He's not going to come." She looked around the large room, worried. "Oh, what did I get myself into?"

"Why wouldn't he?" I didn't understand. "Madeline, Brad gets a social upgrade with you, it's--"

"No, not that." She leaned in closer so she could share her worry with me more privately. "Some of the lacrosse guys confronted him this morning and told him he's not good enough for me. Looked all threatening and stuff."

"So? They're out of season now, and complete idiots anyways. The lax bros are rejected football players, you know that."

"No, but you know Brad, he's got tissue paper skin. He wanted us to at least get to New Year's before he went public, and that got ruined."

I shook my head; nothing like the worry of Chilton's odd couple to make me forget my own woes. "Madeline, he'll be fine. You shouldn't worry about him, he can fend for himself."

"I know, but my dating history? Now that it's public the bets are starting to see how long this goes. My longest relationship was seven months. Seven!" She held up her fingers. "You know how it feels to have your dating life as a spectator sport?!"

"Thank God, no." Hopefully this dating life I had wouldn't even be listed. "You shouldn't be worried."

"I'm not. I just...I..." She groaned hastily. "I'm just scared of how they'll approach asking us intimate questions. Brad doesn't do that. He's not a kisser and teller!"

"I'm not?" It was then Brad slid in. "I definitely am not, for the record."

"Oh...um, Brad." Madeline glanced nervously. "I...I thought that you might want to...sit alone for today. You know, because of the things the lacrosse guys said?"

"What did they say?" He looked pensive as he grasped his milk carton and bent the flap back to open the container. "Besides acting like they always do?"

"Just...that." A moment of silence as they glanced at each other. "This is the first time we've been together since all of us got revealed. Stupid group texting. Stupid Sharon Gellar."

"How did your mother send out a text so fast anyways?" Brad wondered, asking me the question. "I thought she didn't use cell phones."

"She doesn't. But she probably had the Mohegan Man transcribe it for her." I bristled, knowing that's the only reason she finally get a cell phone, for...certain reasons. "Or had one of her DCW cronies send it out."

"Probably the latter." The red-haired boy smiled at Madeline. "I...I didn't mean to be late. Duncan and Bowman stopped me in the hallway."

"What did they want?" I asked.

"To ask if I had an STD check since Madeline...orally copulated with me." Just the term made all three of us cringe. "Of course they said something else less collegial. I told the truth, that both of us had been checked out and were clean."

Madeline rolled her eyes, shocked at her boyfriend's naiveté. "You know they probably meant that question as a joke, Brad."

"And then I told them the question and the assertion that you were of a low reputation was inappropriate, that I certainly do not think of you as an 'easy lay', like they had asserted."

 _Brad, please stop this before I hear about how you are unable to have children_ , I thought to myself as he went on, feeling like him even getting Dumb and Dumber any latitude at all was offensive.

"I didn't want to deal with them anymore so I tried to go around them. They refused. So eventually I had to ask them a question and shame them to pass, about their own sexual history."

A smile. "Duncan then asked how I got his results that he tested positive for gonorrhea. I didn't even bring it up, I didn't even know. He just made an idiot of himself and...there was a threesome situation with Jacklyn Gresse and Bowman now knows why he itches so much right now. Bowman threatened to kill him for 'giving him the clap', as he said."

"Oh my God!" Even I had to admit, that was sneaky, even for Brad. My mouth dropped open and Madeline delivered a soft elbow blow to Brad's side. "I knew those two were stupid but that's just wrong."

"God, am I ever glad I turned them both down last year," Madeline grumped. "They are literally the walking dead."

"Yeah, so I think with their being loud in the halls, we're both safe now. I don't think they'll come at me any longer, lest they reveal some other secret."

"Hopefully they can provide a needed distraction," I said. Madeline then asked me for details about what happened during Russian Novels and I told her in a compact manner. Both her and Brad were attentive and I felt like I had told the story well.

"So Rory just went off on him like after she hit the deer?"

"The deer hit her car," I clarified. "Remember?"

"I still don't believe it." A smile. "But at least Mr. M finally has a wake-up call. I don't think he'll be completely fired, not with his lawyer, but he won't be teaching his favorite subject ever again."

"I just want things to be normal soon," I said quietly.

"Paris, you've never been normal. Your Mensa membership at six pretty much proves that."

"I mean in the not-injured, not-scrutinized sense."

And as soon as I said that, the next curveball was thrown. The one I knew was coming, but hoped would be just like the reaction of my father, an 'I don't care' kind.

There she was, the girl who has been a part of my life since we were tots. We went through everything together, forced together by Hartford society but finding a bond all our own. I looked up to find Louise glaring at me with a stern look.

"Louise." Madeline started the conversation, but the hope that this would be a good talk quickly evaporated as she ignored Madeline and turned to me, eyebrows crinkled together.

"How the fuck could you do this to me, Gellar?" she gritted out. The emphasis in my last name suggested there was so much hurt. "We tell each other everything. Every single thing in our lives. But this is the thing you have to keep a secret from me?"

I let out a small wheeze, going with the line I rehearsed at least hundreds of times in my mind if my coming out wasn't under my control. "Lou, I was going to tell you--"

"Shut up!" The hurt in her eyes was too much to bear. "I fucking find out my best friend is gay not by her telling me, but from the gossip mill. It's low...damned low. You can't even trust the truth with me?"

"It's not that, you've just been--"

"Distant? Gone?" Louise's voice echoed as I slunked in my seat. I did feel low. Her eyes darted towards Mads. "For fuck's sake, Madeline, why didn't you trust me? We're the Triad, the Chilton Three. We're unstoppable. And suddenly--"

"It never came up!" Madeline shot back, her arguing voice making a rare appearance. "You've been gone lately and I couldn't tell you because Paris kept my confidence!"

"I wouldn't have told anyone, at all. Is this how much you both think of me now, having loose lips along with loose morals?"

"Stop putting yourself down," Madeline said.

"Says the girl dating nerd boy!" The brunette's mouth opened wide, in shock.

"If it was up to you I would've been five months pregnant by now! What's wrong with Brad?"

"Nothing...but I'm glad to know both of your loyalties lie with the Golden Girl now rather than me." She grimaced, turning her attention back to me. "Both of you are becoming goody-goodies and you're going to hate it."

"And what's wrong with that?" I finally gathered some shred of nerve. "At least I'm in a steady relationship. Can't ever say that about you."

Her eyes smoldered. My nerve had pushed me into a corner of saying something I knew that hurt and wounded Louise's pride. Like the Mary Stone crack to Rory, I knew it hurt. I wanted it to.

As Rory came to the table, my whole world shifted again.

"I wanted one with you," she hissed. "Thanks for never making it official; it made me realize I was wrong ever getting close to your heart." Rory hadn't been party to the conversation at all except for that last part and was only able to get in a spare "Louise" before the blonde reacted at her with fury, shoving Rory three steps back. We all were shocked and Rory was especially taken aback.

"Don't ever fucking talk to me again, Magdalene! Enjoy the prize I never had." She stomped off for another corner of the dining hall. Rory sat down next to me confused as the fireworks pounded in my head.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"Apparently she just heard you and Paris were a couple," Brad said.

"But at the end--"

As the food was placed in front of me, I realized not only did I not have a stomach for today's lunch of chicken fried steak with mixed vegetables, I had no stomach at all.

In the blink of an eye, I had lost my best friend. Madeline was stone still as she took in everything Louise had just said.

"Paris...Paris?"

Rory wanted me to say something. I couldn't. I didn't want to. All of the things I held back. Everything that had caused Lou and I friction for the last few years.

I didn't want to face it. I wanted it delayed forever. The bubble I lived in, the happiness I was experiencing with Rory, I needed just another scrap of it before our cycle began anew.

"Paris, what did she mean by 'the prize'?"

I couldn't. I didn't.

I got up.

"I need some air. Don't follow me." I pawed at my crutches, fumbling for them as I stumbled out from the bench to make my escape.

"Paris--"

"I'm not hungry!" I said, cringing as my bruised foot hit the floor before I was able to make a slow and ungraceful leave from the dining hall. Rory tried to go after me, only to be held back from Madeline. I gained some speed as I burst through the double doors and out into the foyer, through the halls. I hurt all over as I furiously felt the hurt within my chest.

I couldn't admit it. I was scared. Only three people besides Louise knew anything about this, and thankfully two of them are paid to know my secrets, while the other would have their blood spilled if they did. My heart raced as I reached the _Franklin_ newsroom, fumbling for the key in my bag and unlocking the door. I needed my sanctuary, my peace.

After fumbling the main door closed I stumbled through the office before I opened up the door to the darkroom, closing it behind me quickly. The crutches fumbled to the ground with me as I collapsed next to a storage cupboard and let the tears fall, trying to figure out where the hell I put that Klonopin. I only needed to take my anxiety drugs only a few times lately, but looking in my bag for the vial I hoped I could get it. I located the bottle and poured two pills into my hand, swallowing them dry, the bitterness of the pills feeling like the perfect accompaniment to what had just happened.

Louise, I wanted her to know. Honest to God, I did. But not like this, not the way she stated it. On the surface it shouldn't have hurt.

In reality, I'm a crying and fucking slutty mess on the floor, feeling no better than Duncan or Bowman. My heart was hurting because in falling in love with Rory, I had to break Louise's.

In that moment, I thought maybe Sharon should have delivered the knockout blow and just killed me.

With that thought and for my own safety I hurled the Klonopin bottle and across the room for my protection. Remembering back to that day. That fucking day.

The last time Sharon had gotten to me and created a rift that I know now can never be healed. For the smartest fucking woman in Connecticut I can be pretty forgetful.

As I rubbed my shaky and shivering thumbs against the inside of my hands, the memories came back. The cold and hurtful memories that were becoming ever more familiar now.

For so long, the cold façade I was able to maintain for years had been able to guard against the pain of Sharon almost killing me, of her abuse, the academic drills into the late hours. Of the divorce, her goddamned irrational redecorating, and how I'm a pariah on my maternal side.

I was always different, very different. I knew I could never be my mother.

Only a few years ago, I had held the heart of Louise Shelby Grant. We had been the happiest. The best of friends. I was about to take a step off the precipice and assert my love for her.

I may have saved her life, but I know the moment I rejected her, I had also crushed her soul. She hasn't been the same since. Nobody knew that. Nobody could ever know that.

And as I felt my head prickle with dizziness, I didn't care that I had the deep respect and love of Rory Gilmore. All I knew was that this wasn't something I could get past and it would probably turn her against me.

All I know is, my brain is fucked up if coming out meant the worst moments of my life were back out there for me to remember in detail, years after I had repressed or forgotten them.

"I'm sorry, Louise. I'm sorry..." I rocked back and forth, hoping the day would pass soon.

So much for a lack of dramatics...  


* * *

****  
Rory's POV, 2:30 p.m.

"What the hell, Madeline?" I felt her grasp me with a strength I had never known, holding me back from getting my fleeing girlfriend. "Let me go!"

"I can't!" I knew I was making a scene, but I had to get Par. Whatever Louise must've said to her was probably crappy. "Rory, you need to stay here."

"But Louise just attacked her! Some stuff about her heart and--"

"I can't." She took hold of my elbow. "Trust me, you **don't** want to see her now."

"And why not?" I shot a glare at her. "My girlfriend gets publically dressed down and you just want me to accept it? I should be going after Louise. That bitch--"

"Rory, calm yourself down!" She stood up and clenched me. "You're not going after Louise. After the thing you pulled with Mercurio you're lucky the headmaster was in a good mood today."

"But she hurt Paris--"

"I know...I know." Her serious glower told me I wasn't going anywhere. "Rory, you need to stay with me for your own good. If you talk to Paris now it's going to get heated, hurtful and she is going to cut you out. I know her. You don't."

"You're wrong, Madeline." I was pissed she would even say that. "I--"

"She had fifteen years she didn't know you. You don't know much about that fifteen years."

"I know that her mother--" She slowly sat me down as Brad moved over. I couldn't believe we were talking like this at a lunch table.

"I think we've well established Sharon Gellar should be awarded 'Cunt of the Century', but this is about Paris. Not about her mother... **her**. She's the one being hurt here."

"Yeah, by Louise." I scoffed. No one was going to throw slutty Biblical names at me.

"Nothing Louise did here today was her fault. Or anybody's fault." She got up, stern and totally unlike herself. "Grab your food; we're going to a study room in the library where no one can hear us."

"No...why would I do that?"

"Because I'm not going to play the school's Perez Hilton and spill everyone's secrets." I got up with Brad. "And I'm not going to defend you if you beat up **my** best friend. Now follow me and let's go."

"Madeline--" Brad spoke up and she reached over to peck his cheek.

"We'll talk later, Brad, promise. Don't take what Lou said seriously; she's hurting too much." He nodded and went back to his lunch as I tried to be obstinate, but couldn't. I didn't want Madeline to freeze me out; those scant few minutes at Formal she did were enough for me. I grabbed my bottle of Veryfine apple juice and sandwich and followed her to the library, stashing it so the staff wouldn't notice. I usually loved the library, but for now I didn't as for once, sweet Madeline was bringing me in line as a short and firm schoolmarm. She sternly reserved a second floor study room for us, and with a curt thank you to the librarian had me follow her up. We entered the room and she quickly drew the shade on the door and the window and had me place my heavy bag in front of the door.

"Mads, what is going on?" I said as I could finally get a word in edgewise. "Louise attacked her--"

"Bring in the temper now, Gilmore," she said, plopping down in the seat. "She did nothing of the sort."

"So you didn't see her call me in all but name, a slut?!" I felt offended she wasn't even talking about that. "What am I supposed to do, let it slide? I was taught to defend myself and--"

"Rory, the world isn't in black and white. This isn't Stars goddamned Hollow where Taylor's rule is law and all is calm, all is bright." She flailed her hand as she made her point. "I know you're under this fairy tale assumption that you've lifted Paris out of a world of hurt and hate and you're supporting her against her mean mother, but you have to remember who she is."

"My girlfriend!"

"No. Sit down."

"Whatever." I slid into the chair roughly offered at me and crossed my legs. "She's been telling me things--"

"Paris is hardly an open book. Not at all," she implored. "You got very lucky that she opened up to you within a couple years. It's been years since I've moved here from Seattle and I feel like I barely know her. What Louise did today was totally shitty, but it's been normal for their friendship for the last two years."

"So? I know Louise hates me. That's like the most open secret we have among us four. We tolerate each other at most."

Madeline sighed, shaking her head. "You don't get it, Gilmore. Not at all."

"What am I not getting? Because it was pretty damned clear when Par woke out of a cold sweat last night dreaming about the accident!"

"That's the problem though. She's finally happy and now it's the point where her mother is reminding her that she needs to hew to how she wants her to live her life."

"Umm, she's gone. Restraining order coming?"

" **Mentally** , you idiot!" she suddenly growled out. "Yeah, you can keep her safe from the dreams and the visions she's regressed but she still has to deal with them. They still come in her head, reminding her that Sharon is around the corner snuffing out her life. If you would've seen her Saturday night you would've known that. She had a feeling it was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it."

"But she can talk to me." I tried to be rational, but...

I guess not everything can be explained.

"Ever since the accident, Paris has been seeing Dr. Birnbaum," she told me. "Her mother attempted to find a therapist who she could easily pay to hold Paris to her world view and hired this fucked-up guy that miracle of miracles, got his licensed pulled after it was learned he molested kids. Never Paris, thank God, but it was two years of crap advice that poisoned her mind. Then Sharon found Dr. Birnbaum. She followed along the first year or so, but then Paris would have phantom pains, visions, scary things she couldn't explain. It didn't take long for her to figure out that Paris's head really got fucked up from the accident and she'd take Sharon's money, but not fuck her up any further."

"But she said it was pain that only lingered a little while, only a bit of a hairline."

"She took a dashboard at 110 miles an hour. She's learned to push down her feelings and everything her mother did had combined into a mess that tells her not to screw up anything." She grasped at my hand, hoping it would calm me down. "Rory, do you realize what she does to face the day?"

"Get up and have breakfast?" I shot off, not even knowing.

"She has to make sure it's not her mom waking her up, much less in her room. She looks both ways when she wakes up, prays silently that she lives through the day and then goes through a minefield. She mentally tells herself not to cry, to show fear, or even any kind of emotion. Her mother doesn't have a key to her room, nor access to her bills, because she knows if she does a simple voice or signature impersonation puts her in danger. Paris...takes several medications to ward off pain and anxiety attacks, and varies in and out of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. She has an inhaler at all times, even though she isn't asthmatic. And she burrows her hands into her shirts when she's in street clothes because she's afraid of her mom breaking her wrist. If **anyone** touches her wrists, unless you know her very well? It's game over, there's no forgiveness. I accidently did so once during a sleepover and she retreated to the bathroom after asking me what the fuck was my problem; trust me, she was justified in doing so.

"Rory...you may have fallen in love with Paris, but you're not dealing with a blank slate. She is on constant guard against her mother ruling her life. I know it scared her to know Sharon was out there last night. And because of that...remember that night you surprised her at the Manor after Thanksgiving?"

"I remember, I had to talk her into staying."

"This is why I'm leading you into why Louise dropped a Magdalene at you," she said calmly. "You need to thank your lucky stars Sharon got slobbered that evening and didn't even remember you sneaking out that morning. Thank every deity, because that meeting could've easily ended with you at the business end of a knife."

"Madeline, I think you're--"

I wanted to say she was exaggerating. The next five minutes where she described what caused Paris and Louise's cool attitudes towards each other gave me more clarity than I had ever had in my life.

At first I was outraged. Angry, even.

Not at Sharon. But at Paris. Because what Madeline told me, she had been holding back and may have smashed a few special memories I thought I would possessively hold for the rest of my life.

There were times where I told Madeline to shut up, but she continued. Even as my heart wrenched hearing it all, I knew now that indeed, fighting Louise would have ruined everything.

I do want to repeat what she said, but I know I can't. It has to be said only by Paris, never to be told to anyone else but between the four of us. That what I thought was an odd friendship between the three women was actually much more complicated than anyone writing a teen drama could ever come up with.

There were reasons Louise had for her anger, and good reasons why Paris ran. I would have made it worse by interfering, and Madeline asserted her right as a neutral party to keep us all apart from attacking each other.

By the end, when she got to when I came to Chilton, I knew much more than I would have ever thought about Paris Gellar and Louise Grant.

I also knew I was an amazing bitch.

"Madeline..." I was solemn. "I could not have known."

"Obviously you didn't by dropping the 'b' word multiple times." She paused and the room was silent for a moment as I sipped my juice. "I know you want to be pissed at the both of them. But you can't. Just like you had a crap life at your old high school, the same thing happened to Par long before she met you."

"What can I do though? She's going to think I have it out for Louise now."

"Do you?"

"Well...yeah." I threw open my hands. "I learn they almost did that and...God. Why can't I just be normal?!"

"Rory--"

"I don't mean 'going back to Dean' normal, but...distant from Paris. Maybe this wasn't right."

"Sorry, girl. Can't take back an 'I love you' rather easily." She smiled. "You've already pissed off Mr. Mercurio and Francie too much for things to go back to 'normal'."

A pause. "Also, you never had a normal at Chilton. From the day you met, you and Paris were bound for each other, forever. It was inevitable. It's sad to say this and I know if it's ever heard outside of these walls it'll ruin my friendship with Lou, but..."

She came in close to my ear and whispered. "I'm glad Tristan was your only hurdle to Par. If it had been her you would've been gone the first day."

I shrugged it off. "You don't really mean that."

"You don't know how much I do." Her severe glance suggested she was being truthful about what she said. I was chilled and shivered. "Rory, I'm sorry I had to tell you all this, and I don't even know it all."

I shook my head. "No, I know it was tough. And seeing that happen today ripped a hole in your heart. It did in mine. But it'll have to heal because the past is prologue, right?"

"Prologue?" I forgot even with her new sudden academic aptitude that Madeline didn't know everything.

"You forgot that from Paris shoving Shakespeare into our brains?" I laughed as Madeline realized where the quote came from.

"Oh, right!" Her eyes lit up. "I just got it." She nodded and we came to realize that Madeline and I needed this. Away from Louise, Paris and Brad. "I'm sorry I had to hold you back."

"I'm not." I brought her in for a hug. "No matter what you think, you're the peacemaker here, Madeline. Thanks for doing what you did."

"You're welcome." The both of us kept the hug for a few seconds before Madeline released with the sound of the end of lunch bell. "But you know you have to talk to Par, right?"

"I don't want to. But it has to be done." I sighed, gathering up my bag and hoping the rest of the day would be free of drama. "I just hope she's OK." Both of us were nervous as we left the study room and left the library.

Paris wasn't at her locker when we came by, and we both assumed she had quietly shunted off to her classes after gathering her thoughts. Since we didn't share the next two hours it was easy to think that.

When she didn't come into Dr. Eure's class though, that's when I got worried. I expected her to walk in any moment, but after the bell rang I knew she wasn't going to come in, despite her wont of never missing a class.

I felt my phone vibrate, and flipped it open beneath the desk to read what was sent. A text from Madeline.

_Worried now. U have to go after her._

__I quickly tapped back a response.

_You do it, Eure's going over test material for Friday._

__I went back to taking deep notes, only to receive two sharp vibrations from my phone.

_Ill take your silly notes, R. Go find her now!_

_And no, I wont put hearts over them, Paris will kill me :-P._

__I looked at her, and I could tell she needed me to find her. I sighed, holding back annoyance, and raised my hand, knowing it was on me to make sure Paris was OK.

I raised my hand and Dr. Eure called my name to let me speak. "I wouldn't usually ask to leave during class but I have....female issues." A couple of immature titters from the guys as the teacher nodded and wrote out a pass for me. With my bag on hand, I fled the room, mortified that I couldn't just say I needed the bathroom, but I had determined that I would never use the bathroom during a class period unless absolutely necessary. Leaving the hall, I fled into a bathroom, closing the stall and wondering if a text to Paris would work.

_Where are you? Madeline and I are worried._

__I glanced at the phone screen, hoping for a response of some kind. The way she fled out she could be back in the hospital from breaking her foot for all I knew.

After a long minute I heard the message chirp go off and flipped it open for the response.

_Dark room_

__That's all it said. Not even a period, or a consideration to fix her spacing error.

Yup, I was worried.

 _Be right there_ , I said, making my way towards the paper office. I was probably bound for another meeting with Charleston, but Paris came first. The door was open as I came in and I knocked on the darkroom door, the light blaring red above it. I didn't receive a response but presumed Paris was in no condition to really talk that much.

I didn't see her until a little bit into the room, right next to a cabinet, a small girl feeling the same way. Her bag was next to the door, and I picked up a CVS bottle at my feet.

"Don't...don't lose those." I heard her speak and set the orange bottle of pills on the darkroom counter before sitting next to her on the floor. She look crumpled and defeated, her sweater off and blouse wrinkled, unbuttoned a couple of places. She glanced up, taking me in as I approached her.

"I'm here," I whispered.

"You shouldn't be." She tried to turn away. "I...I don't even know what I can do. If I should just give this all up, or just." She couldn't complete her sentence, words fragmenting. "I'm...I'm not reliving. I don't want to."

"I'm not going to say anything or do anything, unless you want me to." I kept my hands in my lap, knowing a touch might be inappropriate. "You can't be afraid."

"I'm fucked up. I'm a slut," she said, trying to bring herself down. "You don't deserve me."

"But it's too late," I reminded her. "What's yours is mine now, Gellar." She looked up slightly, peeking her eyes through her fingers.

"She was right though. This...all this, it is a distraction. I cannot fulfill my destiny without pushing them away."

I kept my voice soft. "This is happening. Us, it is happening, and whether you like it or not, you aren't just going to push me away," I declared. "I know what your mom did isn't right. It's out of her hands though."

Paris took deep and shallow breaths, trying to calm herself. Her body continued to quiver as I tried to comfort her, keeping my hands at my sides. She was meek and quiet, worried about everything around her. She turned towards me just slightly, her eyes rimmed red from crying.

"If it was up to her, I would have been dead long ago. I'm just coming to grips with that. These dreams, slivers of my life suddenly coming out of hiding." Paris slumped back against the wall. "I was able to keep it all in and now this all happens and...it's a massive reset button. I've regressed." A frown. "I really don't like it and how it's tied to the love I have for you."

"But you're not dealing with it alone."

"That's the thing though, I am. I've been internalizing it for all these years, what I've done wrong."

"You haven't though."

"Rory..." Her voice softened, cracking as her larynx was still in recovery. "You have no idea how I've felt all these years. You only know me as this intense girl who runs hot all the time. You barely know about how I am the moment I leave school. All the pain, the struggle, hoping that a grade isn't the end of your world. Having to keep it all in, lest you're regarded as weak. I had a life before you that in that dining hall, came back to me and gave me a reminder that I push things down deeply." She glanced at me. "Grudges, I can remember. Maybe too easily," she said, reminding us of our former frenemy cycle.

"Madeline and I talked. After...she convinced me trying to kill Louise was not the appropriate course of action." I gulped out the words, still feeling alien to what the two of us had discussed. "Something happened, didn't it?"

She pursed her lips, her eyes going a bit wide. "Of course it did. Louise chewed us both out for not being told. It was expected."

"But...there was something leading up to why she did, right?" I tried not to be confrontational, but I knew my tone wasn't as calm as it usually was. "I just need to know what was leading up to it. At least your mom kept it private, but Louise didn't."

She shook her head. "I...I don't know if I can."

"You have to. We promised each other no secrets."

"But this was...this was just another in the long line of disappointments. I'm beginning to remember why I didn't even want you to push me to Tristan."

"Paris--"

She rose her voice slightly. "I...I have experienced this before though. This is exactly why I did lash out at you, told you I hated you." Recalling that March day after the infamous date, her protective side came out. "It was because I knew where it lead, where it would end up. I mean, thank God Tristan was acceptable dating material. No need to get flustered about that."

A grimace. "If you know about what...what...Louise and I were doing...I suppose we go back to the beginning?" She licked her lips.

I nodded tensely, preparing for what was to come.

"Louise and I...we have a complicated friendship," she started. "Putting it lightly, of course. We go at each other like jackals and I disagree with her, she disagrees with me. But yet, we have our common ground. We've grown up with each other, been together for years."

"Only, that is the problem." Her voice went down. "We have been together."

And then...

"In nearly every sense."

The words were simple, but the image was stark in my mind. It didn't even take a mere second for the image to pop in my mind.

"You are...Paris, are you saying what I think you are?"

She nodded. "In eighth and ninth grade, we were just learning to be girls. I had gone through my stuff a year back and now she was too. And her curiosity was growing. To put it simply...we were best friends. Best friends know each other. I knew her and here she is, with this lusty voice developing and an entire summer with my mother off in Bermuda, my father in the Asia-Pacific, way too many hot days and after camp ended, no point to do anything else but hang by my pool. Swimsuits, lax supervision...hormones."

"Um, wow." I was trying to take it all in. "What are you getting at?"

"I'm saying that...before Louise became boy-crazy, she just was another girl trying to learn, and there was a spark between us that we've always had."

I don't want to violate Paris's privacy, so I won't say what she told me after that point; that's for her to discuss. But suffice to say, I am still her first in the true sense of the word. But she's certainly not new to being attracted to women at all.

I could say I was disappointed or angry. But I guess time and love has mellowed my want to react in an angry manner towards her for holding back this information.

Because as much as I'd like to deny it, **I** was the same way with the mystery girl at the pond. Sure, we didn't go as far as Paris and Louise did with each other or even were in any reach, but if I were to deny it, I was no better than her.

So I did so. She also didn't lash out, although she found that it happened so young a little hinky as we talked out our experimental histories that led to this point. It did hurt for a bit, but we both had to do so to find some kind of understanding between us as she talked more about Louise, finishing up just as the final period bell rung.

"Now you know then." She brushed my fingers. "I...I'm sorry I held it back. I just felt--"

"No. No, I see why," I assured her, going through the worst part of the story and why her and Louise have the antagonism they've had since I got there. "Have you told your therapist?"

"I'm going to have to, tonight. Thank God we don't have a paper or student body day today; I'm definitely not ready for either of those." She grimaced. "Usually I can flip the switch, but that isn't happening now."

"I wouldn't let you anyways." I had to broach it. "Did you want to talk to her sooner?"

"As in earlier than this evening? I couldn't inconvenience her, I usually see her at a certain time."

I shook my head. "This isn't a certain time. You've gone through three days of hell and you need your therapist. I think you should call her and we should go directly to her office."

She looked down at her fingers, wiggling them around to keep herself occupied. I know she was worried, and now I knew there was more to what Louise and her were than I had ever thought.

Despite her catharsis, I was nowhere near understanding what darkness she faced, not with anyone that I've ever known. This was all new to me. More than the coming out Sharon basically forced on us, having to deal with the demons Paris has warded off for the last few years only to see them come back had thrown the both of us off, and I knew that I couldn't abandon her now. I loved her too much to do so.

She took her phone out and opened the screen. "I hope she's not mad at me for doing this." She scrolled to an entry and dialed out a number, speaking to whom I assumed was the receptionist before she said hello to who I assumed was Dr. Birnbaum. She was calm but shaken on her side of the conversation.

"You heard too?" A pause. "I don't mean to ask this, but more issues came up today. I think I almost felt a need to relapse. Yes...Louise."

A few more details as the word spun in my mind. _Relapse? Of what?_ I knew the term, but I didn't associate Paris with any kind of addiction at all.

"You're sure? There's nothing going on? Well...OK. I'll be there as soon as possible. Yes, Rory is with me. Thank you, Doctor." A few more pleasantries, and she had ended the call, somewhat relieved.

"She said she'd see me right away; her schedule was clear." A glance. "Are you sure you want to come with me? This is going to be a pretty heavy session, Gilmore."

I grimaced, but was still sure I wanted to do it. "I know my mom and grandma think therapists are crazy and don't help--"

"Rory, take it from someone who's been there for years; they do." She rolled her eyes, cutting me off before I could make a counterpoint. "Yes, there are bad apples in the field who use it to pretty much dress down the lives of their patients. But if it was between an automatic admission to Harvard and having Dr. Birnbaum taken away...I couldn't imagine my life without her."

She straightened her blouse as I helped her gather her things. "I only have one requirement of you coming with me; don't argue with her. She is my therapist and knows me well, and I need you calm throughout this. That's why I didn't fight with Louise. There isn't a point, and what's done is done."

"But she--"

"No point," she repeated. "You mean well trying to defend me, but I haven't felt the need to raise my fist at anyone yet. I want that to continue."

I couldn't understand how after fleeing and being so dark that Paris could just push this all aside. Driving us to Dr. Birnbaum's office I still was confused as to all that went on between her and Louise. I'm sure I was going to learn more during the appointment.

I just didn't know if I was going to like, or agree with any of this...

****  


**Paris's POV, 5:00 p.m.  
** I know quite a few times I could have easily gotten into a physical fight. I've thought about it too many times.

But you know how I am with fights. My results with Sharon show that all the self-defense in the world doesn't amount to much. I'm still at not only someone else's mercy, but the curses of my own frame.

I wish Rory could understand that. For all of her irrational threats to manhandle anyone who has done wrong to me, I definitely do not want it to end up physical at all.

But that's light compared to what we've talked about today. We're still a couple trying to find our middle ground, and even if she has her fairy tale composition of how that's supposed to play out, there's still the realism I experience in my own mind. It was stark to see that on display in Dr. Birnbaum's office.

After ten minutes of waiting for the last patient to end their session, I felt ready, calm. Yes, I had my moment of darkness hiding in the darkroom for two periods and swallowing down pills to calm my nerves. But I wasn't going to let it overwhelm me because I needed the time alone to compress and think about how this would all have to come out.

Invited in, Rory felt like she was in another world entering Dr. Birnbaum's office. I had this feeling she assumed it would be all wood paneling, leather chairs and a medical library that looked at home on the set of _Masterpiece Theatre_.

Judy Birnbaum was not that way at all. Her décor within a modern building just outside Colchester is comforting and warm. Even with the spare snow on the ground hiding the grass and the leaves long gone from the trees usually seen outside the picture window, her office is just what I need. It's a metaphor for how she encourages her patients to be open, to bare their souls to the world rather than hide away in a big leather chair underneath a bust of Freud. She had that kind of office in her first couple years when she was in a practice before she struck out on her own. I still remember when I was eight and she was almost victorious that she had been able to escape from there and into a place she knew everyone was more comfortable with.

The pale red-haired woman entered with a smile, taking a look at me as she sat down with notes in hand. "Good afternoon, Paris." She examined me up close as Rory gave her a nervous glance. "You must be Rory. I'm Dr. Judy Birnbaum."

"Umm, nice to meet you." Her right hand came out to shake the left Dr. Birnbaum offered her. "Paris has told me plenty about you." A strange look. "Of course, none of what goes under confidentiality."

"Paris isn't much of one to talk." I took my regular seat in the comforting leather chair to the left of my therapist, immediately feeling a little more at ease. I nodded at her response and began to compose myself for the time to come. Bless her for not giving a fuck about keeping exact appointments.

I hadn't faced a session this tough in at least a year or so. The last time I felt so rattled was at the end of sophomore year and trying to figure out where Rory stood in my life; even though we talked it out, Birnbaum made it clear that it was my decision as to what to do, something that took months to determine.

Dr. Birnbaum settled back in her rotating chair and reclined with her worn tablet case and my case file tucked behind it. She hadn't really referred to it in-session for ten years, but one day when she had forgot to file it with her I panicked thinking she was dumping me as a client. It had remained behind the tablet ever since for all the appointments since then solely for my assurance.

"So I'll be honest," she started, her voice and green eyes directed towards me. "I didn't expect you here quite this early, but on first examination, you look rattled, Paris."

I nodded. "I am." A push through the emotions. "As you probably can determine, my mother decided to hasten the coming-out process once she left the jail."

"Something I think we both expected as we spoke about before." She made some early observations within her shorthand on the tablet. "You surely weren't surprised by that?"

"Absolutely not. I had girded myself for it from the moment the pictures were thrown at me." Rory was wordless as we talked over the events of the weekend.

"Your mother does have the classic signs of authoritarianism and narcissism, the most prominent traits. I just didn't expect physical violence on her part out of it."

"It's not becoming. Thankfully I've held back and only share her non-physical temper. I don't know what I'd do if I ever felt physical." This back and forth about my emotions and dealing with Sharon's damage went on for a few minutes, Rory taking it all in. She couldn't find a natural in to the conversation, unfamiliar with the issues I had.

Eventually though we got to the nightmare flashback and I described it to her, and then allowing Rory to fill in the details about my state as she was awake for it.

"I...I didn't know what else to do. It seemed like if she kept sleeping she would somehow harm herself. I don't know how to deal with dreams like that."

"But how did it make you feel, Rory?"

"Scared," she said matter-of-factly, not understanding my therapist's MO.

"That is understandable." She made a note. "I'd like to find out more."

"I'm not sure you'd want me to do that."

''Scared is understated, a kind way to describe things. Going by what Paris said, she was violent in the dream, hurting."

"She...she did tear apart the air mattress," Rory sputtered out. "I didn't expect that since she doesn't grow her nails out long, but that's what happened."

"You heard most of the dream too."

Rory shook her leg, feeling nervous, like she was on a cross-examination. "Doctor, I know you want me to say everything, but I feel uncomfortable doing so. This is Paris's life I'm delving into--"

I glanced at her, sensing uneasiness starting to butt in. I knew Rory was wary of therapy and had to help her realize that in these sessions, I didn't care.

"Rory, I need to know," I pled. "We both need to know everything that went on. I have my view, but when you were watching me struggle, you had a view too. We need to meet somewhere in the middle."

This was nerve-wracking to be honest. What seemed like a good idea last night had become so much more complicated in the light of today's events. I wasn't sure what to think of everything going on.

"Honestly, I really don't want to pity her," she said. "But I...I am scared. Now that this is all real, it's tangible, it's not just...well it's not 'here's Paris, my mortal frenemy' any more, whose life I can dip into for a bit then leave when things get scary. I have to share in that now...that Sharon is abusive and...apparently," she glanced at me, "this has gone on since she was in the cradle. I come from a small town and a rearing where Lorelai would never do that. I mean when I found out today what happened earlier on..." She quieted, scared to say anything.

"Earlier on?" Dr. Birnbaum turned towards me. "Paris?"

"With Louise, when we were dealing with the start of puberty."

She nodded knowingly; over the years I had told her how the both of us had been close, but never the full story, scared it would get out somehow. "You told her?"

"I...talked to Rory after fleeing the lunch table and Madeline cooled her off; for the best because I'm in no mood for an epic flame war of words."

"Mmm-hmm."

"But there, Sharon...she stopped it before it could go below the belt. She had full control and unleashed hell on me and for the longest time I was scared off relationships completely. If that happened with Louise, God forbid what she would've done if she caught me jerking Tristan off."

"Paris!" Rory's face flushed with embarrassment.

"Ror, it's true," I admitted. "That's why I was uneasy with the ask-out. If not for your pressure I would have rejected it because I knew what was coming. It was nervous for us both and honestly, some of that time was spent talking about our crappy parents and how they'd probably cringe at the sight of us both together. Of course my dad, he always just saw us as friends. But Sharon and both the DuGreys certainly did not. I didn't want that to repeat. It was never going to work out because the both of us were nervous as fuck trying to get through the night. And when I came home after finding out you arranged it...I was right. She found out. She harangued me for not him letting past first and cursed me out for my disinterest even if he had a mutual interest in just letting the night end."

I paused to let the next part sink in. "I still remember I was about to head up to my room and she told me that I might as well get my tubes tied, because the only legacy I'd ever had would be of a loser lesbo who didn't care about dating." I heaved out a breath to counterbalance the shortness I felt in my chest. "Like you with that one girl that time...it was a missed opportunity." I raised my arms, turning to Rory and making full eye contact.

"But with you, that was it. You met her once. Never again. I have to look at the first woman I loved daily, knowing how intimate I've been with her and knowing that will never happen again. That Sharon scared the fear of God into me, and made her so unsure of herself that she chose the sexual direction she did?"

"Paris?" Her curiosity perked up. "I assume you're talking much more about what you both have had than you did in the past."

"I am. I talked to Rory about it before I came here, but now I have to tell you because it's important now." I took in a breath, knowing that sharing these intimate details might cause me to go on a dark path. "We were young, adventurous, a long summer with lax supervision and frankly, both of us were hormonal messes without parental figures to turn to and a whole lot of questions about what we went through in sex ed. It had never been an issue before, and frankly I never felt an attraction to a boy or a girl. But we're together all summer with nothing to do but plan for the big Chilton, Country Day behind us, Madeline off in the west. It was just the both of us, alone and...we figure out everything by ourselves."

Everything about that summer is still clear. All the days in the pool or spent locked in our rooms, either together or through AOL chats. Somehow Louise's interest in puberty was more heightened than mine, likely even more. Her voice, which was formerly a squeak, just came through those three months and became that deep purr that makes anyone nearby collapse to their knees. Her first period came at the start of the year, and suddenly she went from incredibly flat to womanly within those six months between January and June. All the sudden my tomboy friend was blossoming into a beautiful young woman in front of my eyes.

And it showed. She asked my experiences about puberty, about what to do, how to deal with everything. Rather than her mother, I was the one to choose her training bra and demonstrate using a scientific beaker the proper way to use feminine products. Nanny was able to help out with a few aspects, but her Catholic upbringing of course made her shy on quite a few things that I had to fill in the blanks on.

"So it's the start of that August, we're in my room and she's expressing these feelings for one of those Backstreet Boys."

"Which one?" Rory's question left me confused.

"Umm...I'm going to say the pretty one? I'm not sure, but the one she felt attracted to isn't important." I continued on. "Basically, it lead us to discuss the feelings that we have. How we act on them. We talked about this amongst ourselves, and we're both girls, alone. I mean, we could ask one of Nanny's grandkids to help us, but, no, I can't. They're like family to me and I can't do that. So...it's just us."

Dr. Birnbaum wrote her dutiful shorthand out on her pad as Rory listened on as I described further what we did. The touching, the talking, trying to understand what puberty was all about. I came to the point where I feel things at a head.

"And now it's almost dark, after dinner, in my bed and we're looking at each other. Suddenly after hours of talking, swimming and reviewing everything we've gone over through the day...there's just this one moment. A bit of clarity where the only thing we see is each other. Of the feelings we've pushed off over the years as folly, and everything else is just this amalgamation of life experiences that has combined into this moment because we want to test things out. To figure out why we always see the guys kissing girls in films and shows, but one simple kiss between two ladies is enough to make people and groups go insane."

I wanted to be as matter-of-fact about this as possible. "So we just kissed. That's all we did that night, going with some forgotten scene on some 90's teen showas the impetus for beginning to be who we would be. The both of us, we didn't even think about attractions or beautifulness or how we fit together, it was just more 'kissing, let's try it'. And it was...nice. Really nice. I was surprised at how it felt to finally kiss someone in the context of sexuality and...I guess I could say I was glad it was Louise who did it for me, because as a friend it was the best course of action. We knew each other, and we were neutral. We couldn't break each other's hearts."

Here's where the complications came in. "But then the next few nights, I was confused as I slept. Where did my thoughts about an unknown boy go in my dreams? Why did it seem suddenly that I could sense Lou in them? The way she looked at me, how we touched, could talk for hours about everything and nothing. And making it worse, it was the time I began to shirk layers in sleep when I knew my parents or Nanny wasn't checking on me. I'd wake up in the middle of the night with my chest feeling sore for instance. I didn't know why, until I realized by nipples were in full arousal from a dream I had about Louise, brushing against my top roughly." Dr. Birnbaum shot a slight glare my way.

"Paris, keep it PG-13," she said with a small smile. "I know it's your life but..." I nodded, knowing that her files were probably a goldmine to the _Letters in Penthouse_ column if they were ever seen. I toned it down, describing these sexual dreams and how I shared them with Louise, who was in her own confused state.

"She didn't understand them either. Basically we were confused together and our understanding of sex was so clinical, hardly romantic. How could it be? We read romance novels, the both of us, but there wasn't one where the girl ended up with another girl. We couldn't talk about this to our parents. And the Internet? Forget it, not with Sharon putting on parental controls at home that were so strict, the cook had to print off recipes calling for chicken breasts or meatballs on their home computer." I caught Rory sighing at that. "We talked about them, trying to understand. We fled to the library, sneaking through the sexuality section and reading books to understand what we were, but most of the books can be out of date or just think of homosexuality as pure perversion." I blushed, remembering one of those sessions. "That's where she got me in a quiet study room once and..." I whimpered. "Let's just say that she showed and told that I was hardly perverse at all."

I felt the confession releasing from my shoulders, some of what Louise and I experienced rolling off my tongue like an old wistful memory. Especially when we were at the pool or in our rooms alone. It was hardly romantic at times, very clumsy at others, like the time her elbow jabbed my breast when I found a pleasure point, but it was us, as friends and exploring, bending more towards love every day.

"And it was getting closer." My throat tightened as I began to feel it dry. I sipped at the water glass next to me as I knew what was next. "I swore we were getting to that exact point. Where we just knew that It was about to go further."

"So what changed?" Dr. Birnbaum asked. Rory remained quiet, neutral.

I had only gone through this in my mind, and with Louise. I knew it was going to be raw confessing this fully, that Rory might feel even more anger afterwards. But this was the place I needed to talk about it. I paused for a moment, encouraged by Dr. Birnbaum to take my time.

"I...I wanted to go further. So...did Louise. Two months of this and it felt right, that we needed to go further to...that step. I thought for sure that she would be the love of my life. That...I didn't have to yearn for Tristan or settle for a pawned-off guy from Sharon. Lou would be it. I was sure...so damned sure. I talked to her on the phone a few times...the conversations became quite...heated. And for sure, I was assuring myself that only Louise and I were privy to any of this."

I glanced at Rory, sure this was the breaking point. "You both have wondered in the past why I pay for my communications alone, why my line is private. This is exactly why."

I began to reel off what had happened that turned Louise and I from the closest friends in all of Chilton, to barely speaking to each other.

"Sharon...is a paranoid woman. It has been established as such, with our PI friend who followed us for the last couple weeks. She had come home a week early from her trip and a night out with the DCW girls. I had not known that because....because..."

I didn't want to tell this. I wanted to keep this held in, for the rest of my life. It was enough, spilling about the accident, but this was worse, much worse. I held back tears building in my ducts, looking down at my hands, shaking, retreated into the undone cuffs on my blouse and comforted by the material.

"Par." Rory lifted her gaze up at me. "You don't have to say anything."

"But I must," I gasped out. "Just...give me time." God, I wanted to retreat, back to a time where this was never an issue.

But it's here. I'm with Rory, I'm out of my mother's life, and we just got through a weekend I can charitably describe as rotten.

"I'll just say that the call with Louise was filled with...terms and we were doing...things." I paused, expecting Birnbaum to clarify we were having phone sex, but it wasn't happening, allowing me to continue without frustration. "At that time, unknown to me, Sharon had an SNET technician she bribed slip a two-line phone into her and my father's bedroom after hours, one he did not know about. And with that second line, she had it connected to the line I had for my own a since a year before."

"You know a parent is allowed to do that, right?"

"I understand that, Rory," I answered. "But the line was given to me by my father with the expressed purpose that my mother could not interfere with my calls; in the past she had drunkenly got on the phone and ruined many a call for me. She even ruined a couple of distant friendships I had in the past with threats that if I talked to them again, they would be sorry. He had the line installed as a completely private connection she was not allowed to listen in on." I took a couple deep breaths. "As I keep saying, there's a lot you don't know about me, or how my mother has controlled me in the past."

I continued on, as I could sense Rory was shaken up. "I was....well, I was touching myself and trying to be dirty with Louise, and here she was, listening in on us, the both of us unaware. We never knew at all and...and after we finished...." My throat tightened as I felt the tears force from my eyes. "I told Louise I loved her. Because I did. In more than the sense of our friendship, I felt deep and stirring love for her that she shared with me. And we began to talk of....of....going all the way. That we both agreed that this...this intimacy we were experiencing was much more than just what we felt, longing for boys. This is what we wanted, together, and yes I know it's stupid talking about that before starting high school and it was idiotic and--"

"It isn't," Rory tried to assure me. "Just take a deep breath and tell us what went on from there. I'm here. I'm listening, no judgment."

"Okay." I shook my head, trying to will myself further. "So I'm saying all this, and I don't know that my mother is listening in. I had no idea since she had the mute on her line, nor did I ever hear her enter the house. Louise and I think that she's still gone and we can do this without anyone knowing. But the way the house is, I would not have known Sharon had come home at all since she comes in through the back entrance and through the garage and for the next few hours, she plotted. Sharon just..."

I decide to just dive right in. "Louise gets to the house. I expect to greet her at the door and we're excited for each other. I hear her on the intercom, start flying down the stairs..."

"And then, she's there. Sharon, opening up the door for Louise, who is caught by surprise. The both of us are. And there's my mother, putting on the fake 'oh I just totally got here and wanted to surprise you' act. She plays along, letting Louise in and instead of going right to my room, she has to tell Sharon about her summer in the parlor and all this. I'm thrown off, I know something ugly is about to go down, but I can't say a word. I can't warn Lou at all because that would clue her in. Louise is just bored, I'm embarrassed, and I just want to pawn off an excuse that we're headed to the library or something so we can have our peace..."

I feel a hollow spinning in my stomach at the next five minutes as I know this is the point of no return. Where I'm finally letting go of even more of the ugliness of my past. Why I was fearful that Sunday night and even though Rory relaxed me into a calm state, it could've ended in a way that I would have never forgiven myself for causing.

"She stops Louise from talking by kicking at the table in front of her the moment she asks to head up to my room. It startles her, and her throat drops. She stares up at me as Sharon's voice goes from the fake tone she put on with you that morning she was blitzed out of her mind, to the snarl I only know...."

_"You will not be going to Paris's room, young lady." My ears prickled high at the change in tone. "I'm surprised you didn't flee the moment you saw me, considering the puerile things you suggested my daughter do to you over the telephone."_

_I panicked, wanting to flee.  Louise got up, scared to death as my mother took a swig of her drink. "Um, excuse me, I have to go, I--"_

_Sharon kicked the table away and began to lunge at my best friend, tossing the tumbler to the ground, glass showering across the floor. "You insolent little bitch! How the fuck can you justify what you're doing to Paris?!"_

_"Mrs. Gellar, I can explain--" Louise stumbled around the room, but was cornered. My blood ran cold as my mother grabbed her by the shirt and pushed my best friend hard against the wall._

_I hoped that was the end of that. That Louise will be able to flee with some kind of lecture. My gaze rose for a moment..._

_SLAP!!_

_Sharon's right hand cut right across Louise's cheek, and the ugly sound echoed through the room._

_"If you **ever** , and I mean ever, lay a fucking finger on my daughter like you have all summer again, I will crush them all with a hammer, and I **will** go to the police and get you up on molestation charges that'll send you to juvi and ruin your life."_

_"Mrs. Gellar, leave me alone!"_

_I wanted to flee, I really did. I hoped this is some kind of misguided attempt to protect me. I tried to flee the room to call 911--_

_"And don't think you're outta trouble here either, you sniveling little twat!" she barks at me. "It takes two to tango!"_

_"Leave her alone!" I plead. "She did nothing wrong, I--"_

_She turned back to Louise, sniveling and afraid to move. "There are plenty of men out there for you, honey. Go fuck one of them. Live your life like the little slut you are, Miss Grant." She spat in my best friend's face. "But don't you dare drag Paris into this sinful lifestyle." Louise attempted to wriggle out, but was stopped with an elbow against her collarbone. "If it was up to me you would've never met my bitch of a daughter. But no, Harry needed her to attend Chilton, 'it's tradition'. Yeah, some tradition, cranking out dykes like Notre Dame does draft picks." Louise was in a full panic, feeling dizzy._

_"Let...me...go!"_

_"You ever fuck my daughter, I mean it. I will make up shit about you that'll end your life. And today? This isn't getting back to your daddy or mommy, 'cause if it does? I'll make sure, young lady that you're not gonna see your 15th birthday. This. Ends. Now." A growl. "Experiment with all the guys you want. Nobody will give a shit. But Paris has a plan, and you are not fucking up this gravy train for me."_

_"Sharon...I...love...he--"_

_Another harsh slap. I began to move closer..._

_"One move, Paris. One move, and I'll snap that goddamn wrist like a pretzel stick!"_

_"Leave her alone." I'm in full panic mode. "Beat me up! Don't pin it on her!" She ignored me, throwing more verbal abuse at my best friend._

_"The only love you feel for my daughter deserves to be in the searing flames of Hell, you insolent bitch." I was freaking out now; the way Sharon had her knee lined up, just an upward push meant that Lou would feel a pain no woman should, ever. "Now, we will be at an understanding;  you fuck my daughter, you are fucked, Louise." Her voice had me in fear for our lives. "Now you're gonna go home, and you're gonna forget any of this happened. And if you can, maybe you can come back in this house again, but I'll tell you one thing; my eyes will be on you all the time now. You will not corrupt my daughter away from her destiny."_

_"Oh yeah, her destiny?" Louise spoke up, her voice filled with hate for the woman who borne me. "Where she's complacent, borne, and submissive to a total bore of a husband?"_

_"Absolutely." Another push against the wall. "I've been entirely too lax this summer."_

_Then, she did something that I could never forgive. Looking down at Louise's hip, she found a bulge in her jeans._

_"Hand me your phone, young lady."_

_"No."_

_"Hand me your phone, now!" She pinned Louise against the wall by the throat, finding a pressure point nearby which caused her distraction. Reaching into her pocket, she took Louise's cell phone into her hand, then threw it down to the ground._

_Before either of us could stop her, the components of the candybar Nokia were crushed beneath the weight of a Nine West pump._

_"Ooopsy daisy. I didn't **mean** to do **that**!" Louise whimpered, scared to death of the slight woman threatening her life and limb. "No calling 911 on me at all when you leave here, sorry about that! Now...I'm calling you a cab. You're going home. You're going to say some homeless woman beat you up in a park and stole your phone. And you will stick by that story otherwise things get ugly. We're understood?"_

_Louise shook her head. I saw Sharon raise her knee up._

_"We better have an understanding, or else the Grant family line? It ends now. I **will** call your parents. I **will** tell them that you were drugging my daughter and attempting to coerce her against her will, and while you recover from having your cunt bashed in, Sarah Lawrence will never come close to having you."_

_She whimpered. "OK, OK! I'm sorry, Mrs. Gellar!"_

_"Are we clear?"_

_"We are! We are!" Louise looked at me, I looked at her._

_I knew that this would tear us apart forever. We'd never have the closeness before that point in our lives ever again._

_"You can still talk to her at school and study. That is it. If I ever see or hear you make a move again...I hope you know how to fucking swim with cement shoes." She pushed away Louise, who tumbled to a heap on the floor as I knew it was time for me to take my licks._

_"I'll call the cab, you wait outside, now." I attempt to get a head start on Sharon as she sends for the cab, but it's fruitless. Fran is gone. Daddy is nowhere to be found. This is a punishment I take alone. With one last glance at the love of my life after Sharon tosses the receiver harshly on the cradle, I'm pulled out of the parlor and into the dining room, where I take a battery of ugly abuse and profanity that scares me so deep in the closet I'll never come out of it._

_Much of it is in blackout mode. I can't remember, I don't want to remember it, and it's going to come out in dreams soon. I can't even picture it, beyond having to tell my father when he gets back that I fell down some stairs heading into the wine cellar and it hurt terribly._

_He never knew what I had going on with Louise. My mother made sure of that by reminding me so many times she put me in this world and she could also remove me from it. I was too scared to tell, too afraid of what my mother could do to me...or her._

_Until this afternoon in the dining hall, Louise and I had never mentioned our aborted romance ever again. We couldn't. We'd look at each other, I'd remember the harm my mother caused in her, and I quickly reeled back. It's created this ugly hole in our relationship that I don't know can be repaired. We can cover it up with all of the snark we volley at each other, but in the end, it's going to result in us being fully torn apart._

_I'm dreading it. It's my longest friendship, and it was ruined because we felt this thing for each other that seemed tangible and real._

__I had finally let it all out, why Louise and I are so antagonistic to each other, yet remained the best of friends for so long. It hurt to let this all off my chest. I had kept it silent, sucked it all up for three years.

"Harold...he doesn't even know **any** of this. None of it. And it should have been the last straw. I should have said something. But Louise and I...we couldn't. Both of us would be taken to the stocks if we admitted this, or God forbid, cast Sharon in a bad light." I sunk into the chair, guilty, feeling like the worst person ever.

"The worst thing is that Louise was right. I broke her heart." I couldn't see anything as tears fogged my eyes. "She dressed me down for giving up on the idea of anything else. By falling for Rory, I let it be known that she was replicable. But I don't feel that way. It's time. New people. A different kind of love...deeper, more formed. And I have to live with this guilt forever."

I couldn't look at either Dr. Birnbaum or Rory. What I had just told them about how Louise and I were torn apart was hard enough for anyone to deal with, but as a lover and therapist?

Then one more realization...

"You...you are going to have to report this, aren't you?"

I looked up to see Dr. Birnbaum nodding, sipping her cranberry ginger ale and taking a hard gulp. She slid her finger from the pen and took a deep breath.

"That's but a secondary concern, Paris. I'm more concerned for your health than how your mother regards you and Rory, or Louise, and certainly it doesn't look like it, but I think there's something going on with Louise that is causing the reaction that happened this afternoon." Rory was silent as Dr. B delivered her view of the situation.

"We've already talked about this, that having this relationship is healthy and is helping you open up."

"All well and good, but it's causing these blackouts I've pushed down to reappear!" I wanted to rationalize this somehow, throwing my arms askew and shrieking across the room. "Isn't there some way we can stop them?"

"Not really," she admitted, to my exasperated whimper. "You know we've been leading to this breakthrough for years, Paris. It needed to happen."

"It should happen, but not before my last semester of high school." A pause. "I...I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't be saying these things, but you know how I am."

"Too well." She tapped her heel on the mat beneath her chair. "This is not optimum, I know, learning the truth about certain people and finding out things about yourself you never wanted to know. This is progress, so much."

"But surely you need to prescribe something for me. I...I am not feeling at my best lately."

"Frankly I am not ready to change you from your medications, Paris. I ethically cannot if we're seeing this kind of progress, and you know how uneasy I am about any sleep medication prescription."

"I'm just asking for a small bit of Ambien, or something equivalent--"

"And we tried that already," she reminded as I slowly calmed myself down. "If not for your staff in the garage you would've driven your car in your sleep a couple of times and you were dazed on it while awake." I nodded in understanding. "Despite what you might think, you and Rory have a good connection and she was there for you last night. She'll be there for you again. I think for at least this month, we try to manage everything you're going through, and Rory can be your backstop."

I wanted to object, but Rory interjected in.

"I can definitely do that, Dr. Birnbaum. All I've been thinking about with Paris is helping her and calming her. And I really don't think she needs more medication; is that an artifact of Mrs. Gellar's influence?"

"I'm unsure I can share anything about that, Rory. Unless Paris would like to." I nodded.

"Sharon was definitely an influence," I shared. "I do have to take a battery of pills, as you know now. But I'd really rather not take them."

I turned to face Rory, seeing deep concern. I hadn't looked at her since I started telling her and Dr. Birnbaum about Louise, but she definitely was worried for me. "We're all going to help. I'm sure Madeline and Lemon are sure to give you any help you need too."

I shook my head. "This is just all too new to me, you know? I've always had to help myself or come in here to understand where I was at."

Dr. Birnbaum calmed me further. "You have more support now. Don't forget about your father and your nanny, who have gone above and beyond for you in all of this. I promise you, you are not going to be alone in fighting your demons, Paris. Rory has proven her worth, and I really think that we're making some good progress here." She looked over her notes and we continued to talk about the last few weeks, trying to understand things.

Looking them all over in the open, I think I do know why Lou feels how she does, that she felt as if she was being replaced.

I understand. I wish I didn't have to, but it's why she was so angry towards me. As we went over it all and Rory got in some of her own fears and concerns, this is something that I have been dreading ever talking about. If I could take the abuse Louise and I suffered in that afternoon to my grave, I could have easily done so. It literally broke the dynamic we held for years as she feared for her very life to go to the Manor after that very day.

I could make other assertions about why Louise is the girl she is today, but I could easily be wrong about why that is. Until her and I can talk, and if she ever does want to talk to me again, there's so many unknowns in how we will define who we are to each other in the future.

All I know is, my heart has been broken two times in my lifetime from romance, and both times involved Louise confessing her love to me.

On that afternoon before she was forced to drop her pursuit out of fear for her life, and this afternoon in that dining hall.

That's the truth; Tristan was a mere fracture of my heart. I could get over it. But losing my best friend is too much to bear.

I can only hope as we finish out this session that Rory thinks no less of me than she did this morning, before we were ripped from the closet and out into the open of being out at Chilton.

All I can think now is how distant forgiveness in any form towards Sharon now seems to be...  


* * *

****  
Rory's POV, 6:45 p.m.

This has been the toughest day of my life.

I have nothing to compare it to, literally nothing. Even having Straub and Francine shame me for my existence is nothing compared to how tired and exhausted I am.

The therapy with Dr. Birnbaum ended up going better than I considered. I know much more about the complexities of how she feels about Louise, and I no longer feel anger or pity at how they interact with each other.

Rather, I feel that Louise was protective of Paris. Staying away after Sharon nearly killed her, of trying to keep their friendship strong, but life and love getting in the way for both of them. I should feel bitter jealousy at the image of Louise touching my girl in the ways I expected were solely mine.

But I can't. I know it's the past now. Louise will not try to steal Paris from me because of so much going on with their friendship that I don't know if it can ever be recovered. I want them to be friends again, and the 20-minute phone conversation with Madeline on the way to Bed Bath & Beyond to get Paris a stronger bed showed that. We all want the old dynamic, minus our past hostility, in full force.

It's going to take work, though, on all of our parts. And more importantly, Louise has to come around, but I don't see that happening just yet.

Paris felt lighter with all of the burden off of her of having to keep that all in, and we both expressed how we definitely need more of these talking out sessions. Being able to get out my own frustrations about Dad and Grandma in a neutral venue, without judging or the usual sarcasm from Mom, Sookie or Lane shot my way, it felt awesome. It was just what I needed, to hear Dr. Birnbaum express that eventually they'll either come around or I'll have to break them from our lives. Where Paris had to breakdown over how Sharon almost killed her best friend, I didn't need to do that to express my own feelings, and she explained that my 'be the better woman' strategy was working for the best, and that it should continue as I come out further.

Not that I needed that advice from what occurred tonight once I got back into town. With a comfy air mattress Paris paid a premium price (and the extended warranty) for, Paris and I hoped for a quiet night of homework and relaxation as we came back into the Hollow.

I can't always get what I want. About 6 o'clock, I got a call from Mom just as we finished picking up some take-out for later on. I answered cheerfully ready to relay how our day went to her, but she quickly stopped me before I could go further.

"Kiddo, I've got some good news and bad news." Her tone was worried, and I felt a sting go through my neck at hearing it.

"Ummm...good news first?" Paris gave me a glance, perked up and wondering what was going on.

"Well, the good news is that Sharon is headed back to jail on a disorderly conduct charge, though of course I expect the bail to be laughable again and her out in minutes."

 _This isn't going to end well_ , I thought. "And that must connect to the bad news, right?"

"It does." A pause. "She came into Luke's around 5:15pm, perfect timing for me to be confronted as the 'scum of the earth' for taking Paris in and deciding to out you both to those who were in the diner, including Luke, Jess, Shane and Kirk, and before that to East Side Tilly, who decided to blare it to everyone else. Let's just say it got uncomfortable, a saucer and mug with hot coffee in it were tossed in my direction...oh, and to top it all off, your favorite ex just happened to stop in and get told too."

I could only respond one way. "Excuse my language here, but...fuck." Paris could hear it all too.

"And guess who gets to head to Hartford Family Court in the morning to try to defend Harold allowing me to keep Paris in Stars Hollow?"

"Wait...she wants Paris back?!" My eyes bulged out. "That better not happen!"

"Rory--"

"Mom, you're going, right?!"

"Of course I am--"

"Because if whatever they call a judge forces her back to the Manor, I will raise hell. I mean it!"

"Rory, calm down!" I could feel my heartbeat racing; Dean knew now. And I was scared.

"Mom...does Lane know? Please tell me--"

"Hon..." The news was delivered somberly. "Sadly, Mrs. Kim happened to be there to get some tea. The term 'deviant daughter' and 'prohibited' happened to be used. Lane was back at the shop, but...you may have to face up to not seeing her for awhile."

"Oh God. I wanted to tell her. I had everything planned out, it was going to be neutral and I...." Paris immediately settled her hand against the back of my shoulder and brought me close. "This sucks."

"Fucking sucks. Go ahead and use all the profanity, hon." I felt hurt, in pain. I missed Sharon, thank God, but now I had a probable angry ex-boyfriend and shunning best friend to deal with back in town. "But I do have a bit of good news out of this."

"Taylor's taking down the display at the video store?" Paris snorted at the memory.

"Well...you're good with Jess and his girlfriend. They kind of shrugged it off and Shane kinda wished you showed an interest in her, so...yeah, all laughs there. Kirk...hilariously flustered and wondering how he deals with Paris in the future. And Luke...I would have never thought it from him." A laugh, and then Mom told me that as Sharon threw her shaming tantrum, Luke 'aw geeze'-ed his way through it all and was embarrassed, before finally just going off on her.

"It was pretty awesome, kid. I'd do the Luke voice but it's so long. But basically he finally heard all this and said 'Frankly I don't care what your daughter and Rory are doing, as long as she's being kind and loving her. Sure, the brat might be a bit annoying and I'm still getting bordello jokes months after her assumption of what goes on upstairs from here, but Rory's a good girl, and if she likes her enough to be in love with her...well I can't stop them, and I won't. And hell, your daughter tips well, even specifying that tips go to Caesar in back; nobody I know does that. So whatever stuff they do in a bedroom, I don't care. I know Rory, and I'll have her, gay, bi, straight, or whatever term those same-sex relationship folks have this week to describe themselves. If that includes Paris, well, I guess I can grow to like 'er, but I sure the hell hate you.' And then she threw the stuff at me and Jess brought her to the ground while we waited for the cops to come and arrest her."

I was relieved about Luke. Of all the coming outs I had to do, I didn't know if he was going to accept us or not, but at least in his own way, Luke was...well, he was Luke-like in accepting me. "So I'm still welcome in there?"

"It was never in question. Although he almost got beaned by Sharon's purse; I think she had a brick in there, we weren't sure." She sighed. "I'm sorry this happened. We did--"

"Mom, I almost expected this. Just another layer of fun onto this godawful day." I then relayed Chilton, Louise and the therapist to her, though not getting into the details of why Louise got mad at her since Paris wasn't ready to spill about that either, though I was allowed to tell her about the other previous abuse in an edited form. I could hear Mom fuming angrily on the phone about that one.

"This sure has been a crap week and a half then." A scoff. "Well, hopefully they don't even consider sending her back; it would be a big waste of time considering how many days until she's 18 and the state is powerless to keep her there."

"I hope so too." I sighed. "So I'll probably have Dean to deal with? Because I did plan to stop at Doose's for some stuff."

"At least Taylor's there tonight, so it's controlled a little." I nodded, knowing I just wanted to get this over. I got off the phone with Mom and saw Paris smile for the first time since this morning.

"What?" A little laugh. "Paris, you--"

"I know, my mom's being a menace. Not breaking news." She wrinkled her nose. "I saw Shane one day at the diner...I can admit I found her a bit attractive."

"Paris!" I let off a bizarre half-smile/frown combo in reaction.

"What?!" She raised her arms. "I have hormones, and she apparently does too if she finds you hot!"

"That's what you got out of this, that Jess's girl has the hots for me?" She nodded, and I lightly shoved her arm. "Perv."

"Come on, Pollyanna, you expected me to be the only one getting wet over you? Face it, you're attractive."

"Aw, man!" I really wanted to get back to figuring out the Dean and Lane thing, but damned Paris had to distract me. "Also, I don't think I want to know how Jess imagines us."

"Better that than 'damn it, she stole my future cousin from me.'"

"Don't remind me. God, that kiss was all kinds of awkward." I smiled. "Plus I had you on my mind too, which didn't help that much."

"Hold on a moment!" She almost seemed to squeal at my awkward confession. "I called to tell you we won, you're kissing that boy and you have me on your mind?"

"It was completely G-rated, I assure you!" I tried to assert that was the truth, only to fail miserably at her glance. "OK, maybe, PG-13? You were sweating out the results literally and I was drawn in and the scent was taunting my nose and somehow my mind was like 'oh let's kiss Jess, see how that feels and damn it it's awkward because Par and thoughts of how to celebrate were still in my frontal lobe!'"

"See, I knew it! You weren't just my VP out of obligation, you were drawn to me." Her tone was almost teasing, fully victorious. Her laugh filled the small confines of the car and I blushed violently as her hand brushed against my thigh. "You were hoping to go to Washington to test out this 'Paris is cute' hypothesis throughout the summer, weren't you?"

"Well...I..." Time for another confession, this time much lighter. "After Sherrie and that one scary thought when you shoved Brad into the locker that I wished you did it to me, I did begin to feel that pull and...." I grimaced. "I knew there wasn't going to be anything happening in D.C., but yeah, I wanted to see if I could survive a summer with you unwittingly before I began a sexual pursuit of you." I felt heated. "Also, I didn't want you to be disappointed in me. Again. After I screwed up the victory invitation...I had to make you happy."

She took in my words, nodding and then giving me a knowing smile in return. It took her a minute to respond before she moved in for a loving kiss, thankful for the privacy glass as she let her lips linger on mine for a minute or so before a slow release. A small moan emanated from her throat as she pulled back, keeping that slight hold on my thigh.

"I'm sorry I'm running both hot and cold today. But it was heartening to hear how much I mean to you, even when you're sucking face with Rebel Boy." Her deep browns were clear in my eyesight and I knew that this was the right thing to tell her at that moment, rather than linger on the ridiculous notion of Sharon getting her back. I couldn't let her think of that, at all.

"I'm sorry I was a massive bitch to Mads today," I responded back. "I guess...I am officially that girl. The one who defends you, hell or high water."

"It's a nice thing to know. Especially in therapy today; thanks for just listening and taking it all in."

"Always." I began to feel the tension build up, the one that I really didn't need at this time of day, and where we were, in the parking lot of a Tuesday Morning. "Par?"

"Hmm?"

"You move those fingers up any higher," I gasped, "I'm gonna grab your hand and force it up my panties."

That got her to quickly slide the hand off my thigh with a scoff. "Unbelievable. **That** gets you hot, just my touching your thigh?"

I shook my head, my voice filled with lust. "God, no. Just looking at you right now is getting me turned on."

"Beaten up and on crutches?" She shook her head.

"Not at all...just the thought of being able to call you mine," I intoned. A tinge of possessiveness tugged at me. "We went through hell today, but it lead to heaven with you."

OK, that might have been a bit much, as I got the eyeroll from that line, but it still made Paris bite to direct the conversation elsewhere, avoiding a public indecency charge.

"I just wanted to say again that I'm thankful I can tell you things, even if they end up hurting."

"You mean Louise?" I shook my head. "I'm madder that you didn't tell anyone you were both beaten for that find-out than anything you two did that summer." I looked down at my fingers as I tried to hold back the anger that I felt about Sharon. "I know you and she have had a tough time lately, and now I know why."

"But I'm always going to love a small part of her. You know that."

"I do, just like that shrinking part of my heart still yearns for Dean. He was my first relationship, the dip in the water. Louise was yours but until today, you had it on good terms. I promise you though, I don't want you and her to be in the past tense. I want you two to reconcile your friendship and I refuse to be in your way at all. Unless she does something physical, I'm neutral in all this and just want you happy again."

"You...you really mean that?" Her voice rose slightly. "Even though?"

It was the truth; all the anger was gone that she hid it from me. "I hold all my trust in you," I said, looking up. "I wouldn't have risked taking on Mr. Mercurio today if there was a doubt in my mind this was the wrong thing."

She grimaced. "Still suicidal though."

"But we're out of that class now, never to read those long tomes again. It was worth it."

"Well, when you put it that way." A small laugh, and then a quick stolen kiss. "You know what we can do in that hour on independent study now, right?"

"Study up for our other classes?" Oh boy, there was the knowing smile.

"We can study, sure. But I'm looking forward more to massages with...fewer layers. Deeper, more relaxing." Her breath fluttered against my mouth.

"Private study room with the shade drawn?" A nod, and I shuddered. "I'm wound up enough getting through your sweater and blouse."

"You do have to make it up to me later tonight," she intoned as her voice filled with lust. "After we get this airbed together, we should probably test it for sturdiness."

"Oh...definitely." I wanted to avert my gaze, but it was proving hard as I imagined my girlfriend beneath my hands, stark and bare. Judging from Mom though, we had a couple of obstacles to get over before we could even think of relaxing massages.

"Let's get the Dean situation over with," she said, right on my wavelength. "The less I have to deal with that cheating bastard, the better I'll feel."

I can admit easily that I am worried about his reaction, since Dean isn't exactly the paragon of patience, and holding this back for so long? I could easily be in the wrong here.

At least I know Luke and Jess are on my side. Even if one of them is trying to deal with a gay me, and the other...

Yeah, again, I don't want to think about Jess or Shane or their reactions. Paris has me wound up enough herself!  


* * *

I knew this wasn't one of the best ideas ever. I should have just gone right home.

But it's all done. It's done, thank God, and hopefully I'll begin to see the last two years sexually as just the sexual equivalent of the Patriots exhibition season, as they stomp all over the Lions or...that's really the only 'this team is bad' comparison I have. Not much of a football fan.

I'm beyond tense; I'm feeling like anyone except Paris, Madeline, Brad and Mom on this entire day were conspiring to take me down, make me give up and cry uncle. I could have avoided the market easily, just sent Mom to get things.

But then he would've just went off on her. No, this was my life, my decision. I found out I was attracted to women and tried to let Dean down easily even with all he did beforehand, so I had to do all of this, and it was hard.

Much harder than I thought.

We needed to buy Paris her special soy milk, which she missed to a point that made my want of coffee seem slight in comparison. Her brand is sold in smaller markets, so Shop-Rite wouldn't work.

Taylor stocked it and Mom bought it for Paris's Thursday nights. But we were now out, so the trip was needed, no matter how much we dreaded being in there.

I parked the car, helped Paris out onto her crutches and we headed into the market, hopeful that there wouldn't be a confrontation. My fingers were crossed that he was on a break in the back and we both could get out unscathed.

Actually, that's how it worked out, at first. We came in the market and began to head towards the back...

"Young lady."

 _Oh, crap_. There was Taylor at the register, his eyes directed at the both of us.

His greeting was directed at Paris.

_Double crap._

__"I would like to talk to you about some news I happened to hear this afternoon from East Side Tilly."

She looked confused. "Who is East Side Tilly?" Not a surprise, but I was at least a bit relieved it was her who was doing the gossip mongering, and not Babette. Certainly not Miss Patty, who managed to keep my confidence for so long.

"I...I'm going to go get the milk." I knew it was best to let Taylor rant out, and Par nervously agreed with me, taking the brunt of Taylor for me.

I listened to the conversation as I made my way towards the dairy case, the blaring Christmas music stuffing out parts of the conversation.

"I would like to say--"

"What? I'm not sorry I won that contest with Rory, sir. You put me through a torturous night of dancing."

"But to have a romance with her? You realize that she has no experience or role model to pair with having a relationship with you?"

I leaned in closer as I headed down the small aisle, away from the music speaker above it.

"I do not have to answer to you, or this town. You cannot outlaw our relationship, nor force me out."

"I wasn't saying that--"

"You just questioned if I had good intentions or intended to ruin her life and this town's! Frankly, Rory's private is absolutely none of your business!"

"It is when she's this town's biggest hope--"

I heard her voice raise. "Let's just lay it down here, pal; I'm her girlfriend. I'm doing nothing illegal, you're not going to call a town meeting, pillory me, carry milk cans, or make me bale hay or whatever you folks need me to do to prove my virtue to her. I'm here until I can go home again and you have no legal authority to stop me from doing whatever I want with Rory. Understand that, sir."

"Miss Gellar, I am not questioning anything, I'm just concerned--"

"For God's sake, I know! I know I will face a damned pitchfork mob if I break her heart! I will not do that! Now leave me the heck alone, let me get my milk and accept my money--"

"Is there a problem here?"

I grabbed the milk just as I heard another voice come in the conversation.

"Oh, shit." I didn't want to curse in Doose's, but that was the point that my ex decided it was time to interject in. I tried to race down the aisle but stayed distant, knowing Paris could get this one.

"As long as you have paper bags, I see no problem," she responded. "Rory's picking up soy milk, Chicken in a Biskit and pantyhose for me. Oh, and a box of ob." A pause, and a definite bite to her voice which suggested Dean was beneath her, which I'll admit made me swoon.

She scoffed, as if dealing with a 'rube from the sticks', even though Dean was from Chicago's North Shore. "I'm sure you've purchased your ex-girlfriend tampons if she desperately needed them in the past as the love of her life."

I was relieved to spend a little more time in the back of the store, and snorted as I remembered the one time I asked him to make a feminine needs run during a heavy period which he absolutely refused to do; I ended up having to swipe one of Mom's maxi pads and make the trip over myself even with my extreme loathing of them.

"Well I have a problem with you," he responded back as I hoped I picked the right hosiery color from the No Nonsense display. "You convinced Rory to dump me so you could sway her to fall in love with you."

"She's in the store here and can hear you."

"Good, I want her to hear me." _God, I loved that whiny voice once upon a time. Why?!_ I was exasperated as I found her oddball cracker indulgence that tasted like neither chicken nor biscuits. "She was wrong to let me go."

"Oh, I think she was just right in her decision. She made it on her own and had her own agency in choosing to do so."

"She's not a part of the FBI."

 _You're kidding me. You don't know what that means?!_ I screamed internally, before forgetting this was Dean who said it.

"OK, if you didn't understand; she chose to break it off from you. I didn't care if she did or not before that first time we kissed. I didn't even say I had a crush on her; she made every single move, you simpleton."

"According to your mom you acted like a wanton slut." Welp, so much for Dean not going below the belt. "You begged for her to dump me so you could brainwash her with whatever you call sex and take away Harvard from her."

"Again, you realize Rory is here, right?" Paris wasn't going to give him the rope he was gladly providing himself. "She knows what she did and she can respond to every one of your accusations."

"But what about your poor mother?"

"My poor mother?!" She scoffed loudly. "I'm on crutches, you dimwit! She nearly choked me to death!"

"Well, maybe you deserved it. Mothers do know best." It was taking everything I could not to knee him in the crotch as he intentionally tried to piss Paris off. I knew he was saying this to try to anger her. Still, I knew she could face this down.

"Are you listening to yourself? Again, I never interfered for a moment with your relationship." Taylor headed towards me.

"I told him to just stay quiet, but he didn't listen," he whispered to me. "Sorry about the questioning Rory, I just--"

"I know, Taylor." I knew he meant no harm and just was playing concerned townie, a test Paris passed easily. "I'm not mad at you."

"I just have to talk to the checkout girl on break over there," he said, pointing towards Heather Hawley near the produce case. I nodded and let him go, as Paris and Joe Fournier who was at the checkstand, hoped bluster was his only move.

Sadly, it wasn't to be.

"Never interfered in my relationship? Remember March, when you got all whiny about your stupid A- and asked Rory to tutor you? When you said you were there to meet Jess?"

"Again, no interference."

"You're an idiot! You definitely did interfere by being there!"

Well, this was getting interesting. I wanted to hear what was next.

"I wanted help from my best friend, that's all."

"And because of that I couldn't do anything with my own girlfriend."

"There was a whole couch in there for you two to cuddle--"

"You know exactly what I mean," he cried. "If not for you, I--"

And that's when I had to move in. I raced to the front, threw the items on the belt and tried to hold back my anger at exactly what I knew he was getting at.

"I was definitely not in the mood at all," I hissed out. "How many times that week did I say I was looking forward to being alone?"

His glance directed my way.

"Come off it, you had planned that night off--"

"To do laundry and eat Indian food, which definitely isn't the sexist food ever!" I argued. "At that I was right in the middle of my cycle so there was absolutely no way I was doing...that!"

Paris laughed. "You really thought you were going to get it? Did you not notice the big-ass pajamas and how much food she had?! I'm no lady's woman but even I wouldn't have made a move on Ror that night!"

Despite how big a hole he had dug, Dean still tried to gain some ground. "It's not funny!" Paris continued to laugh and I had a smile myself.

"Oh, but it is because you went caveman on Jess when nobody would have been interested in me that night!"

"So, I read wrong?!" He said, offended.

"You were reading the wrong book! I was ready for you so many different times but you didn't even look at me."

"But why go lesbian?"

With a scoff, I attempted to end the conversation. "I'm not talking about this anymore except to tell you this; you snooze, you lose!"

"Well excuse me for missing the signs of your horniness!" Joe almost flung the scanned crackers across the checkstand into the front shop window hearing that. Paris pinched her temples in embarrassment.

"For the love of everything, please stop now, you idiot."

"And why not tell me? You could've just told me--"

And that's when I had to interject. "Oh yes, judging from Todd's garage filled with about seven year's worth of _Maxim_ , _Hustler_ and _Low Rider_ posters, I could have told you I was done because I'm gay because you'd totally take that well. Or tell me that I should've gone with Madeline instead because in your eyes she's hotter." I threw up my hands and brought out the nuclear option.

"Besides," I responded, feeling absolutely smug, high and mighty, "you seemed pretty satisfied with stroking it to Beth's dirty talk anyways."

Joe dropped the milk carton onto the scanner, where it dully rang up and barely kept together. He shoved it to Dean, who haphazardly threw it in the paper bag without a care in the world.

"You--"

I nodded. "I did, 'Deanie-Weanie'." I put on my best smile. "Next time, learn how to sign off your IM application. Not that it matters; I was intending to take the high ground but you're going with the 'Paris is a bitch' track I expected. I knew for weeks before I ended with you, expecting you to turn it around. Didn't happen." Joe totaled up the groceries as Paris attempted to hand over her debit card to him.

That's when Dean made a fatal move, grabbing at Paris's hand and attempting to pull her towards him. She dropped her crutches to the ground and almost fell; I had to quickly maneuver to keep her steady.

"HEY! Keep your hands off me, dickhead!"

"No, I'm going to fight for Rory!" he said desperately. "This is just a silly little phase for her!" Paris tried to pull away but his grip was...

"Get your hands off her now!" I cried. "Her wrist is hurting and very sensitive!"

"Not until she tells me this is just a plan to beat you at Chilton and literally screw you out of your dream school!"

"It isn't!" She began to hiss. "Please," she pleaded. "PLEASE!" He grasped it tighter. She began to struggle as I damned well knew Sharon flashbacks were flooding her mind. "Don't do this!" She panted as he tried to twist her arm and I got scared.

"Knock it off, dude!" Joe attempted to make a go at him but was shoved off to the side.

"Take my girl, brainwash her. You might be smart but you're really stupid!"

"Dean, stop it!" His eyes turned towards me.

"No, not until you decide to stop being a dyke, this isn't you Rory!"

I could hear Heather and Taylor coming back towards the front; there was no way they had a chance to get here that fast. Not with Paris crying out in pain.

"Let her go, now!" I raised up my hand and made a defensive move towards him, feeling stupid I didn't have my safety mace on me.

"I didn't cheat! Beth was just sending me naughty messages I didn't respond to!" He began to Indian burn her arm to the extreme and I knew one more wrong move and that tender wrist of hers would snap with his strength.

I grit my teeth, took in a deep breath, closed my eyes and...

I don't believe I did it, but I swept my left leg up, and let him have it! I seethed as I finally let it all out.

"THERE WAS A PICTURE OF YOUR HAND ON YOUR DICK IN THE CONVERSATION, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" I had blanked it out because I didn't want it to be true, but it was. I deluded myself a few more weeks after seeing what I could easily report as child porn out of revenge, but didn't out of the goodness of my heart.

It's gone. Paris collapsed to the ground taking back her wrist immediately and favoring her right side as Dean howled in pain, everyone looking at him in shame from my confession. It was all out there now, the second most important reason for ending it with him. I didn't want to have it end this way, nor did I want us to end this badly. Thank God Heather and Taylor got there just in time.

Dean got up with his face red and tried to make a lunge at me, grabbing my blouse, which popped a few buttons. It was then that Miss Patty happened to enter the store out of the corner of my eye.

"Shut up, I did nothing wrong, now you're gonna be sorry!" I expected the worst as I cried out for help.

Miss Patty quickly got behind Dean and grabbed him beneath his arms before restraining them behind his back. Heather still had her broomstick on her and took a hard whack at his shins to trip him down. As they both took him to the ground, Taylor ran around the register to put his foot down at his back to subdue him completely. Paris and I panted in a heap on the floor, the both of us shaken, but still feeling overwhelmingly powerful.

"Stay the hell down," Heather said roughly as she motioned for Joe to grab some duct tape beneath the register. Taylor looked up as us, both frightened and concerned for our well-being.

"You girls OK?" We nodded, catatonic as yet another come-out went violent.

"I'm getting real sick of this," Paris whispered between sobs. "I didn't--"

"You didn't," I assured her. "You didn't do anything wrong." After tossing over the tape so Heather could bring Dean's hands together while Miss Patty kept his legs down, Joe grabbed the phone to call 911.

"Ex-boyfriend just tried to lunge at a customer and her girlfriend, we stopped him. Yeah, they're shaken up...an EMT?" I was unsure but Paris nodded her head furiously, hoping her wrist and hip took no more damage. We both backed away towards the service desk in the corner where Heather gave us some water as Taylor expressed his disappointment with a boy he thought could take over the market someday, doling out a strong oratory towards his now former stockboy.

"Absolutely inappropriate. Not only attacking Paris, but trying to assault Rory? I'm going to see to it you're going to have to cross several state lines to ever be employed again, young man!" He severely reprimanded him. "And you can expect me to rush through any protection order these girls might need using my government powers; you get within 1000 feet of them, you will be sorry!"

He cursed at his boss as Miss Patty sat down next to us after being reassured by Taylor and Joe that they had him in hand.

"Girls, I--"

I was still in a panic. "I know, Sharon decided to try to stir crap up, you didn't say anything. She's been at it since Saturday morning." I looked towards Paris, in a ball. "I'm just glad this is over."

"I know." Concerned with Paris, she opened up her arms, which Paris slowly took as a sign Patty wanted a hug. She accepted the offer graciously, though trembling. "Thanks for getting behind, I don't think Taylor would have been able to stop him, even with Heather and Joe."

She held Paris close. "I was appalled with all that heinous woman had to say about Paris, her own flesh and blood. Your mother witnessed it all and Babette had to hold her back from shoving a high heel high up her nose." I wrapped my jacket around me, feeling emotional.

"I'm sorry, I thought--"

"I had a feeling this would happen and I kept watch across the street. I had to hold back Jess and Luke from coming in and turning this into a Wild West scene."

Speaking of the devil, both of them entered the market at the same time. Jess looked down at his mortal enemy and resisted the urge to kick Dean while he was down, going with sarcasm instead.

"Sad scene here." He looked at Dean for a moment with that cocky little smirk of his, earning a glare back. He decided silence was best as Dean getting his ass kicked by me was much better payback than anything he could've said.

Luke came towards me and before I could react had me in a bear hug.

"I saw everything through the window, I thought he was going to hurt you both!" I felt the scruff of his beard on my face and began to cry.

"I'm alright, Luke, seriously, I'm fine. I...I'm fine." I took in deep and shallow breaths, realizing that we both could be in the hospital right now. I held his head at the back of his cap, feeling so much comfort.

"I'm sorry I was scared to come out to you."

"Don't ever be," he said, gruffly being that father figure I needed in this moment. "This town is going to defend you and that girl or there'll be hell to pay, I mean it." I let out sobs of relief as both of us felt the love of a town we were scared was going to shun us. I glanced to see Taylor, ever the perfectionist, inventory the damaged rack of bagged candy on the floor, along with a _Courant_ and magazine rack, shaking his head.

"The distributor's going to have my head on this," he said as Paris let go of Miss Patty, immediately concerned about his fiscal well-being. "I just bought this hardware a few months ago."

"How much?" she said, reaching for her messenger bag.

"Paris." I quickly stopped her. "Insurance has come to small towns; Taylor will be fine." I smiled at her as Luke and Jess surveyed Dean with Heather and Joe. "You really don't have to get out your checkbook for every little bit of damage."

"But I want to help--"

"I know. If he needs your help he'll ask, but we have other things to deal with now."

"Yeah." Paris and Luke shared an uneasy glance, her red-rimmed eyes pained with a fear of another person not accepting her. "Please tell me I'm not banned from the diner for defiling Rory's virtue."

He was irritated for a moment, but then blushed. "Aww, geeze..." He took off his cap and spun it around in his hand. "You will be if you ever use the word 'defilement' again," he joked, shaking his head. "Seriously, just treat her well and we'll be fine, and no more calling my place a bordello?"

"I thought we were expanding, Uncle Luke!" Jess grabbed a bottle of Pepsi from a cooler to a cold stare from his uncle. "What? Gotta admit, Smartie here's a lot better than this dolt." He looked down at Dean, who just gave up and counted the minutes until the police got him; so many witnesses would prove he couldn't get out of this.

"Jess," she said, finally relaxing. "I think as long as you provide me wintergreen tea, I'll overlook any illegal activities your uncle here might have." Another glare. "Of which there are none." Luke grouched for a moment before facing her again, taking the jibing well.

"Just...take care of her. And don't let Lorelai use you to get more coffee, I'm onto her."

"I'm sure you are." Paris left that hanging as a policewoman and her male partner came in to examine the scene, along with an EMT who went right to Paris.

Dean tried to cut ahead of her. "Hey, I got my balls bashed in--"

"You did not," I said wearily. "I didn't kick that far in." I hesitated, knowing that Mom was going to be even more protective of us in the next few weeks.

The EMT examined Paris carefully, putting her through an entire battery of tests to make sure everything was working fine. She suggested that she wear a wrist support until everything healed up, and Taylor happily offered one he had in the health aisle for free to us (along with the rest of our purchases), and outside of more bruising on her hip, she was good to go, and so was I as Officer Krueger took down our statements, but not before Taylor quickly put out a 'help wanted' sign, while Paris was just worn out from all the physicalities she had gone through in this short and wearing process.  
   
"Great," Paris said, shaking her head. "I went from never having involvement with the legal system to having two cases of assault to deal with and my damned mother trying to Rapunzel me back into her clutches via family court."

"We'll make it easy on you, hon," Miss Patty promised, "you're definitely not alone here."

"I'm just tired of being hurt, emotionally and physically. And I'd love to take a day off, but I'm stubborn."

"Tomorrow will be fine," I said, moving close and setting her hand on my back. I moved in close to speak intimately. "When we get home we're going to talk to Mom, then we'll pump up your new bed and I'll give you a sorely-needed massage."

"Can I wear your shirt?" she whispered. "The big Harvard tee t I've seen you in which bares your shoulder and smells like you?"

"Whatever you want, Par-Bear." I forgot we were in public, but she completely shrugged off the drop of the pet name. "I promised you I would defend you if it killed me. Nobody's allowed to hurt you, ever."

"Ror..." she brought me close in. "I'm sorry if this is causing your life to fall apart."

I shook my head, grasping her tightly. "It's only coming together, I promise you. Coming together, not apart." I kissed and nuzzled her shoulder. "We're learning whose there for us, and we gotta good circle, hon. You're no longer alone."

I want to believe that, even as I've lost very important people. And I'm not even going to go near Lane's, lest Mrs. Kim do something like toss holy water at me or something. I know I've screwed up on plenty of things today, and Paris did too, but we also did a lot of good. Especially after our appointment with Birnbaum I certainly knew that even with all the pain we're going through in this hellish process, a lot of good is coming out of it too.

I think being with Paris saved me too; imagine me being in the wrong place and wrong time as Dean and Todd maybe toked up. No Harvard for me there!

Plus it felt really good to get him right in the jewels, what little there were. I'm going to giggle every time I remember doing that for the rest of my life, and Paris gives me a funny look as she knows that's what I'm thinking.

"You are immature, Gilmore," she said disapprovingly.

I stuck out my tongue in response. "You're not the one who had to look at pictures of their intimate parts without any warning. Or actually hold it." I winced, still in denial I had ever let him off manually.

That very image made her gag. "On the other hand...." Her eyes went wide and she shook her head. "Feel free to laugh about it all you want."

"Trust me, I'm glad I never have to experience it again." I felt a little more relaxed, and even though there is the definite possibility Paris could be sent back to Sharon tomorrow, it's in the back of my mind because we have everything talked out, the worst of the outing is over, and there's only a few days before winter break.

I'd rather have this, with Dean gone forever, than still being stuck with him as he tries to woo Beth behind my back...  


* * *

****  
Paris's POV, 10:30 p.m.

There's only been a few times in my life where I've completely felt out of my body.

Not in the way I've been lately, where my damned wrist has suddenly become my personal Achilles point and I just want to get out of the way of the negative thoughts of hurt drowning me.

This time, I am relaxed, at ease with myself, mind turned off, all my worries melting away in a fog of a lack of self-awareness where I'm only focused on how I feel and how I can carry that through.

Tension building up through the day is about to be released. I'm not paying mind to any medical advice and I have control of my fate as the small fingers of my girlfriend trail around my spinal column, along the curve of my ass and try to help my body focus off the bruises I suffered earlier at Doose's.

I want this all to be over, just need it to go away. But there's a few more steps before that's going to happen. The first is trying to settle into life with Lorelai, who welcomed me home with a hug I tried to shake myself out of, rather unsuccessfully. The tall woman shook her head as she took in my condition while Rory brought in the boxed air bed.

"It sucks that wasting the hot water wasn't the worst moment of the day." I grimaced as Rory's mother just held me there, a slight woman just needing everything to go right. "And that it wasn't the worst in mine."

"My mother sucks, doesn't she?" I mumbled.

"She sucked when she dissed you for going to the Bangles, and she sucks even worse now." She helped guide me to the couch, where I fell into a thankful heap against a perfectly-placed throw pillow.

"What exactly happened?" I wondered.

"She came in, called me by name, and attempted to pull a soap opera maneuver to get me into a catfight," Lorelai said, hissing out the words. "I don't usually swear in public the way I did to her, but she was just throwing all this stuff at me and insulting Rory and it got to me. I didn't care what she said to me, but it was what Rory got that boiled my blood." I noticed she was still in her work blouse, wrinkled up, while her skirt had a longer slit that when Lorelai left this morning. I gasped.

"I'm so sorry. Was the tearing from--"

"Not from her. I had to duck behind Luke's counter when she grabbed a customer's dishware and began to hurl it towards me. Professional skirts aren't known for having the same properties as yoga pants, you know." She growled. "She basically threatened to get some high-powered politician to get the health authority to condemn the Inn and arrest me on trumped up charges, which just sounded insane, and Luke...poor Luke. He didn't expect any of this lunacy at all."

Rory came back into the room, the torn blouse gone and...

I had to bite my lip. The sneak stole one of my maroon tank tops!

Not complaining, mind you, but on me it was tight. On her? Jennifer Beals, move over with your bare-shouldered self!

"I'm sorry about Paris's mom." Lorelai snorted at the assumption Rory had to even entertain an apology.

"Kiddo, she was out for blood; the police found her with a Nordstrom's credit card improvised into a shiv. Thank God she never got close to using it."

"I've had enough of this day," Rory said. "Louise lashed out, I almost get expelled, Sharon and Dean get violent."

"Luke called me as you were on your way home. I can't believe that jerk would try to hurt Paris like that!"

"I'm mad at myself for sticking to my guns and going in there anyways. At least he'll be the butt of jokes at the school tomorrow, if he ever goes back. Just took a whole lot of stress of Jess."

"Might be good for him. No enemy, no reason to slack off except Shane, and well...teenagers being teenagers." Lorelai laughed as Rory slid next to me on the couch, stretching her arm around my back. She looked at the both of us, and then towards the wrinkled summons on the coffee table.

"She tossed that at me before the attempt to 'old lady at McDonald's' my flesh with coffee. I can't believe I actually have to go and defend my non-record of interaction with the DCF just to keep you here. It's a few freaking days and you're 18. You don't have to care about the rule of the court. Yet they still are allowing this."

"It's not surprising because she wants to dry my father out of money through any means possible. He just can't ignore something like this or I do have to go back to her by default. I really don't want to." I was stricken with rage and hurt. "I've taken enough damage over the last three days and I've just had enough." Rory slid her fingers along the small of my back. "Please don't hold back, Lorelai."

"I wouldn't think of it, hon. I'll be there fighting for you tomorrow and if it comes down to getting you somewhere to hide, I'm sure your dad has that covered too, and I'm sure your nanny and driver will be there in the gallery rooting us on. You're down to eight days and I'm sure you have your Chilton emancipation on the ready, right?"

"Just have to sign it, but I can't turn it in until--"

"Your dad will run it right to Charleston at his home on Christmas and it'll be swiftly approved, his guarantee." I felt my heart stutter. "He called him tonight after I told him what happened here and the man's had enough. Sharon's not only banned from the Chilton campus, but Bitty's doing her damndest to blacklist her from society life altogether. DCW hasn't lifted a finger yet, but I can tell you their New Year's ball is in danger of being hosted at the AMF bowling alley if they don't take action soon."

I shook my head. "This is..." I shivered, wondering why I hadn't even thought of tapping into this well of caring long beforehand. "I thought everyone was going to hate Rory and I. I held these feelings back for so long and...and I'm finding support. I can't believe it." I leaned my head against Rory's shoulder, her touch giving me so much comfort. "And this town...Miss Patty went right to my aid and the rest of the kids in the market, Jess and Luke too."

Lorelai nodded. "Harry says your relatives on his side heard the news too and have been nothing but supportive. A few were saying it was about time you broke free and I know you aren't close to them, but you have so many people who care for you. And even though I know Louise is being cold to you, she's gonna come around. You always have to hold that hope close to you." I didn't tell her anything about what I told Rory in therapy beyond the basics, but it was enough.

Still, I needed to turn the topic around. "But...Lane. When you said Mrs. Kim pretty much shunned you off. She can't really do that, can she?"

"Strict Seventh-Day Adventist. She's probably grilling her to make sure Rory never expressed an interest in her."

"Good luck with that," Rory said, worried. "There was never any moment. Not even a try at kissing or playing house with me as the husband. I honest to God have never had designs on her. I hope she knows that." She bit her lip. "I'm worried more she thinks Paris is a replacement, a window into becoming a boring member of society."

"Not going to happen," I said firmly through my scared voice. "If I **ever** become Sharon, I give you permission to shake me out of it." My mind spun various ways to get Lane alone and tell her how I felt for Rory and how I did not intend to interfere, and I know during winter break it's going to have to occur. I don't know how or when, but I want it clear that I'm taking Rory with Lane, and Lane should be a part of my life, bitterly religious or not.

All of us continued to talk as I expressed more about the abuse I suffered with Sharon, to Lorelai's shock and fear. My father later called to tell me Dr. Birnbaum and Dr. Merton were dropping everything to be in line to testify that I shouldn't have to go back to Sharon, and Madeline did so too to catch up on the day in more detail than her earlier call with Rory listening in. I isolated myself in the sewing room in order to tell her about the session from earlier, and in a matter of weeks Mads has done a complete 180°.

"She abused Louise too?"

"Mm-hmm."

"No wonder she lashed out like she did; it wasn't towards you, but losing the security blanket. It opened a wound that festered in your friendship for a long time." She took in a deep breath. "She banned me from the Grant estate and when I tried to text her earlier I found out she changed her number; it wouldn't go through."

"Oh, God." I tightened my fist, feeling sad about it all. "There's something more going on. We would've fought this out and had a volley of words and snark, Mads. Not this time. She got out her piece and left me to pick up the pieces."

I looked up at the ceiling. "It's not just my coming out that's affecting her. Something is deeply hurting her. It's happened--"

"Since we came back from fall break," Madeline finished. A pause. "Paris, you remember the scare?"

"You don't think she did, did you?" I didn't want it to be true. "There's just no way that she ended up doing that again." I parsed my words carefully, because I didn't think of Louise having low intelligence.

"I just don't know. We barely talked since then, and that's not even accounting for Brad and me. My door is always open to her." A sigh. "I am going to try to find out."

"But I don't want you to be hurt. You've been closer to her than I have since Sharon found us. If she isolates us both, it's over. We're permanently losing a leg of this friendship we've held for years and years."

Madeline was solemn about how she saw things. "I really do think she's at home, hurting like hell and not knowing what to do, just like you. She's lost, because she saw the hope you'd come around one day, but the reality is there and you fell for Rory and it's massive to her. She was scared shitless when Sharon beat her and she's held that in for four long years and whatever's been making her sour, it's not been helping." I heard her tone soften, tears obvious in her voice. "We're not the Chilton Three without her, and as much as I hate to say it, Rory is not a replacement."

"It's honest. She isn't. Her life is good and even with all this support and everyone trying to defend me from Dean tonight, I still need that normalcy. I need Louise calling me a bitch in a completely harmless way and feeling kind of the way we did when Rory came to Chilton. Less the 'I'm going to utterly destroy you' part."

"I hope so. And to tell you the truth, I don't think she's mad about Brad at all. Even he said so; he expected more rage from her but it was just subdued."

"I sensed that too." I cricked my neck, feeling in pain. "I'm not usually into heavy religion, but pray for me tonight. If I have to go back to the Manor and face her, I don't know how I'll deal."

"That bridge won't be crossed," Madeline promised to me, just like Ms. Gilmore. "You hang in there, Par and let Rory calm you down. And tomorrow at school is going to be better. It's all out, you have Mercurio out the door and now you just have to face down Francie at the last student government meeting before break. Take it out on her, all on her. She's going to get nasty and you just need to channel all that rage you feel towards your mom, Dean and Rory's dad towards her."

"Not _Carrie_ rage, I hope. I'm not good with pig's blood or whatever they used in that sequel with her look-a-like a few years back."

"Rage with words. Fighting for your and Rory's reputation. We need you there to finish the term as student body president, especially the RTS. I would quit if you were forced out, and I'm sure I can get a few more to do the same." I felt my strength return. "I love you, Par, especially now that you're more relaxed and happy being with Rory. And yes, the month in isolation was exactly what you needed to make sure this was iron-tight. But now, you're out. You need to go into that meeting tomorrow and the _Franklin_ and remind them you're Paris Fucking Gellar and you won't be pushed around. You have scars, but right now they're building character. Many fear you, and many want to be you. That's who you are. All you do is love another woman now, so what is it their business what you're doing in the bedroom?"

The way Madeline said it made me feel almost primal, like it was time to stop my sulking and self-pity. I had to prove I was all in on this, and that nobody was going to stop me.

She was right, I couldn't just back down and retract. Being the way I am got me through life, so many obstacles. Without finding sarcasm, I'd probably be washed out waiting for Bowman to pitch fucking woo towards me and become his idiotic trophy wife. When my mother motioned across her throat while I was in the ICU, I wasn't goddamned scared. Not for a minute. My brain patterns read 'it's going to take more than 100 mph into a barrier to shut this life down, bitch'.

I'm not done. I'm far from done. Things are talked out, plans have been made. Whatever the fuck my mother wants to do with me, I have to defend myself, and Rory. If she wanted a wilting flower, there are many other girls in that school.

But she chose me, ride or die. I have to fulfill my end of the bargain. I have to be strong and not let anything stop me.

"You're damned right, Madeline," I said. "Sharon lowered my defenses and weakened me since then. I can't give up." I smirked. "My mother isn't going to get me down any longer."

"Or anyone else."

"Nobody else." I felt good. "This has been great."

"It has." Madeline felt much better about making this call. "I'll be blocking your space out tomorrow morning, by the way. It won't be swiped again."

"Thanks." I suddenly felt both powerful and...oh dear. "I...I think I have to go." I let my voice go light. "Rory took that top that makes me look good for bedroom wear."

"The maroon tank?"

"Mmm, yeah."

"Paris, is that an 'I don't care if I'm hurting' suggestion?"

"Might be." A pause. "It is."

"Go take advantage of Sharon making you lock Rory's bedroom door. And do kiss and tell."

"Bite me, Lynn." I laughed as I hung up the phone, knowing she wouldn't take the surface insult seriously. Feeling much better about myself after all these talks, I knew there was something I had to do...

"Paris, don't forget to shower! I don't want to be Chilly Willy in the morning!"

OK, two things I had to do; damned thimble-like water heater, but I was glad for Lorelai's teasing reminder. Rory had stepped out of the house to talk to Babbette and Morey about security and such while I took my shower, and by the time I got out I felt even better despite having to bag up my foot. I ended up in my blue silk pajama pants with Rory's Harvard shirt, and headed towards Rory's room to find my girlfriend had long finished that conversation, and finished up both blowing up my luxury air mattress with the included electric pump, along with making up the bed for me.

That shirt of mine still was taunting me, baring her right shoulder, along with hanging low enough to bare her cleavage to me. Her eyes were wide as she looked me up and down, bringing her knuckle close to her mouth.

"Good shower?" she cooed suggestively, patting the bed down.

"Really good," I responded. "Great talk with Madeline too."

"Close the door, all the way." A smirk. "Security, you know."

I nodded. "Yes, for 'security'." I shut the door softly until the closer clicked satisfyingly, along with the slide of the lock. I bent down towards her, whispering.

"The security of our coming screams being muffled by these walls." I ended up with a blush spreading on Rory's cheeks, bringing out her freckling full-force.  "I do feel really good right now."

"I know, you feel better after taking to Madeline. But as for actual security, Babbette's got everything handled and if your mother comes back, she won't get near the house."

"Is it wrong that I'm hoping for her to take a long vacation with the guy she has from Mohegan Sun to the Caribbean?"

She shrugged, dumping cold water on that very quickly with the reality. "Uhh...she kinda ruined the 'leaving the country' thing with your assault and the trespassing tonight. No sane judge is going to let her keep her passport."

"So we're stuck dealing with her in the state of Connecticut for awhile?"

"We are." She patted the mattress again. "You should've just got this one to begin with. It's so much better and very thick."

"Let me feel." I bent down gingerly and sat on the AeroBed next to Rory. Still not my bed by far, but compared to what the last one felt like, this was downright heavenly, thanks to the pillow top cushioning. "Yeah, I won't be tearing this apart in nightmares."

"You will not have nightmares tonight." She moved close, sliding her hand into mine. "And the day is over. We'll be looking at this one in the rearview now."

"I never want to go through any of this again. But I'm going to make one bold declaration."

Rory knitted her eyebrows together. "What's that?"

"If I wasn't on crutches I could've totally kicked Dean's ass." She gasped, but then thought about it for a moment.

"You know what? You could've. But now he's in the past, out of a job and now we just have to wonder if Beth is coming for Christmas so he can be embarrassed."

"What's funny to me though is he was more enraged that you chose me rather than our sexuality. He threw off the usual barbs but otherwise it was as caveman as he's always been. I claimed you, so now he has to beat me up." I sighed, troubled but not exactly surprised by any of it. "Not that the reasoning matters. Expecting civil conversation out of Dean is akin to expecting Arafat to suddenly think Israel's the bee's knees. He called Tristan 'Dristan' for goodness sake! I have a father who is among the top people in the pharmaceutical industry and even he forgot that product!"

"Paris?" She smiled. "You're stressed, aren't you? Too much on your mind?"

I demurred, realizing that I was just overthinking everything today. "Maybe a little."

"I think it's time for that massage." She slid off the bed so I could lay on it.

"You really don't mind?"

"Absolutely not." I watched her head towards the vanity to retrieve the bottle of Dove lotion atop of it. Unconsciously I let out what seemed to be a mewling sound at the sight of her rear in her Harvard sweatpants paired with my top. I still couldn't believe she had already swiped it; I hadn't even taken it out of my luggage yet. "Rory?"

"Hmm?" She came towards me as I lay down on the bed.

"Any certain reason you were going in my luggage and ended up wearing that?"

"I meant to tell you before, but you and Mom talked and then you got in a shower. I kind of let go of one of my dresser drawers and put your clothes in there."

Where I thought she had her own ulterior motives for stealing one article of clothing, I suddenly had an understanding why. She continued on as I felt stunned and speechless, looking at the large suitcase next to the closet emptied out and opened wide.

"I just don't want you to think you're just a guest on the way, living out of your suitcase. For now this is your home, and you should be treated as such. Like a roommate." She pointed towards the large drawer in the bottom of her dresser and opened it up. All of my afterschool clothes were logically laid out next to each other, followed by uniform skirts and underwear. She then moved to the closet, where she pointed out the space she had made for my blazers and sweaters, all hung on a row on the wooden hangers I kept them on.

"I know you want to keep things neat. Suitcases certainly aren't that, so I took your clothes out, along with your toiletries and organized everything. You didn't see your stuff on top of the dresser, for instance."

I did now. My antique hairbrush, passed through generations of my family, sat on the surface, along with my expensive hair supplies and my other beauty needs. "All that happened was when you were out of the room, I got distracted by the top, got a little wistful, and now I'm wearing it. " I nodded up at her. "So if you want me to take it off...I can." An audible wink seemed to come with that message.

"Uhhh, thank you." I hesitated for a moment before smiling up at her. "I really was content with working from my suitcase."

"I know, but this is kinda....it's making it not just a silly thing anymore, you know?" Rory held my hands. "Dean never came into this room unless the door was open. I couldn't and didn't ever want to make it that official because I was never ready and really, that cheap bracelet we threw in the river was my only 'official' sign for him. I was ready to make that call with you, because you've put all of your trust in me. I know you at your most awesome best and your sad and angering worst, and I can't really afford to make it official with jewelry, so in my way...you have a drawer and you should know you're always welcome in this room, day or night."

She bent down on her knee and I felt numb. I knew she wasn't going **that** far, but the statement she was making, it was deep enough to bring me to tears, again.

"Paris, will you take this drawer and make me the happiest girl?" I shook my head at the silliness and absurdity of the gesture, but it's just as damned good as a promise ring.

"Of course." We hugged, happily, finally, one thing right about this day.

 _I have my own drawer._ I shouldn't have been this excited about having a small dresser drawer, but it was seriously enough. I was aglow at being this far, this deep with Rory, and knowing that I would probably never be able to lose that drawer. It was all I needed; her acceptance of me as I was, rather than just the stereotypical bitch she expected to be stuck with her the rest of her life.

Our noses touched as I found her fingers moving beneath the hem of my...ahem, her shirt. She smirked at me and I felt that now-familiar surge of blood heading towards my sensitive tissue. She bit my lower lip with her teeth and released with a hard tug.

"Can't give you a massage with your shirt on," she husked, a finger sliding against my flesh. I panted, realizing her intentions with a murmur.

"You sure you want to do this?" I said.

"I am if you're up to it. If you're really sure you won't hurt." I shook my head, ready to wince when she hit a sore spot. Her fingers purposefully slid along my stomach, taking it in as she moved northward from there. She looked up at me, sensing something making me feel a bit shaken. "Umm, if your mom...in some bizarre circumstance, does somehow get you back. Is there something you want me to do?" I didn't know why she was bringing it up now, except for my being relaxed.

"It's not going to happen," I implored, firm in my belief.

"But say it does. Should we plan to stick it out somewhere until--"

"Rory." I wanted to keep her calm, focused on keeping these fears far away that are infinitesimal at coming true.  "If, and that's only if, my mother somehow barrels through a domestic violence charge, an assault charge, an attempted battery charge, disturbing the peace and anything else my staff, my father and Lorelai will state to the court tomorrow, we will figure out everything then. But not now. I'm just going to handle it the same way I do tomorrow; face up to it, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst."

"I just don't want to lose you." I could hear the small, afraid Rory coming back out as the strong front she's put on since she found out about Sharon began to dissipate. "I would never forgive the court if they did that to you."

"I'm out of harm's way, I promise you. I'm done putting myself in danger." I pecked her forehead. "I'm not going back for a second round with Dean, and though your dad doesn't want to cross my path I don't want to deal with him either." My resolve was firm. "The worst is out of the way. I'm bruised, but I'm here."

"I know...I know." I hated what all of this was doing to her, throwing her mood in all kinds of directions, but she had never known anything like this before. For someone going through all of this, Rory was damned powerful in making sure she was in control. She smiled softly, lifting up her shirt off of me, her eyes landing upon my healing neck, fingers caressing against the disturbed flesh. " **We** are here," she gasped out, heavy emphasis on the one word. "And you're still stirring up all of my emotions."

I nodded with a whimper as she slowly tipped me back on the mattress and I went with her motions to end up on my stomach. My head was against the pillow as she pulled aside my hair to have full access to my back. I sighed as I began to let all the tension from this entire convoluted day eke out from my person, closing my eyes and just taking in the senses of both the cool lotion being applied along my back and the circling and kneading motions Rory did to massage me.

Even with the little bit of area she could secretly cover in RN, she knows all my stress points too well. The top of my shoulders, stressed from my messenger bag and having to support my chest at almost all times, along with the underside of my arms, which I seem to clench together without my knowledge, fabric pressing against the sensitive skin to irritate it often. I could hear her shallow breathing, an assurance she was hardly neutral in this massage. I imagined her above me, struggling to keep her composure and heat pooling within her modesty, all the rules her mother set aside in the beginning nearly all eradicated. She could take this as far as she wanted to, and I trembled in the knowledge that one wayward finger could change the direction of this massage without as much as a warning.

In honesty, I could barely contain my excitement. The near-quickie at the breakfast table this morning still deeply apparent in my mind's eye, only my modesty keeping us from having it out right there. That I was edging Dr. Merton's advice was enough, but that I wanted more sexual pleasure from Rory. It's a good problem to have, but it's still sort of a problem.

The massage went further and I felt my mind blank, at ease. She really was not going to push me unless I encouraged her so I was left to be content in feeling all the stresses of this day melt away. My mind had stuck all day on Francie's directives to end me, the rape threats and wishes I was dead. No matter how rhetorical I did feel the latter were, they were out there and I did have to cope with them.

In this way, they felt distant. Rory's weight against the back of my legs. Her whispers of how she feels about me and that she wants me weak and knock-kneed at the sound of her voice.

I am. Her voice and her actions can pierce my heart like no other thing and I feel deeply loved and trusting of her.  The relaxation I felt was so needed that I ended up not needing any kind of release. I just eased into the mattress and let her guide me towards the rest I know I desperately need. Eventually we both disrobed and now she spoons against me, protective, completely ignoring her own bed to calm my soul and keep my mind away from the bad dreams.

Tomorrow is going to be another day that I'll want to forget, and even more so if somehow Sharon gets her way with the court. But at least Rory has proven to me through her actions, words and courage that I cannot give up on this love in any way. In my worst moments I have wanted to, but she's pulled me back to make us see another day.

I hope I get to see a few others after that...  


* * *

****  
Lorelai's POV, 11:30 p.m.

I've never lost custody of anyone. There hasn't been a moment where someone has brought me up on child neglect charges, even at my poorest and most stuck in the garden shed. Everyone has helped me take care of Rory and eventually there was no need for DCF to even look after me.

I haven't spent one food stamp in my life, taken WIC, or hurt Rory in any way. I could never bear to even lay a hand with her, a legacy that goes back to Trix. While everyone else wasn't sparing the rod, her experiences with punishment as a child influenced my father and my mother  to never do the same. I've been able to pass that on through to my daughter and never hit her.

And yet, here I was trying to figure out how the hell to tell a judge in Hartford family court that it would be silly to put Paris back with Sharon.

Fucking bitch. I can't believe she's pulling out this trump card even as she almost scalded me this afternoon. Her ugly words have echoed in my mind hours after that confrontation.

_"Admit it, bitch. You're a failure in life. You not only fucked up your own life, but your dyke daughter is fucking mine now in more ways than one."_

__I was strong in front of the officers and the community. But it took me ten minutes to call Rory because I was in tears, hurting because this cruel woman is trying to strip away the first happiness Paris has known in years; the first true love she's ever experienced.

It's only eight days. 192 hours that Sharon Gellar would have left to force her daughter to give up her ways. On the surface it looks absurd the state would even consider placing Paris back into a home situation where the woman who borne her is unbalanced and scary.

But it's the state, and they can be paid off. Even with Harold Gellar's attorneys on our side I know they're going to try to drag us through the mud; he informed me that he's making sure Paris's wonderful staff is coming armed with every single damned green card and immigration paper they can get their hands on so that an INS deportation defense can't be used to shame them shut.

I might be overreacting. I might be getting a judge who takes one look at the charges and finds it hilarious.

There are judges out there though. Ones who knew me and have spread gossip that I'm the shame of Hartford, taking in a new shame, and God forbid that mistake is repeated again.

I have to fight for Paris to stay, tooth and nail. The only thing I want to have to worry about the next eight days is about how my boiler can hold up to heavier shower use, not whether my daughter's girlfriend is on her way to Yale New Haven Med in critical condition.

I'm going to try to sleep, but until I know for sure I can keep Paris safe and secure, I don't think I'll truly rest...  


* * *

****  
Rory's POV, midnight

Paris is sleeping so much better tonight. I'm relieved for it as I hold her close, relaxed after my deep massage of her, spooning her close.

But while she can sleep, I cannot. I keep fearing this somehow might be my last night with her.

It might be an absurd thought and you're probably thinking I'm crazy. But I'm worried. Paris is still going to school tomorrow; that's inalienable. We don't have to attend her custody hearing.

But if I leave without her? I'll feel hurt. Because we've made so much progress today. I never expected to know her this deeply, so thoroughly.

I can't dwell on these thoughts, I know. Paris will fight any movement towards Sharon. I know she will; she's got a garage staff ready to go full-on _Cannonball Run_ to get her out of the state for the eight days if she needs to, and a nanny who thinks of her as a blood daughter.

God, if Sharon wins custody, I am not going to be happy, and that's putting it mildly.

I love this girl with everything I have, and I've shared more types of emotions with her in the last few weeks than anyone in my lifetime. I can't let her go, and I won't.

I want to relax, but after Paris fell asleep, a text hits my phone. I wonder who it is, and the name is familiar.

I hasten out a breath; it's Lane. A chain of messages follows, and I know for now there won't be a response.

But, there's hope.

_Rory,  
Heard abt u  & Paris. Can't say much bc Mama might hear these keytones. Sad you could not tell me. She decided we leave early 4 R trip 2 Torrance in the morning. We will talk on the 29th, but can't say anything now. Don't respond bc Mama. Lane_

__It's definitely vague. I cannot call her for obvious reasons. But Lane seeing her west coast family in Torrance, California over the holidays will give us cool-down time.

But I'm thankful to hear from her. Somehow, in some way. I'm sure she's grounded for the mere sin of associating with me and I don't know if this meeting will end with her asking me to go to some kind of conversion therapy, but it's definitely not a 'goodbye', but a 'see you later'.

At heart, I'm an optimistic person. That was tested today, and I somehow passed, if a little bruised.

As I fall asleep on an AeroBed with my girl, I know it's going to be tested even more tomorrow, and I've got not only Paris's custody thing to deal with, but whatever bomb Francie decides to toss at me to defuse. She's going to do something and Paris and I have to play defense against her.

The slogan "Failure is a part of life, but not a part of Chilton" has never been so true as it has been now. Except Chilton in this case, is Paris. I cannot fail her.

I have to show her that my love for her is more important than anything else I know right now...  


* * *

**  
__  
** To be continued...

****

**__Ending author's note** \- There you have what I've been trying to touch on about why we haven't seen Louise at all in this story yet except to be very biting and sarcastic; she's going through turmoil and she feels Paris, a girl she loved until Sharon literally locked away her heart from her, is shunning her; at least that's what we know so far. This part of the story I know is going to get my usual 'stop focusing on the Gruesome Twosome' contingent that just wants to be in their little Prory heaven. I will repeat again; Madeline and Louise are Paris's **friends**. They need to be elaborated on. I'm not writing a fic where I'm pairing off one of them with Jess or Dean to make things easy and hetero-compartmentalized, and I don't want them to be easy. Shelly Cole and Teal Redmann played them so well and with hidden vulnerabilities that were never touched on, and I am going to continue to have Madeline be the supportive one while we find out more about Louise.

Then there's Lane. I didn't want to make that easy either, and I didn't want artificial conflict or a left-field love triangle put in between her and Paris at all. I feel in any part of the show there's no more than a platonic relationship between Lane and Rory and I definitely respect that, especially with Lane's upbringing as 7-DA; she might not agree with the stricter interpretations of her religion, but she has a basic and moral idea of how she feels for the ones she does agree with. I went through the same church process when I was younger with a more poisonous 'independent' Baptist congregation, and that's the last time I went myself, but I definitely believe that religion has to play a role in how Lane reacts to Rory's sexuality, and it's important I do show that. One thing that will not happen though is that I'm not going to have Paris and Lane in conflict forever; I don't do stories with artificial conflict, and I'm not starting now.

I hope you enjoyed the story in your own way even if you object to some of my character portrayals, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, no matter how you reacted; my Twitter is always open, along with with my Tumblr ask box.  



	26. In Your Sweet Embrace, All My Pain's Erased

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon makes a desperate overture at trying to get Paris back, while Lorelai and Harold Gellar fight back as hard as they can to keep her in front of the best family law jurist in the state of Connecticut. Meanwhile, Paris and Rory deal with the possibility of being broken apart by the state, and try to fend off another attempt by Francie to take control of the student government. Finally, Paris finds out how Rory's sexuality was defined even earlier than she even fathomed.

**Title: Longing with a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-Six | In Your Sweet Embrace, All My Pain's Erased  
** Author: Nate  
**Pairing:** Paris/Rory, varying POVs, including Lorelai, Paris and Rory.  
**Spoilers:** Literally nothing is being spoiled here; right within the middle of season three and far away from canon.  
**Rating:** R (sexual situations, profanity, homophobia, and teasing of horrid New England stereotypes, along with stoners and The Man.))  
**Disclaimer:** This is actually a big change of pace, because in this chapter we have a _Judging Amy_ crossover; that show is the property of CBS Productions/Television Studios, 20th Century Fox Television, Amy Brenneman and Barbara Hall/Joseph Stern. As per usual (grudgingly considering what happened in _A Year in the Life_ ), _Gilmore Girls_ is with Amy-Sherman Palladino/Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund Polone and Warner Bros. Television. All other products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied.  
**Archiving:** FF.net, AO3, aff.net and RalSt. Anywhere else, ask first.  
**Summary:** Sharon makes a desperate overture at trying to get Paris back, while Lorelai and Harold Gellar fight back as hard as they can to keep her in front of the best family law jurist in the state of Connecticut. Meanwhile, Paris and Rory deal with the possibility of being broken apart by the state, and try to fend off another attempt by Francie to take control of the student government. Finally, Paris finds out how Rory's sexuality was defined even earlier than she even fathomed.  
**Author's Notes:** Hello, reader! Remember when I promised in January of 2015 that you wouldn't wait long for a new chapter? Boy, I broke that promise, did I?! (He says this as you think 'get on with the story!' but it's been 2 ½ years...) Blame college (I've got one degree! But I'm going for another!) and the usual anxieties that come with it, along with health issues with my mother that threw our lives astray for nearly a year (she has recovered, thank goodness).

But there was also personal anguish about how I wanted this chapter to be perfect. This is a big chapter in the story, a turning point. And bringing in a show I barely watched in _Judging Amy_ for a natural crossover turned out to be more complicated than I thought, as I barely was able to watch an episode before my cable provider pulled the UP network for the damned Liquidation Channel, thus I had to hope I got Amy Brenneman's voice and mannerisms as Amy Gray right within the world of my story without much reference outside of random YouTube videos. UP came back later on, so I was assured I was fine, but I also wanted Paris and Rory as a couple to be believable, yet sexual in this chapter. I hope I got that balance right (and to a lesser extent, Jess as just a friend rather than romantic interest; I love Rory and Jess as friends together, along with Paris).. Also adding on other original characters and getting them into a room and making sure they all work out, it's an act to get their voices right (I'm especially proud of Elisa Keller here, along with Roland Hampton; for once I really don't have an archetype actor to help you picture them, so you can imagine your own). I can only hope they are.

Then came the revival I mentioned above. Which crushed my heart and basically confirmed that ASP's ending for Rory was sadly no better than someone writingthat of a Rogan fan who writes 47 chapters of angst involving Rory abandoning all her views, hopes and dreams to follow Logan to the inane ends of the earth and a life as a society wife. Outside of my beloved Paris coming out unscathed and kickass (lalalalala what's this about Doyle and a divorce? I can't hear you!),, I hate what happened to Rory throughout. So my Rory is growing ever stronger within this narrative and I had to make sure that the Rory in this story won't end up that morose figure in the show's canon. It (and said angst-fests) discouraged me from writing for awhile, but I can't hold back any longer, and finished this chapter up; and the next chapter will **not** take two years to write. I promise you. Bug me on all my social media to finish if I get near that milestone, please. Hell, I'll even set a calendar event to torment me every four hours beginning in June 2019.

Oh, and apparently there was an election last year and some megalomaniac with a terrible TV show and bad Twitter etiquette has access to the red button instead of the sane ex-First Lady, New York senator and Secretary of State. And he has a whole bunch of over-nationalistic people around him who hate public service, the LGBTQ+ community, health care for all, not being under Russian control, and the rule of law. Lovely, right? And here's my usual 'this is a femslash story and if you don't know that at all after 26 chapters where have you been? Go read some fanfic about Kirk Cameron or _God is NOT Dead_ or something' disclaimer.

This is coming out just in time to give my friend Danielle some reading on the plane to Europe, as an early birthday present. She's been an amazing kick-ass advocate, an incredible writer and a tireless confidant (along with Taylor, her wife), and I cannot wait to see her and T again in the next few months. I hope she enjoys this. Also this is dedicated to the ladies of the _Worst Friends Forever_ podcast; they probably wouldn't read this story, but they have a great weekly show and you should listen to it as soon as possible (they have awesome _GG_ content, for instance, and really great looks at feminist and general topics). And to anyone else who has stuck around after so much of my undying writer's block; thank you for your incredible patience and loyalty. I enjoy writing this for fun and will not let you down.

The chapter title was inspired by Sarah McLachlan's song "Train Wreck".  


* * *

****  
Lorelai's POV, 11:00 a.m.  
  
This was all so completely crazy to comprehend. Instead of being at work getting the last preparations for my Christmas guests ready next week, I was literally dragged away my job to fight for custody of a so-called 'child' who probably is mature than anyone else I've ever known. Even my own mother is still young attitude-wise compared to how Paris is.

Yet, there I was in a conference room, sitting next to Harold Gellar and Paris's nanny as his lawyer coached me on how everything had to go. I had dressed in my most professional suit and there was no way that I was going to yield one bit of ground to Sharon Gellar.

"Ms. Gilmore, I know you might think this could be open/shut, but we can't go in there with that mindset, unfortunately." Elisa Keller, the attorney, went over the plan carefully. "You have to emphasize you're a homeowner and an accomplished businesswoman without any kind of record with DCF. I think we all feel like this is a massive waste of time, but try telling Roland Hampton that."

"How again does he bill $1,000 per hour?"

"Dragging everyone through the ground," Harold grumped, still furious he was having to fight this. "He'll take any opportunity for money and makes the worst ambulance chasers in this town look kind in comparison."

"And she can still go through this? Even with assault and child abuse charges?"

"Hampton's wife is in DCW; Sharon's got all the connections." He looked tensely at the worried Francisca, Paris's mother figure looking at her hands. "Fran, all will be well."

"I worry for Paris, Mr. Gellar. She will be hurt if this goes your former wife's way."

"It won't."

"Harold," I interjected, "what if it does? What do we do, warn Paris to flee the state and hide out in Boston? I cannot under good conscience send her back in there to be sent to Maine or beaten or whatever plot she has."

"Lorelai, we will cross that bridge when we get to it," he assured me. "Suffice to say Paris is in school and until she leaves that building, there is no action Sharon can take until then. There's time to plan what to do."

"Of course, it has to be legal," Elisa said while tilting her head, "although I cannot suggest any of you break the law." A knowing smile. "Of course if there's some plan you all come up with, I haven't heard anything."

At that moment, Dr. Merton and Dr. Birnbaum came into the conference room, all of their various files on Paris on-hand. The taller Dr. Birnbaum strode in with a determination only matching mine.

"I just shared some notes with Dr. Merton. With Paris's permission, of course." The redhead looked around the room. "Ms. Keller."

"Dr. Birnbaum." She took an offered notepad as both women sat to my right. "I assume the both of you have a definite plan of attack here."

"Pretty much hit Sharon with physical and emotional scars caused to her," Dr. Merton offered. "If I have to see Paris in a hospital again I swear to God I'm throwing 'first do no harm' out the window--"

"Dr. Merton." Harold raised his voice slightly. "Nobody is getting any kind of further hurt here."

"I apologize. I just...it all gets to me after awhile. I birthed that kid and I really don't enjoy the prospect of sharing information about her with the medical examiner's office in my lifetime."

The strategy conference went further and I was pretty much an observer for the next ten minutes. Suffice to say if Paris thought she didn't have much support, the people in that one room fighting for her showed that was an error in judgment. I heard how Francisca had body-blocked Sharon from getting into Paris's room and how Sharon's screams were so loud the drivers in the garage heard her yelling at her daughter. It was emotional, hurtful, and when I had to tell these people about how she came to me, I couldn't help but feel emotional describing everything on my end.

"We cannot let her go back," I pled to Elisa. "Especially after last night; it was a miracle that I was able to duck behind that counter in time. If she had scalded me...I don't know what else would have happened, especially with that shiv credit card she threw together."

"Ms. Gilmore, I assure you, this is coming out well. Paris is going back to Stars Hollow tonight." She told me to take a few calming breaths. As I did, she looked towards everyone else.

"We have to go into that courtroom hoping for the best. Judge Gray is a pretty good judge overall, but Hampton is an odious prick who will try to get his way; he doesn't usually take family court cases and sticks to divorce, but here it's more glory for him and getting at Harry. This is mostly about Paris, but we cannot let him win this case. So stick to what you've told me, be emotional and level, and we can get this farce over with pretty quickly."

"God, I hope so." I shook my head. "It's enough I had to unload this on my best friend this morning and then dash off out here; she can only take Michel in very small doses."

Yeah, I suppose I should be thankful Sookie took everything well. She wasn't there at Luke's last night, but she definitely had me in the kitchen for about an hour before I had to leave going over everything about Rory and Paris...

_"So...Rory is dating Paris?" She was still surprised. "But she was dating Dean a month ago. She seemed happy."_

_"She was in denial," I said, trying to explain it. "She's been infatuated with Paris for at least a year, even more without knowing herself."_

_"But she never had any signs...she didn't cut her hair, switch to plaid shirts--"_

_"Sookie?" I narrowed my eyes; God, I hate stereotypes, even if they're from a well-meaning friend. "Being attracted to the same sex doesn't mean you immediately turn into an Indigo Girl. I don't think she knew for a long time she felt more attraction to women. And this is good."_

_"Good?! What if Paris hurts her?"_

_"Then it happens, but it doesn't change how I love my daughter," I stated simply. "I know it's a shock and we both kind of raised her since I came to the Inn all those years ago and it's like 'how did she end up being gay'? I really don't think it matters."_

_Sookie nodded at me. "I'm fine with this. Honest. I'm just a bit surprised. Especially from how Paris does treat Rory."_

_"As a rival? Of course she does."_

_"I mean--"_

_"I've had to deal with her the last few weeks, hon, it's not 'you must all be perfect and I hate living in this stupid town'. She's shyer than Rory and it's my daughter who's being the assertive one between them, which is throwing me off, but it's working for them." I hated trying to discuss this in a way where I had to avert the discussion away from things like sleeping arrangements and my mother. I think she understood eventually and she's supportive, but this is as new to her as it was to me the moment I walked in on them._

_"I guess she's good," she asserted. "She's the only one of those three girls who stuck in her seat during the concert and she complimented my food while going off about everything else at the Bracebridge Dinner. It's just going to take me awhile to get used to this."_

_"That's all they need, is time." I think it's going to work out, though Paris is going to get yet another protective speech from my chef for sure._

__As everything finished up, Harold brought me aside, still worried deeply about his daughter. I could tell even if he wasn't always there and travelling most of the time, there was always going to be a part of him that would fret for her every moment.

"Lorelai, is there anything you need for me to provide you to take care of her? Money, resources--"

I held up my hand and smiled. "You honestly don't have to worry, she's good. A little rattled by the dreams but considering the circumstances she's fine. You're doing fine, I assure you."

He shook his head. "I just can't bear to lose her again to Sharon. She really was a good woman, once upon a time. Honestly, she was." He looked down at his hands. "But somewhere down the line, I don't know what happened, and Paris has been paying for it even before she was born. I still love Sharon for who she used to be."

"I know." I had him look up. "This isn't fun, and itsit's hell right now and I'm sure you really don't want to be here. But we're doing right by Paris and Rory. If this is what results, we have to handle it." I could tell he was still shaken from all that had gone on through the weekend. "You can't let yourself think of the 'what if' and 'how could I stop it' situations. You raised a strong and self-disciplined daughter who went to school today even as we go through this, a day after maybe losing her best friend and getting hate from her classmates. You and Fran managed to filter out how Sharon wanted Paris to hew. That's all you need to do, is guide her." He was silent for a moment, glancing at me before letting out a deep breath.

"Thank you again for taking her in. I think that was a good first step, Lorelai. You support her and we seriously need that right now." I nodded and thanked him as the clerk peeked in.

"Five minutes," he said, before quickly scurrying away. Elisa and the doctors, who had been taking to Francisca, brought out their game faces.

"We all know what to do?" Everyone nodded or said yes, and Elisa left the room silently, preparing the arguments for her case. I was shaken but determined as I headed down the hall with everyone, wondering how this entire day would shake out.

Hopefully I wouldn't end up shaking Sharon Gellar at the end of it...  


* * *

**  
**  
Paris's POV, 11:00 a.m.  


 ****Compared to all that happened yesterday in all the various classes, today is just oddly quiet as Rory and I navigate the halls. It's still murder trying to get used to these crutches for the next few days, but hopefully I'll be off them by the 25th.

We did take Madeline's advice to block off the locker vents, having found magnetic art at Bed, Bath & Beyond which perfectly sealed them off and assured no notes would get through, and as for Madeline? Dealing with everyone teasing her for being with Brad seemed to quickly become a specialty of hers. She just mentioned what a jerk her date to the dance was, how romantic Brad was and...

Yeah, I know he doesn't like it, but his bedroom skills were played up slightly. It quickly shut many of those teasing her up. A few of the students also saw it fit to high-five the both of us for standing up to Mr. Mercurio, which I was happy to oblige.

The three periods passed without incident, and Rory and I met up in the library for our independent study, which also just happened to coincide with the time my court date started. Rory knew I was focused more on my fate than anything else as I kept checking the phone here and there, phantom rings throwing off my concentration.

"Paris, it's OK. You know your doctors and lawyers have this, along with your nanny and Mom." She smiled easy at me, holding my hand and running her fingers between the channels of mine. "We will get through this."

"There's still a chance I could lose, though."

"Like you did when you creamed everyone else during the election?" Her voice calmed me. "You're not a troublemaker and you didn't instigate any of this with Sharon. I'm sure that officer on Saturday will be there too."

"I just hope nobody was bribed," I said, worried, looking at my girlfriend being so Zen about this all. "That PI could be there to embellish things."

"That PI will lose his license if he does. You can't worry, Paris."

"I can if it means going to Moose Country, I have to be." I let out a small smile. "I don't want to leave here."

"And you won't. The family court only has eight days of rule over you left; as of midnight next Wednesday you can do whatever you want. This is her trying to stalemate the inevitable and the moment you submit that emancipation paper she has no more control over your schooling."

"I know. This is all silly, nothing really, just a minor roadblock." I tried to focus on the book in front of me, without success. "But, say if somehow--"

"Paris." She shook her head, running my fingers through my hair. "If we suddenly need to make a long road trip up north, say to Springfield without receiving the news from the court or make an early winter wine trip to Chautauqua County in New York under their 77" of snow to thwart your mother, we will come to that point later on. But for now, you're still here."

"I am, you're right." I hesitated as I played around with my worn three- month- old Dixon pencil with the green paint all flaked off. "I just always assume the worst."

She looked over at me, shaking her head. "You always do. It's your pessimism and I would've been a bit thrown off if you didn't express some doubt."

"I'm just going to focus on this for now." Another thought cropped up. "You...didn't happen to see Louise in second, did you?" I was looking for an opportunity for us to talk, but I wasn't sure if Louise was avoiding me or not.

"She isn't here today at all. Madeline is confused. She even tried to call her brother Francis but all he said was 'I can't tell you anything, sorry'. Probably thought he'd get beat up or something."

There was a few moments of silence as I thought about it, letting what happened linger in my mind. I had been glad that last night with Rory next to me in the airbed had gone well; no bad dreams, no thrashing of covers or anything horrific. It was just sleep that was desperately needed between the both of us.

Well, mostly sleep. Even if she's being incredibly careful to help me heal up, the unconscious need to be close has given Rory more courage. I never ended up putting back on my shirt after the massage and when I woke up her breath was upon my ear, while one of her hands rested protectively at my hip.

I was so tempted to use our study time in our quiet study room, a floor up, far from the nosy librarians. This morning was a bit more relaxed as I knew my parking space was safe and most of the day's tension was reserved for this afternoon at the student government meeting.

At that moment though, my fingers brushed against her earlobe, a thought suddenly in my frontal lobe.

"I guess he was right," I whispered. I still had the protective support over my wrist, a bit of prescription Motrin taking care of the pain. Rory's eyes widened as she turned her attention to me.

"Who?"

I smiled. "About your ear. Remember how Tristan was entranced by it?"

A shrugged nod. "I figured it was him biting his tongue to not end up confessing something about other parts of my body--"

My breath deepened. I felt my courage building.

"Can I turn the tables on you, Gilmore?" Ever since she got in the massage habit, I had waited for this day. "I...I would like to try to give you the pre-lunch back massage I've been trying to return for three months."

"Three months of agony," she whispered back. "Of having every muscle from your shoulders to your pelvis relaxed and wound up at the same time?" I let out a slow breath at her insinuation. "Or of the couple times I got you on a wound-up day and you had to excuse yourself to the restroom?" A smirk as my mouth dropped down slightly.

"I did not--"

"Don't deny it, Par-Bear. I remember you'd get back and you'd be a bit lighter on your feet when the bell rung. That, and you were a little...blushy." I averted my gaze.

Shit. She did know.

"Well...you kept playing with my bra and slip straps through my shirt and it was like 'pull 'em down already'." I let out a whimper of frustration. "You weren't exactly demure yourself either; your scent was strong on the days I needed to...intervene."

She clicked her tongue as I turned back to her, teasing the edge of her lips with her tongue. "Don't forget the shirt-trade day. I don't think either of us will ever forget that."

"Never, ever." I felt the urge growing; I certainly didn't want to leave this at a massage. Plus I was thinking on purpose on a colder day than expected, she decided this would be a blue hose day for her, all the more to frustrate me. I kept trying to keep my concentration between my class reading and her, hoping the former won out. But I kept looking to the side, where Rory wouldn't notice.

She had her skirt a smidge higher than regulation. Definitely unnoticeable when just standing or at a desk where your concentration wasn't on your girlfriend. If Mercurio hadn't had his tantrum yesterday, I know I'd be fine at that moment.

The both of us changed in separate rooms this morning; her in the bedroom and I went with the sewing room. I didn't want a repeat of yesterday's near-grind in my lap at the breakfast table. So I didn't know what was under the skirt.

But I wanted to. Rory is testing me, trying to find our limits. She knows I'm lured to her in hose, and I can see the darker part that begins the panty portion of them. I was struggling. _Do I risk injury, or just let my urges subside?_

 __Unconsciously, I let my hand drift across her thigh.

"You know," I mention. "There's too much noise around here."

She looked up, unnerved by my wandering fingers. "Are your ears ringing? We're in a **quiet** study room." I let my finger play at a small pock visible through the nylon.

"We are...but, I think we can have it much quieter." With my other hand, I reached into my bag, revealing the keyring entrusted to me as student body president. "Perhaps, carillon room quiet?" I let my voice down for a moment. "Simple elevator access, you know. We could study in all the peace we want."

"As...in...upstairs? Next to the bell tower?" I nodded, my hand sliding up further, almost at that fringe which suggested non-friendly intentions. "And what about lunch, young lady? Are you suggesting we...study through the lunch period?"

I shook my head. "I'm not suggesting it, really. More I'm really in need of some...quiet study." Further up. God, I love testing this girl. "You're up to it, I'm sure."

She shrugged. "You're sure? We're not going to be caught--"

"Not until February when they begin to tune the tower bells for the bicentennial celebrations. For now, we can bless the benefactor who gave the school with an interconnected bell and clock system and removed the full-time position of bell tender and ringer."

"You're sure." She gives off a slight glance. "We do have these essays to finish."

"And we will, tomorrow when we're here. Just have to dash off the usual talking points and Charleston will be happy; it's not like he's going to submit them for awards review with only four days to holiday break." I let a vocal fry creep in towards the end. "It'll take my mind off things, if only for a small while."

"Well..." She looked at the third page of her essay scribbled out as I pinched my finger in, wanting to put a slight but obvious run in her hose. "We better. I kinda should, since you'll be _persona non grata_ sexually in the next couple days." A nervous laugh as she placed her hand on top of mine. "Also...I...I kind of now keep a second pair on me. Just in case. Which...it will be today."

I shuddered a breath. "What are you suggesting?" That's when her hand clasped mine and she had me slide it higher, beneath her skirt, nearly all the way. I didn't know where she was taking this at first.

Shortly thereafter, I found out, as she came closer, her cheek brushing against mine. If not for the shade drawn to keep anyone from seeing us, they'd have quite the show.

"I'm not even close to laundry day," she suggested, so much innocence in her voice. "But you could say I'm conserving for the holidays." She bit lightly on my lower lip and I whimpered as my palm took in...

"Are you kidding me?" I shook my head with scoff. "I haven't even said all that much and..." There's that damned smirk of hers.

"Irregular body chemistry. Especially around you." I had to roll my eyes; this girl is completely insufferable, acting completely cocky and who knows how much she infuriates me at times?

And then I smiled. I spread out my hand and I boldly kissed her, much to her shock. She made a little mewl against my mouth as I felt a bit of aggression coming through.

The thought that this might be my last time with her thanks to the Byzantine world of the Department of Children & Family gave me the courage to see this through. If it was the last time this was going to happen, I was going to make it count.

If it wasn't though...well, I'm wanting to make a memory nonetheless. I let the kiss further until Rory released, taken completely aback and trying to catch her breath.

A nice possessive growl slid through my throat as I withdrew my hand from beneath her skirt. I took in her shocked expression as I brought the palm to mouth, subtlety licking it off and savoring her copious goodness. Hardly innocent blue eyes took me in and she whimpered.

"Christ!" she let out, shaking her head, my lip gloss lingering on her own lips as she blushed. "Umm..."

"How long have you been looking forward to this time alone today, Gilmore?" I enjoyed the scent of her on my fingers. "That just didn't start the moment you got in here, did it?"

"Well, I..." She averted her eyes to my soft stare in her direction. "My mind wandered off in second since I worked ahead in that class and I'm...I was kind of thinking of your voice, one of your long speeches and...I also thought about how much I'd miss you, something that was deep in my mind when I got dressed this morning. So I've been...I know it makes me look like an ass, but--"

I let off an easy smile and nodded. "You thought the same thing." My voice was seductive. "A last good fuck, just in case?"

The profanity had the intended effect, her eyes widening at the same time she gasped in shock and need. "I know it won't be. God, how I hope it isn't. But...yeah. I know you're wounded but I'm kind of in a 'she's hurt but still beautiful' mindset."

"Thus the warm pool, you flirt." She nodded. "My going into my cycle too?"

"Are you mad at that thinking?" She felt a little uneasy. "I mean, I have no problem with it, honestly." _Whoa, what?_ "I don't like limiting myself that way, and I can still be turned on when I'm in the middle of...that. But I think we need time before we get there. Just so you aren't all weird with me because I don't care."

I'm a little stunned; I admit I hadn't even thought of this factor in a same-sex relationship, but at least she was telling me how she felt. "But, yeah. I don't want your mom to get you. If she does though, I want you to remember what you're fighting for."

"Believe me, I know, Gilmore." The both of us laugh lightly. "And it's flattering you would still...consider at that time. But you're right, we need to establish a routine before we get a bit more adventurous." I looked up at the clock in the room, reading 11:32 a.m. More than an hour before we had to be in our next class at 12:55 p.m.

_Perfect._

__She saw me glance up at the clock as she crossed her legs the other way, anxiously. Something was definitely on her mind. She let out a rushed-out 'damn' and then an eye-widen my way. She was getting nervous, and I could definitely sense her strong scent.

 _Aww, you poor thing_ , I thought to myself. _You didn't think about how insatiable I'd make you sexually, did you?_

 __"You OK, Ror?" I patted her knee, while at the same time letting my socked right ankle brush against hers. "Something wrong?"

"Yeah...we're not upstairs," she said, rushed out before gathering up her things into her backpack. "Come on, we don't have a lot of time." I began to put my books in my messenger bag as I got up slowly with my crutches. "You know, most people would be content with the broom closet."

"Well...I'm not most people, am I?" I dangled the keyring, feeling a stir throughout my body. _This is actually happening. It's something out of my dreams, but it's about to occur in real life._ Rory finished and began to help me through the room before turning off the lights in it and heading into the library. Thankfully the librarians gave us no mind and we were easily able to head towards the elevator.

Getting in, Rory glanced each was as I used the special elevator key to give us third floor access.

"You're ready for this?" I asked, giving her one more chance at a normal day, or just the usual fumble in the broom closet. She reached from behind to push the 'door close' placebo button before wrapping her arm across my stomach, emboldened by both the need for distraction and some needed release. I felt a hot breath against the back of my neck.

"Your orders shall be fulfilled...Madame President." A kiss against my nape, and then Rory held me protectively, in a manner I assume would prevent me from fainting.

I hope I don't regret this...  


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Lorelai's POV, 11:30 a.m.  


 ****There's nothing more insufferable than knowing you're completely right, and in the clear, yet you have to defend that position no matter how cockamamie it seems in reality. I could be the most level-headed person in the room, and yet here we are, having to partake in a circus that if not for Connecticut having a bit of sanity when it came to their family court's recording policies, would be prime entertainment for the lunchtime crowd on Court TV.

Family court, of course isn't like _Judge Judy_ or an episode of _Law & Order_. It's not glamourous, nothing's really being arbitrated but egos, and there's not much to do until the verdicts are rendered. The courtroom certainly is a little less pretty than the grand rooms I usually picture when I have to come here to take care of hotel bills in arrears from the 'stay and dashers' of Hartford County. Thanks to the holidays, lunch was bumped up an hour at the courthouse to get a bunch of cases off the rolls before the holidays, so here we all were at noon in a lower-level courtroom which has all the feel of one of those rent-a-suites, having to argue our view of why Paris should stay with me in front of the judge.

"Your honor, Mr. Gellar is an absentee parent. That he even has custody of Paris is offensive, since he pawned her off right away to the woman who is the mother of her girlfriend. How can the court accept that? The child is a minor and--"

"Mr. Hampton, I know what you're trying to do; place Ms. Gilmore in ill repute just because of her living arrangements with her daughter. That will not happen. Please use another argument."

"I am just saying, she was irresponsible when she was younger and she has not proven to be independent in all of her means as she had to ask her parents for schooling money."

"Again, Ms. Gilmore **is** not on trial here!" Elisa cuts in. "Her mortgage is paid up and her utilities are current, thus the state of her housing is not in front of this court."

"I would agree, Ms. Keller." The judge is young, but firm. I feel like I've seen her at the Inn before and that my father does know her mother, probably. Amy Gray is kind, yet firm, and I feel at ease in her courtroom. She kind of had that look Luke's ex Rachel had going on, if a little less hippy-dippy and more meant for courtroom decorum. "Mr. Hampton, why does Mrs. Gellar feel she can continue to provide a good home for her daughter, considering her run-ins with the police in the last few days?"

"Those were aberrations. Her daughter was defying her authority and the townspeople were being defiant and not allowing her to see Paris."

I looked back, finding Officer Clayton of the Hartford PD and Officer Krueger from my town firmly taking in this argument from Sharon's lawyer. They both frowned at the tactic he was taking to discredit us.

"If she was so defiant, why was it Paris who ended up in the hospital?" Elisa wanted to be empathetic. "Sharon took no injuries, while Paris, in the last three days alone nearly had her wrist broken twice, her neck compressed and her foot was stomped. Hardly appropriate parenting--"

"Objection!"

"Withdrawn. This is not punishment her father endorses, nor do either her psychiatrist or medical doctor. Paris was unfairly targeted by her mother and was grievously injured for her choice in sexuality."

"The state disallows--"

"She is seventeen and in no position to marry. Let the record show that the state has no law on the books currently governing same-sex relationships, and they certainly do not apply to a high school senior in her first relationship."

"Immaterial."

"Just like this entire argument against my client. Your honor, the State would be enforcing any agreement to send Paris back into her mother's custody for merely eight days at the risk of further injury to her. There must be better uses of the People's money than that."

"My client is willing to forgive her daughter and will tender an apology for the aberrations of this weekend."

"I would hope an apology is in order to Ms. Gilmore then," Elisa shot back. "Going into Stars Hollow less than 24 hours after her release and nearly scalding the mother of her daughter's girlfriend is hardly appropriate behavior."

"Mrs. Gellar is under a lot of stress--"

"Please...stop." Judge Gray was just as exhausted as I was hearing this lawyer back-and-forth. "I understand there's passions between you both about your clients. However, we will not get far with the 'I know you are, but what am I?' line of questioning." She looked towards us. "I would like to hear individually from each side, each representative, so the State can have a clear position of what should be done."

Yup...I was eventually headed up there, and this was going to be a long couple of hours. We started in order of involvement, though as Sharon is on the other side she got the last slot for testimony. The police officers from Hartford spoke first, being direct and calm about their involvement with Paris's injuries and the diner incident last night. Even though Officer Krueger from our town also had to deal with the incident with Dean at Doose's, it was understandably off the books as far as Sharon's custody. Hampton's questioning didn't get far as she got a bit annoyed about her response to questions about the diner, saying she was too involved to be neutral.

"I am a sworn police officer for Stars Hollow who must protect my citizens. Of course I'm involved, because those are my neighbors your client was attacking. I have not had police contact with Ms. Gilmore for eleven years, and that was for her child's birthday party on a noise complaint easily resolved." I smirked, recalling she still thought it was epic she had to intervene in Rory's party. "I'm just relieved we didn't have to call the paramedics to transfer Lorelai to Bridgeport for burn treatment."

The questioning went on between Elisa and Hampton, eventually getting to Dr. Merton, who was very neutral and deeply concerned, and then Dr. Birnbaum, who was incredibly passionate in her arguments against Hampton's aggressive line of questioning.

"Let the record show until Paris was aged ten that Sharon Gellar paid for all of your provided therapy, until you vehemently disagreed with her style of punishment and the embellishments the girl made about how she was punished."

The redheaded woman narrowed her eyes and scoffed strongly. "As I cannot breach PPP or HIPAA all I will say is I was right to further refuse her money. There was something that went on that under no circumstances I would endorse a parent ever do. My patient is probably seeing me for the rest of my lifetime. I may have to tele-commute appointments or move my practice with her; that is how damaging this woman has been to her child."

"So you admit a conflict of interest, Dr. Birnbaum? Or do you keep her in therapy to profit--"

"OBJECTION!" Elisa slammed her hands onto the table, fired up and angry. "Not material!"

"Sustained," Judge Gray said, quickly. "You will not continue this line of questioning, Mr. Hampton! It may work in divorce court but here I'm not fond of bulldog tactics."

He shook his head, and I glanced a bit towards the other side of the room, where Sharon sat, surprisingly calm and calculating. I couldn't stand it, because I knew I had my chance on the stand after Harold was able to state his side. Elisa saw my glance and set her hand on top of mine.

"I'm sorry, I'm not usually that combative in court. But Hampton brings out a side of me--"

"That Sharon does in my daughter," I whispered back. "I fear the reaction if she sides with Sharon."

"Not gonna happen," she assured me once again as Dr. Birnbaum finished her testimony strongly by again stating her duty to protect Paris, even to the point where she would take on guardianship duties as a last resort.

Then came Harold, and for a man who's gone through everything the last five years, he was very at ease, trying to distract Hampton by talking about the Patriots' surprising loss to the Titans the night before. He stated he was not out for blood with Sharon and was only wanting to protect his daughter as Hampton asked why he cared now.

"I always did," he said. "There has never been a moment in my life where I'd put anything above my Sweet Pea. I have been devastated to learn what Sharon did to her, and her reaction. From my talking to her girlfriend I could not imagine another one for her to love, and despite what you might think, I wish no harm on Sharon whatsoever. But when my daughter, my flesh and blood is harmed, and when this woman uses the horrible memory of a car accident Paris barely survived to belittle...I'm sorry...I do not wish...death on anyone." He began to cry, and while Hampton rolled his eyes and I took in Sharon puffing her cheeks in annoyance, I knew he was hurting. The accident was a wound point Paris would never get over, and recalling it all in such detail is incredibly damaging.

I grew nervous about my testimony, hoping I came off sympathetic. As Harold finished up I crossed my fingers as I prepared for the inquisition to come. They decided that Francisca could be bypassed as Harold confirmed most of what she would have said anyways, along with the judge making it clear that using her language barrier to discredit our side was out of the question. Minutes later, Hampton called my name, I proceeded to the stand, and did the bible and oath thing before sitting on the hard bench on the witness stand. As I expected, Hampton gave me the third degree straight off.

"Ms. Gilmore, you do realize that by taking Paris in, you are encouraging a devious lifestyle, are you not?" Right off the bat. I shook it off and took in a deep breath before starting my testimony.

"I'm sorry if my first thought if one of my daughter's friends was shielding up in a downtown hotel after getting abused was to encourage her to come to my home instead. Are you a parent, sir?"

"I am, but my children are all grown up. And I never had to take any of their friends in."

"Then it's a value judgment then. Perhaps your children were afraid to ask you, I'm not sure. But how I was raised and how I raised my own daughter was to support her friends if they ran into trouble. Paris had done so. The only thought I had on Saturday night was to give her a warm bed and good food."

"So that changes the next day when your daughter gets home?" I shook my head.

"I was still acting in Paris's best interests. If her and my daughter are involved, that's immaterial--"

"Your daughter coerced Paris into a relationship."

I held up my hand, enflamed by his accusation. "My daughter and Paris are not on trial here. I am not here to defend their relationship, but solely my treatment of Paris while she has been in my custody in lieu of Mr. Gellar." He paced the courtroom a little longer, taking in my answer and being a smug bastard. Something was about to be unloaded.

"Ms. Gilmore, have they engaged in any kind of intercourse under their supervision?" he asked firmly. I knew exactly what he was doing; trying to prop something on Rory. I smiled, knowing Elisa had warned me exactly about this.

Yes, I could say they probably have been together in my house. But the real truth was...

"I'm sorry, I wouldn't know that, sir. Frankly I'm not a deviant checking to see if...things are happening, and they're two level-headed and intelligent young women. They do not have to ask me when the moment is right. Unlike Mrs. Gellar, I put my full trust in them to make their own decisions." I felt proud, darting a glance at Sharon, who immediately narrowed her eyes like lasers in my direction. "Both of them are bound for Harvard and frankly that you're asking about their sex lives in a **custody** hearing is inappropriate."

He continued to fire questions at me relentlessly, getting towards the personal and inappropriate; no wonder why Harold almost buckled under his pressure.

"You are a single parent, Ms. Gilmore, is that right?"

"That's correct." _Fuck you. Seriously, you're going to the 'attack me because I'm not married' tactic?!_

 __"And the only reason your child is at Chilton is because you asked your parents to fund her tuition, correct?"

"No."  I was ready to haul him off by the ear. "The **funding** from my parents was needed, but her **intelligence** put her in that school, sir. Are you trying to defend your client or just here to throw dirt on Harold Gellar and I in a public forum?"

"Ms. Gilmore, please, calm yourself." Judge Gray gave me a serious glance. "And Mr. Hampton, she is right, the custody arrangement is what this case is about, not the relationship of a couple of teenagers or Ms. Gilmore's parental style."

He pulled at his suit, clearly thrown that a judge was objecting to his line of questioning. He readjusted, and as Elisa expected, went for the old economic line.

"Ms. Gilmore, can you support Paris on your household budget? One that is already stretched thin with one dependent?"

I seethed at him reducing my flesh and blood to the mere term of dependent, but stood firm. "We have hot water, good heat, power, and I will provide her whatever she requests, with her dietary restrictions. I have a pretty standard cable package and during the holidays, I'm going to figure out how to provide wi-fi in the house so Paris can do her schoolwork without having to share our one Ethernet jack."

"And her bedding? Surely you have that arranged."

"She bought a very comfortable air bed for herself."

"Hardly appropriate accommodations for a young woman of her income bracket."

"Again, emphasis on the fact **she** bought **her** own bed."

"You should provide her a good bed automatically. Surely your child has had sleepovers in the past." I was starting to become really annoyed now.

"Paris is happy, she is comfortable, and most of all, she isn't living in the fear that she has been for years. She's willing to sacrifice her very comfortable bed and home for now for safety and security."

He furrowed his brow, and quickly changed his tact, heading over to last night's diner confrontation. "According to the police report from Stars Hollow, you were confrontational once Mrs. Gellar came into the diner asking where her daughter was. You apparently used profanity in her direction, is that true?"

"Of course, but not until enough provocation was used."

"May I quote the statement to the court?" Judge Gray obviously was as tired of these theatrics as the rest of us were, but had to let it go on anyways.

"Yes, Mr. Hampton, please state the remarks to the court."

I knew the wording would look bad, but I was sure to clarify it shortly. "Ms. Gilmore put space between her and Mrs. Gellar as she rationalized she did so in order to 'not punch your fucking lights out'. After a couple more minutes there was a use of the word 'bitch' and then just before this alleged toss of a filled cup of coffee and saucer that you dared her to do so."

"I absolutely did not," I said, being completely truthful. "A townsperson named Kirk Gleason attempted to restrain her upon seeing I was in immediate danger without a thought to his own safety, and he was elbowed in his ribs for doing so and tumbled to the ground. The owner of the diner, Luke Danes, attempted to assert his rights as proprietor to have her leave under threat of arrest. She then told him 'f you', using the word, and directed a middle finger in his direction while calling me the c-word unprompted, and I admit it, I did shoot back with the quoted statement and then a 'b' word towards her, but solely for how she treated her daughter on Saturday. She continued to try to provoke me verbally to no avail, then she tossed the dishware at me; if not for a quick duck behind Luke's counter I'd be in the burn ward." I paused to breath. "So yes, I did put space between us to prevent confrontation and we did have it out verbally. But I never made physical contact with her whatsoever, and I never taunted her, as Officer Krueger already stated.

"In fact, I decided not to press charges when all was said and done because if Sharon had just talked to me and apologized for how she reacted to Paris or not threatened me yesterday morning over the phone before coming to the Hollow, we would not be here today. The local police only held her long enough to force her to leave town. She has enough to deal with involving the court system. But in my right mind I cannot accept sending Paris back her way until she can promise she will not lay a hand on her." I felt calm, letting this all out. "So yes, sir, if not for the ridiculous agreement you and your fellow attorneys forced him to sign where he can only have a studio or one-bedroom apartment to maintain Sharon's custody, Harold would have her. Apologies for criticizing the State, but the judge who allowed that agreement was questionable in doing so."

"Is this true, Mr. Hampton?" Judge Gray cut in. "In the divorce agreement between the Gellars, you slipped in a line forcing Mr. Gellar to maintain a maximum number of bedrooms to keep his custody of Paris?"

He nodded, though I could tell he was starting to wither. "Your Honor, I was protecting my client's self-interest--"

"I have heard all the testimony I think I've needed to hear from Mr. Gellar's side of the argument. We will reconvene in forty minutes, and we're in recess. Ms. Gilmore, you may step down before your cross-examination, and Mr. Hampton, I would like to see this divorce agreement; in all my years in family court I have never heard of custody being enforced through room restrictions." She adjourned the court and I stepped down, as Hampton was immediately taken aside by Sharon, who was beside herself. Elisa took me aside with a smile.

"You did well under pressure, Lorelai. I think you made Paris's case as well as you could there." Harold then joined in, audibly relieved, along with the doctors. Everything was going pretty well, though we knew there was still a chance that custody could go Sharon's way. "I still have to cross with you, but it's going to go pretty smoothly."

 _God, I hope so_. As I got up, Sharon passed our bench and shook her head at me.

"Lorelai." She added a whole bunch of false haughtiness to the sound of my name, intending to bring me into provocation with her. I refused to bite and solely shook my head at her as Hampton gathered his client up for strategy and lunch. Elisa and Harold glanced at me, relieved I made it easier on them.

"You really helped our case, Lorelai. Thank you for the clarity and meeting Hampton toe to toe," Harold told me, smiling as Elisa gave me a neutral nod. "I do hate this though."

"Going against your wife?" He nodded.

"I hate doing this. But if Paris goes back there...it takes me all the way back to her in '89 in that hospital all summer. You realize when she got in that hospital the doctors had an eye to the clock calling time of death?" A whimper. "I've never shared that before. It was too dark to ever recall."

"We aren't getting to that step, Harold. Paris has Rory, Madeline and Fran and so many other people guarding her life." I brought him in for a hug. "I know you loved her once, but Sharon...there's something wrong."

"I know. I just want her to accept." To hear this scion of Hartford pour himself out to me, it hurt my heart. Even with all the absence he had in Paris's life, she's his lifeblood. There's no doubt that he's fighting for her life in this courtroom. "But she won't."

"You have to hold out hope. Do that." The hug released and with the doctors no longer needed, they gave us our well-wishes and departed. As Elise, Harold and Francisca guided me out of the Superior Court Building for a drive to one of the Trumbull Street restaurants, I could only hope the afternoon part of the day would end with Paris safe.

I worried for her and Rory, both unsure at school. They were probably worried about their own issues at lunch, but calling them would probably make things worse.

Let's hope they're OK and finding their own way to get their minds off things...  


* * *

** Rory's POV, 11:45 a.m. **

Until today, I never knew Paris had her own hideout in the school. I thought it was the darkroom, but that was more convenience than an actual place to gather her thoughts. But I shouldn't be surprised, since Chilton is about six buildings, most with their own maze of hallways and wings that the average student will never explore; there once was a rifle range underneath the athletics building, for instance, where the rich of Hartford would get in their target practice in a nice warm building. Of course, Columbine and people afraid we were all going to birth lead-filled children pretty much shut that down, but it's a part of the school's history, like it or not.

A maze of dressing and prop rooms is under the auditorium, where undoubtedly the dramatic and theater programs have left many sexual marks. There's also basement and third floor classrooms that have lost use due to energy or space concerns. Paris told me once an entire wing was demolished in the 70's because an administration that bought way into the 'students should see nothing outside at all and the entire building is an energy drain' line of thinking couldn't figure out a way to cover all the windows.

What I'm saying is, there's many other places around this school to find a private moment than the broom closet. Paris? She simply doesn't do broom closets.

Why next to the bell tower though? A prop room would've been less risky. I asked her that as I looked up at the rafters, where various ropes and cables led up a level to the bells in the next room. Thankfully there was also triple-pane windows beneath drawn blinds and insulation keeping the room relatively warm. She clicked the lock behind her, lurching forward on her crutches towards me.

"This is your refuge?" I whispered. "You do realize that there's a reason the saying 'bats in the belfry' exists, right?"

She rolled her eyes. "The irony is certainly not lost on me. But nobody thinks to come up here because they think the room is some clumsy storage room with everything thrown around haphazardly."

"That is what it looks like though." I saw her lurching her way towards a broad old oak desk which would look at home in my grandpa's study; it made the surface of my kitchen table look like that of a dollhouse’s in comparison. Stacked student desks lined one wall of the room, while 70's-era plastic chairs in gaudy bright colors were seven-high in the corner of another in front of the windows. "You find order in this?"

"I find peace and calm in it. Whenever there's some time left in the day after the paper I have come up here just to ponder. Look out the window, sit down, get in some reading. Nobody is coming up here, and it certainly doesn't need restoration for the bicentennial; it's a bell room, plain and simple." I went towards the desk with her as she navigated the room carefully in her tennis shoes. I opened up a desk drawer when I arrived, curious, finding an ancient jar of SortKwik fingertip moistener, a _Courant_ from 1977 still referring to the Whalers as representing New England, and homework from a typewriter. I moved my concentration back towards Paris, finally boosting herself onto the desktop as the crutches leaned against the edge of the desk.

Her first move was to immediately kick off her tennis shoes which were making her feet sore and removing the pressure off from them.

"Damn it. She really couldn't have just kicked me in the shins?" Anguish was in her voice as I encouraged her to scoot up so she could prop her legs on the desktop. "I can see how you felt when you had the sling those last few weeks, Gilmore."

"It wasn't fun at all. I'm just glad you took it easy on me while I healed up." She took a bottle of water out of her messenger bag for her lunch dose of painkillers and antibiotics while I searched the room out. "Please tell me you're healing up."

"Last night in a comfortable bed helped," she responded with a relaxed tone. "You next to me did too; good spirits can speed healing up."

"I wouldn't go that far; listening to the doctor does too."

"I think I would have been hurting if I hadn't been convinced to go to the hospital right away." She hesitated, moving back a little further. "How do you think it's healing up, by the way?"

"Not for me to determine, but I did glance this morning. Your foot looks better than it did Sunday evening. Still only a small obstacle though." I looked around my surroundings, reminded of what was outside. "This is beautiful, Gothic. Even if the gargoyles still get to me."

"They get to everyone." I turned my foot to circle back towards her. There were a few old-style schoolhouse fixtures lighting up the room, all we needed. My saddle shoes clacked along the grey linoleum floor, a contrast to the wood floors in the rest of the school. She looked at me with eyes unsure, but her body posture suggested relief.

"You don't know how much weight is off my shoulders with RN gone now. It felt like Mercurio always hated girls, don't you? Like having to teach them was a pain in the ass."

"Why did he apply here rather than one of the men's schools then?"

"Probably because of the tired syllabus. Only a few can stand it. Massages were the only thing keeping me from wringing his neck."

"Touching you, likewise." I heel-to-toed my walk closer to her. Despite the pain she felt from her injuries she was relaxed, and the both of us blocked out anything happening in downtown Hartford at the moment. She set her hand down on the desktop to beckon me to sit next to her, and I slid softly onto the worn but polished desktop, nothing but her my focus. Her hand took mine as I sat down and then I kicked off my own shoes to relax, leaving her in socks, me in my hose.

"I feel ridiculous at times," she admitted quietly, her voice at a low timbre. "Usually I'm up here with schoolwork, glasses on and wound up tight. Not today."

"You never told me you wore glasses." I was perked up, interested in this new and sudden development. She realized her give with widened eyes, grumbling for a moment before she admitted the reason for them.

"According to the state I have to when I drive; the vision in my right eye's a little farsighted and a bit more in the left, so I have a pair in the sunglass storage caddy in case I get stopped. I also wear all-day contacts though so it's pretty much all mitigated. More for reading and long computer work." My mind was distracted trying to figure out how she looked in them. "And no, I'm not putting them on for your fulfillment, Gilmore."

I scoffed. "How would you know? If you had to read with glasses, it's what you have to do...you know. Because...you do." Paris was on to me though. "What? You just admitted you wore glasses! It's kind of like your tattoo and your scars. Things change around in my mind because of it!"

"And what kind of things?"

"Well...your contacts. They might pop out and I have to look for it. Or you in bed next to me reading. I'd have to get used to that." Her eyes squinted as I took in her amusement.

"You're imagining us in bed?" A pause. "I hope not in your bed." I sighed, shaking my head but enjoying her teasing.

"I guess a...hypothetical future bed. At least a queen-sized one."

"King bed, Gilmore. Even a queen would be cramping."

"You're small and slim," I argued, using reason. "You don't need a king bed because you'd fit fine on a full-sized mattress."

"Really?" She raised up an eyebrow. "You really wouldn't want to take advantage of the extra space a king bed offers?"

"It just seems oversized, you know?"

"It's getting the most bed for your money. It's economical."

I lightly scoffed. "The mattress in your room is hardly what I would call 'economical'."

"But you would call it heavenly, right?" Her voice was light as I felt the side of her hand along the lower part of my thigh. "A very comfortable bed, isn't it?"

I nodded, with a shaky voice. "I wouldn't deny that, at least."

"And let's say I finished this reading you dreamt about while you sexualize my vision issues. What else could I do in that bed?"

I answered neutrally. "Sleep in it? Or watch TV...maybe get some homework done?"

She wasn't taking those answers at all, as her wandering fingers showed, dancing along the hem of my skirt. "You're still thinking of me in glasses, aren't you?"

"Being honest?" She nodded and I sighed. "I've known you two years, I've never seen your glasses! Where do you keep them?"

"Usually in my bag." She began to reach in for them, much to my interest. Reaching deep into the bag she pulled out a injection-molded wooden case marked with the golden script of Harvey & Lewis Opticians. "You know it's making me feel literal pain to admit you have better vision than me?"

This time I could be honest. "I take no pleasure in knowing your eyes blur up a bit, Paris. Cross my heart." She felt aversive as she opened up the hinged case. "So...why not admit this earlier?"

"Makes me feel weak."

"But it's just your eyes. Kinda can't help that; Mom wears glasses too, you know." I glanced down at the frames, which had lenses which were hardly thick at all.

"Dancing wasn't conducive to allowing glasses so I got contacts earlier than usual. If it was up to Sharon I would have gotten RK or Lasik but it was still experimental and no doctor was willing to test it on a kid." She held up the frames to me, light bronzed metal in an oval shape wrapped around perfectly-formed glass lenses. "As I said, mostly for computer work and long cramming where I know contacts would give me a headache."

I nodded, understanding, even if I was hardly a candidate for eyewear. "You also probably hate losing them, right?"

"For the $600 Daddy paid for them they better not get lost, though I got a cheaper set of frames in the car. One of those odd online places where you pay $50 and get acceptable eyewear you don't care about breaking. These though I intend to be heirlooms." I smiled at her, blushing as I took in her self-analysis of her vision, loving to learn this little bit more about Paris I didn't know before now.

"I thought you weren't going to put them on," I teased. She let out a slight bit of exasperation and shook her head.

"I did, but you unconsciously brought them out." She looked at me. "I guess I have them out now, so I'd be leaving you disappointed if I didn't put them on."

"There would be a tantrum thrown," I falsely claimed, almost unable to hide my glee. "Come on; I won't make fun of you."

"Fine...you pulled my leg enough." She sighed, opening up the glasses, bringing her neck down and then sliding them on in a way where my view was obstructed by her curtain of hair. I sat next to her with baited breath and anticipation, my heart catching indeed with the thought that this might be my future.

 _The both of us in bed, bickering over the Times crossword puzzle_, I imagined, the Sunday edition all over the mattress with the various sections of the _Courant_ at the foot of the bed, along with various books on each nightstand. _And then I torture her with the wrong answer and she stops my victory celebration with a sudden kiss, the scent of newsprint around us and an errant nightie strap taunting me to pull it down--_

 __"Hey, they're on here. Focus, Gilmore." My reverie of Sunday morning newspaper sex was broken by her voice telling me to look up. I shook myself out of it.

"Sorry, I got lost and--" I let my focus move up towards her, moving into her personal space while I did so.

I couldn't help it, as the moment I saw her in her glasses, I was struck by her. I would have thought deep in the recesses of my mind that she wouldn't make them look good and I would have to apologize for making her try them on and that would be the end of it.

How wrong I was. The frames only served to highlight the deepness of her eyes, the barest of eye shadow applied to her lids, a very neutral shade which was only slightly a dark rouge. I could feel my throat constricting as I tried to figure out something to say.

"Damn." I wanted to say something neutral, but that wasn't happening here. I had gotten to know Paris beyond her emotions and the beauty she put out there, but this was new. This was just like her in the vintage dress at the dance marathon, a moment to treasure, one that I would bookmark for the rest of my life. She looked uneasy, but to me, she was my girl, and even after all she went through and the healing that still had to be done, my love for her never ticked down at all. Everything about her was amplifying, and the need to have her, even in glasses.

She didn't know what to say, how to take my tone of voice or the way I looked at her. The both of us on that desk, a moment brought to halt through another, though thankfully lighter confession for her.

"I knew it. I should have never said anything. This is why I don't--"

I smiled just a little and moved as close to her as I possibly could, letting my left ankle touch her right in our sitting position. I felt heat across my cheeks and my body racing as the slight contact of cotton and flesh against nylon was surely needed. Lifting my hand I urged her to face me. My bespectacled love was a beauty beyond words.

"I guess you can say this cliché is true; I love a girl in glasses." I smiled, taking her hand while her cheeks were heated with a blush.  
   
"I have a retainer," she deadpanned, trying to de-hotten the conversation. "Well, had. I don't need it anymore. Try to make that erotic." I brought myself closer to her, nearly mouth to mouth.

"You now...have...very straight teeth?" I husked, trying, but failing to make that statement sexy.

"Can't get there from here, sadly." She shook her head and her glasses slid down slightly. I whimpered at the slight movement, that one childhood memory long in my mind forcing itself into my frontal lobe. I narrowed my eyes and smiled slyly towards Paris, who could tell she failed to mute the conversation. "Come on! I mentioned my retainer, which should have ruined things!"

I shook my head. "You remember _90210_?"

"I knew Madeline and Louise; they watched it long after it became the AFTRA retirement home for teen actors nowhere near their teens who lost relevance long ago." She shook her head. "Also, Kelly's bitch of a mom kind of looks like mine and Sharon goes off on anyone who reminds her about that fact; it's forever amusing."

"Well, when it started, remember Andrea, the redhead into Brandon?"

"Yeah the...school newspaper...edi...tor." Her eyes widened as she took in my enchanted gaze. "We were five when that show started! You can't seriously have had developed a--"

"I did. My first female TV crush was Andrea Zuckerman," I admitted, without much shame as Paris shook her head. "What? It's only natural considering who I want to be when I grow up."

Despite how shocked she was to hear my confession, she was shaking her head and smiling. "Rory Gilmore has a type; a high school newspaper editor with glasses." She laughed out loud, the absurdity of all of this becoming pretty clear. "I'm trying to imagine you on some night in 1990 watching 61 and telling Lorelai, 'one day I'm gonna grow up and fall in love with a girl like that!'" She failed miserably (but hilariously) to imitate me as a five-year old. "You also realize that actress was ten years older than who she was as Andrea, right?"

"Yes, Paris, I knew about the details of casting directors and their desire to not have to deal with on-set tutors by hiring actors who already had a high school diploma or college degree in hand in 1990, totally." I rolled my eyes, moving closer as she continued to smile. "And yes, I never even thought once about Jason Priestley or Luke Perry."

"Again, you were six. Back then I was obsessed with cartoons and _Atlas Shrugged_...thank you, Daddy for getting me past my slog of a libertarian phase very quickly."

"Really, _Atlas Shrugged_? Ayn Rand?"

"I was really tired of nothing but game shows in the hospital bed; long books helped to pass the time much better, no matter how boring I found them. Too bad they didn't have the Potter series back then."

"What, no Stephen King?"

" _The Wizard of_ Fucking _Oz_ scared me, you really think I'm going to get into horror literature?" She shook her head as if that thought was absurd.

"Point taken." I was still agog, just looking at her. I can't believe I was being silly about a 12 year-old crush about a long-departed character, someone coming to life before me. "At least you don't have to worry about being in a certain part of a ZIP code to be in school."

"ZIP code?"

"Like Andrea, how she had to lie to get into West Beverly?"

"You linger on the oddest parts of things, Gilmore." She smiled and I was so weak, letting out a little sigh, which she immediately caught onto. "You can't make a pass at me, y'know."

"Because you're wearing glasses?" I smiled happily, letting the flirting continue. "Besides, we passed home plate lonnnng ago so the passes were long made."

"You know what I mean." I loved hearing her throaty laugh as she passed the annoyed and bemused phases and into her comfort zone with me. She looked around and settled her hand at her side, beginning to move her blouse out of its tuck. "I'm relieved then."

"Relieved?"

"Remember how you ranted to me once how the Stars Hollow High school paper was 'barely worth the toilet paper it was printed on'? God forbid if your Andrea crush ended up on the editor of that rag."

"Oh nooo....noooo!" I was vehement about the loathing I had for that paper; when I was asked to work there I said 'absolutely not', deciding to hold out on a Chilton acceptance to work on a school publication. "Put it this way; said editor called me 'sweet cheeks' and complimented my breasts in a rather crude manner."

"So, a jerk?"

"Stronger language could definitely be used."

"Again, no wonder you wanted to get into Chilton; if Tristan's worst was 'Mary' we're as kind as can be compared to that place!"

"Lane is still in there and counting the days." She was unbuttoning her sweater as I said that and remembered how I told her Lane found out. She nodded, feeling understanding.

"You're OK with not being able to hash it out with her until after Christmas. Right?" I was heartened by the concern she felt about how Lane and I were doing. Putting the sweater down, she clasped my hand into hers. "I just want you and her to be OK. I never intended to stomp on her grounds."

With a nod, I went further with my explanation of how I felt. "I just want to tell people on my terms and I wish that we could have done that. Instead, it's all out, and your mother is just burning all these bridges, without caring about how other people are affected. I mean, we got a month without anything, just the two of us, Madeline notwithstanding."

"It's life, Gilmore; it doles out the hand and you have to play it. We're lucky we had that quiet month and all that time to work out how we feel. Most people, whatever their gender or sex, don't get that, or worse, they get pushed by their friends into something else." A pause. "Or, mother."

I nodded, completely knowing where she was coming from. "Exactly." I let out a tired sigh, knowing the time was melting away and knowing that I needed a release of stress before the end of lunch. I smiled at her. "We should probably get going on this massage you wanted to give me. We let ourselves go far off what we intended."

"That isn't a complaint, is it?" She gave off a little smirk. "I brought out my glasses for you, Gilmore."

"Mmm, and I'm glad for it." I clasped her hands and let the tip of my nose touch hers before giving her a simple yet heated kiss with just the slightest of tongue fitter, to her enjoyment as I moaned into it before slowly breaking it with a gasp and a wheeze. Shaking my head, I glanced at her and knowingly smiled at her.

"Flavored lip balm, Gellar?" She blushed slightly, taking off her glasses.

"What can I say? The blueberry called out to me." Completely at ease I knew that it was time to relax. We continued to talk as I prepared for her to give me the massage I craved since I figured out she was a better distraction in RN than anything else could ever be. I knew she wasn't up for anything much more taxing considering the state Sharon put her in, but if I could distract her enough, maybe it would be just a blur to her and we could move on with our days.

I could only hope...  


* * *

**  
**  
Lorelai's POV, 12:15 p.m.  


 ****If there was any way to bottle up ready-made rage against someone, what I feel about Sharon Gellar should get me through the rest of my life.

How she could sit there against Elisa and just go on and on about how concerned she was for her daughter has to be the work of an amazing charlatan. There's no other way about it. Trying to justify assault and battery as trying to protect Paris is something that cannot possibly be defended.

Yet there she was, with her clipped voice, responding to each question as if the only dispute going on was her stealing a sparkly top Paris liked.

"I only acted in her self-interest, counselor. I would never harm Paris on purpose, but she instigated things and I had no choice but to punish her."

Elise shook her head, doing a small pace along the plaintiff's table. "According to the testimony of her nanny, she only tried to evade the confrontation as she was late for the library. Yet you insisted, getting in her way."

"I was going to leave for the rest of the weekend. It was the only opportunity I had to talk to her." She glared over at Harold, visibly troubled by his ex-wife's parenting style. "Surely you would confront a child you felt in the wrong as soon as possible."

"Mrs. Gellar, according to the nanny, you immediately used the word 'dyke' to stop her from moving further. Surely you knew that would have a chilling effect."

"As it should." A small smile. "Paris knows I am a blunt mother and I certainly was going to use the strongest statement possible to bring her in line."

Clenching my fist, I let the questioning go. I felt a light touch on my arm as Harold tried to assure me Elisa had this on lock.

"Don't worry, Lorelai," he said. "Don't think the worst."

I crossed my arms, trying to calm myself. "I know, it just hurts to hear this."

Elisa went on. "All through the conflict you made no moves to cool down the confrontation. You kept pushing, boxing Paris in and leaving her defenseless."

"She could have left at any time, counselor."

"Not when you were threatening her schooling. She was in psychological shock from being presented the P.I. pictures and trying to use her reasoning to cool down the situation. According to everyone in the vicinity of that room her voice only raised once you raised your hand to her. She refused to instigate the situation."

"She would be lying, then. Paris is at her heart, confrontational and she could have easily raised her own hand to me."

Elisa continued to hammer down, refusing to yield. "Mrs. Gellar, your history with the police suggests otherwise. You were convicted in 1989 of several charges relating to a motor vehicle accident which left your daughter immobilized for weeks--"

"RELEVANCE?" Hampton rose up to try to kill the line of questioning.

"Plenty." She didn't miss a beat. "It established a pattern where at least six times, DCF was called to your home by either an employee or Harold Gellar over further abuse of your daughter. Almost every two years the police would take you in for questioning. Inevitably, Harold gave you further chances and the charges were dropped after you plead forgiveness--"

"I plead **nothing**! The charges were never true. Trumped up. I have never harmed Paris in my entire life!" She shot lasers towards Elisa, her anger coming out full-force. "The staff is over-protective of Paris, that is all. They love her and they bow to her whims, knowing how much she hates me!"

Elisa brought out a file. "In March 1995 at a hotel ballroom where the district championship for the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee was being held, a parent saw you, and I quote, 'pushing a young blonde girl against the wall and slapping her face with force. The subject had ended up in the final three of the event and misspelled a word, ending her progress in the event, with the parent clearly enraged with the girl for not winning the bee and moving on to Washington. After her child and that child's friend called her out, the woman quickly intervened to prevent further injury.'"

"Again, embellishment!" She raised up her arms. "The woman was lying."

"The judge in that case didn't think so, ordering a year's probation and thirty hours of counseling for you, the latter which you were able to disregard with a voluntary contribution to the state treasury." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Mrs. Gellar, you might have a 'clean' record with the police when it comes to everything since the accident. However, the court should not ignore the past investigations rendered by DCF as to Paris Gellar's well-being. Law enforcement has not had to make contact with Howard Gellar or Francisca Regalado regarding Paris's well-being at all. There is a clear history of abuse established through the years by your behavior--"

"I would suggest you know nothing at all!" she burst out, her voice clipped and bitter. "I love Paris. She's my world."

"If she's your world then, why are you dealing with this situation by attempting to send her off to Maine?"

"Because she must learn that she is being disrespectful by defying my expectations for her. There is a proper way for her to live, and falling for that small-town whore is certainly not that."

I clung to the arm of the chair, holding off the urge to punch Sharon out of the building. Elisa could sense the tension on our side of the courtroom and tried to avert.

"According to her school records, Paris continues to maintain a strong 4.0+ GPA. I would say your expectations are being met just fine, Mrs. Gellar."

"I mean spiritually. The Gilmore girl is a distraction and will throw her off her ultimate goal of becoming valedictorian."

"I thought her goal was Harvard."

"That too, but Paris has worked too hard to let that woman's daughter ruin everything for her." I seethed as she pointed in my direction. "She's a terrible role model, having that girl at sixteen years old. Surely she could have gotten an abor--"

At that moment, Judge Gray had enough. She took her gavel and clenched it, a swing against the board reverberating through the courtroom, her voice filled with a neutral, yet angered tone.

"Mrs. Gellar, enough! The counselor's questions have hardly been inflammatory and you are not to attack the witness, or their child for their existence." I felt my body wince at the very idea I could have ever done that to Rory; I had the choice but it was nobody's but mine. "You will answer the questions without any further embellishment, or I will hold you in contempt. Are we clear?"

She narrowed her eyes at the judge, nodding without much sincerity. "We are."

"Good." She glanced at Elisa. "Your witness."

"Thank you." She brought her eyes back towards Sharon, continuing to make the case for Paris to stay in the Hollow.

"I'm almost done, Mrs. Gellar. I'd like to ask you one more question; when was the last time you willingly took Paris somewhere fun as a mother and as a daughter?"

Sharon shook her head. "What a ridiculous question. I took her up to Harvard in early November for a rehearsal interview."

"I mean not involved with her education. Just as a mother or daughter."

"I fail to see how this question is applicable."

"Because, for many years, especially after the divorce, she has basically acting as if her room is her personal apartment. She rarely ventures anywhere outside of her bedroom when you are at home and has behaved in this manner since she was about thirteen, before school started that year." She moved closer to the stand. "In a normal family, she'd be downstairs associating with her family daily. Since that point, her only ventures downstairs with you there have been for holiday events, as if out of shame." She paused for effect. "I repeat the question; when was the last time you took her somewhere, just as a mother and a daughter? For fun?"

Elisa drew back, expecting an answer to her question within seconds. We all expected her to have a well-rehearsed answer about some museum or mall trip; surely Sharon had taken Paris to the mall for holiday shopping at the very least, and that would qualify as an answer.

Instead, Sharon was left to the wind. She was frozen up, stunned. She couldn't utter a word as her ravaged mind tried to muster up the last time Paris and her spent a day of fun together. Holding her fingers to her temples there was visual frustration.

"Judge, this question is ridiculous--" Hampton attempted to get her out of it, but Judge Gray was having nothing of it at all, gaveling him down.

"It's an appropriate query. Mrs. Gellar, please answer," she said, looking at the woman straight on. Her eyes were catatonic as she craned her neck left and right across the courtroom.

All the other women in that room would know right off the top of her head what they did with their kid to the minute they left that house that morning. Sharon Gellar couldn't even recall anything past Saturday morning.

We could all see Hampton ushering Sharon to try to muster some tears to beg out of the question, but it wasn't working. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but it was three minutes until Sharon finally answered the question.

"About a year back," she said, gasping it out, "I brought Paris to a Devils game at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers. I don't understand why she likes the violence and pointlessness of professional ice hockey, but thus she does. We had fun that evening; I think I got her an autographed jersey with the goalie for the Devils...Pat Richter is his name. We even sat on his end of the rink during his two quarters in front of the glass."

Harold groaned in response as Elisa shook her head.

"The goalie for the New Jersey Devils has been Martin Brodeur for ten years, Mrs. Gellar, and hockey has three periods, not four quarters. As someone who follows the NHL like she does, and been a Devils fan since the Whalers sadly packed up for Tar Heel country, that would never get by her at all." she responded, looking up at the judge. "Nothing further, your honor."

Harold took me aside to tell me why he groaned. "Paris pretty much mocked Pat Richter to his face for his goalkeeping, taunted him all through the match when he had his two periods on that side of the rink and gave away his signed sweater outside MSG, calling him "double zero" rather than his #88; Sharon was drinking the whole time and it was a terrible night except for Par getting plenty of face-time on MSG during the match for her...colorful expression of her Devils fandom and holding her own against the Rangers faithful. Two days later Richter had a dreadful game against Detroit, the Rangers got shut out 6-zip, and he blamed 'some crazy teenage girl Devils fan for psyching me out a couple nights before'." I snorted laughter as Sharon continued to sit on the stand, stunned.

"Mr. Hampton, do you have any further questions for your client?" We all looked across the way to see Hampton pretty much looking like a deer in the headlights, as he had no defense to muster.

"I do not, your honor." He shook his head as Sharon left the stand and Judge Gray looked at all of us.

"Very well, we are in recess the next half-hour, and I will have my findings. We are adjourned." With a hit of the gavel, everything had been presented and now it was onto the waiting. Sharon then approached Elisa asking what her problem is.

"I would have thought you'd be sympathetic. Asking me that question was out of line!"

"I apologize, but I'm only doing my job, ma'am." Elisa drew back towards the bench but Sharon was having none of it.

"You should be disbarred for that stunt! My parental fitness and what I do with Paris is none of your concern."

"Mrs. Gellar--"

"No! Frankly, Harry deserves to be fucking you--"

I finally had enough, getting up and placing myself in front of Elisa to protect her. I felt a need to make sure she didn't get the Sharon Gellar wrath. "Sharon, move back to your bench, now!"

"I will not! You're stealing Paris from me and your commentary on my parenting was not appreciated!" Hampton moved over to control his client as the bailiff came our way. "You're a terrible mother and Christopher Hayden had it right, you are controlling!"

I paused as she continued.

"That's right, I called Christopher when I got out of jail to figure out how to knock your daughter off her pedestal; pity he didn't get a hand on Rory to straighten her out." My mind was warring and I could hear Elisa behind me telling me to let it go. "Let that register." Hampton got behind her and she turned her back on us just as I felt the rage hitting me. I turned my heel and scowled as Dr. Birnbaum got to me just in time.

"It's not worth it, Ms. Gilmore; I've heard worse from her when she tries to get Par one of those whackjob 'alternative' therapists every few months or so to replace me."

I held up my hands, relaxing as the pale red-haired woman's perspective brought me back into focus. "I wouldn't, trust me, but calling the father of my child? So low." I backed away, all of us in shock, turning to Elisa. "Sorry she attacked you like that."

"Pretty much was expecting it." She shook her head and Harold invited us to a quick lunch at a little café near the courthouse to settle our nerves, something I know we'd need if somehow this wonderful judge somehow found Sharon fit to take Paris into her custody.

Francisca was the one with the most worry as she had spent most of the day with her face down behind us, nervous about everything that was said. She barely said much on the witness stand, but this is truly the woman who raised her, who tended to Paris at her most low of moments. She approached me, very shaky, her hands shaking. The small woman looked up, her gaze directed at both Harold and I.

"She is not being taken back to that home, is she?" Harold shook her head, but Fran still wasn't convinced. "If she is--"

He stopped her, knowing what she was about to mention. "Fran, I'm not seeking retribution. None of us are. We've done all that we can and if it isn't enough, we wait. I will have a guard watching her like a hawk so she isn't harmed. Nothing is going to happen, I assure you."

I nodded in turn. "We're here for you. Paris is going to be protected, whatever it takes, whatever might happen." I hoped I was right, because I saw a scene where the moment that Paris left the school, Sharon grabbed her and whisked her off who knows where, and I didn't want that to come true.

All we can do is wait now. I can only hope the court makes the right decision, and not only for Paris.

Rory has never been this deep and protective of someone she loves. If this ends up going wrong, I perish the thought of what reaction she might have, and it chills my blood what she might do...  


* * *

** Paris's POV, 12:55 p.m. **

****In my mind, distraction has always been something to avoid. It just can never even be present. If I get distracted, I lose things. Debates, honors, grades. I can't be distracted, it can never happen...

Except this afternoon. My brain was searching for every distraction possible to keep me away from the possibility Sharon could win me back. Surely she couldn't. There had to be a judge in Hartford County that wasn't going to let her take me back. If there's one thing I didn't want to plan, it was how I could keep myself unharmed.

It's almost 1 o'clock and lunch is over. I've left Rory behind and I'm trying to keep Madeline from learning why I wasn't at lunch today. The library excuse I pawned off on her thankfully worked, along with Rory being in the computer lab working on a story.

Of course, I'm nowhere near the truth. There isn't any here, and the moment she sees my other half, there's going to be a 'computer lab my ass' scoff towards my general direction.

How do I just let things spiral around Gilmore? I don't understand, I imagine a nice massage and an hour later I'm having to cram her damp hosiery **and** my own underwear deep inside of my messenger bag--

Yes, I just said that in my head. I still can't believe it myself!

It started off innocently enough, after talking about glasses and her childhood crush on a girl from an Aaron Spelling soap, and my putting on of my glasses in front of her. I'm getting used to her conversational tangents, and although they can be odd, they're certainly more enjoyable than any one I ever had either scripted onto index cards in advance.

If there's a good thing about being injured, it's that I've been able to take some time to realize that there's always going to be a sexual undercurrent between Rory and I, but not being able to act wholly upon it for now, it works out. We're at a point in our friendship where we both have a deep and abiding trust that's unbreakable and the cycle we were on is all gone. It's steady now and I can look back to see that we have a solid friendship onto which this relationship is being built on without a threat of it all toppling down.

The sexual aspect is there, though. That can't be denied. Even if my only release for now might come in some way where I'm not weighted upon, I'm fine with that. I've functioned for weeks at a time not needing to come. The delight I get from helping Rory to fruition is just as deep for me, and it keeps me balanced, reminding me that for all the thoughts I put into having sex, be it with Rory, Louise or Tristan, it is truly a partnership where the person you're with, they need to be happy too. You have to give them that emotional and physical intimacy, and expose your emotions to them at the same time.

I'm still learning. The both of us are. But I'm not sad to say that learning how Rory ticks, what brings her the fulfillment she craves, and why with me she's much more relaxed and less careful, it's something I'm not about to give up anytime soon.

The start of the massage, for instance. I made a show of unbuttoning her blouse, with a pink cami beneath. My eyes lingered along her collarbone and her sternum, and they communicated the lust I felt for being one of the few to see her in that state of undress. The knowledge that the Burt's Bees I picked up on a whim at the Rite Aid on Sunday was now a marker in her mind of my taste, of how she associated me. Her slight scent, barely sensible except for up close, and how her freckling just keeps me drawn into to find new ways to compliment her.

She moved in close, invading my personal space even as I undressed her, hesitating and struck by my slow manner with her. A little smile, she lowered her eyes down and let out a whimper.

"Going to let this go slow, are we?" I nodded. "I was able to build you up for three months and you finally get to return the favor."

"Not in the way I wanted," I admitted, still slightly uneasy. "I would have preferred this actually came after RN. However, I'm not willing to go back in time and suffer that fool again just to fulfill something to the letter." I slid out the last button, my index and middle fingers taking in each side of her blouse from the bottom. I anticipated that she thought I'd go with a simple yank of the tails from her skirt. Instead, I glided the tip of my index fingers along her stomach.

"Now..." I intoned, hoping to forget all outside distraction for at least 75 minutes. "Relax, Ror. Just don't let one distraction in. You've had a build-up of reciprocation percolating in your mind. I know this." I moved in close, beginning to grow used to her in my space. "All those late mornings of agony, each circle of my vertebrae. Memorizing the lay of the land, keeping me from throttling that idiot."

She nodded with her lips parted as I took in her navel, a growing pleasure point for this infuriatingly beautiful young woman I can call my own. "Ruining yourself over me, getting used to that afternoon frustration. Thinking there was no way I would ever return the favor, so you'd have to be content with an image of my fingers parting your folds to get through the remainder of the day, even when I was at my worst." She began to shake, and I could feel the unsteadiness as I finished the navel curve.

"This is how you imagined it. Us, all alone. No distractions. Just the two of us, a short distance, and only a few layers between the eroticism you want to spill out from your fingers, or for mine to wander your form." I concentrated on each word correctly, knowing full well that my off-the-cuff monologue was how she charged herself. I had seen it for myself after Formal; I wanted that moment again, many times over.

I took in her soft stomach, the bottom of her ribcage through the form-fitting fabric of the cami. I could detect the outline of each rib, using my fingernail to curve in each one. My own pleasure was off to the side, this was all for Rory. All for her. I was so far gone from my regular state of mind that I hadn't even taken off my glasses, keeping them on as I wanted not one moment wasted with even a perfunctory activity.

We moved in closer, her back flexing as she could sense the changing tenor of what we were doing. I pulled at the fabric of her blouse, letting the blue article slide out from each side of the skirt. My right thumb came to a rest against the underside of her left breast. I took in the curve of it, hearing her heated whimper of approval.

"I'm so...tight," she slid out, the words having a double meaning all too apparent to the both of us. "In knots," she added, the fragment jarring my academic side but for only a moment. The part on each side of the blouse slid off to the side, and in that moment my thumb rested along the lower areole of her nipple, the deep color immediately apparent through the fabric even without the best of lighting. I nodded, slowly moving away the thumb to concentrate on the workaday tasks.

"I will make sure this is comprehensive," I promised, my usual firmness still within my voice but betrayed by what I intended to complete. My mind went back to my being in my lap the morning before and how charged up I had been, even in that least sexual of circumstances. Of how her casualness in proving her love had broken through all of my barriers to finish a successful seduction I would have not seen coming, even with the pro/con list. She undid her own cuff buttons, nodding and whispering for me to slide the blouse off. I easily complied with her request, while taking in that yes, her shoulders were burdened, and her back was probably in need of some unwinding. I let the blouse undoing continue for a slow minute, until it was to the left, off of her and discarded, leaving Rory sitting on the desktop, legs crossed against each other as if to tease me. Her left leg was forward and sliding against her right, a constant 'swoosh' sound from her fidgeting caused by her hose brushing together, acting as a flint and steel to charge the atmosphere around us. Still, she had that cherubic demeanor about her, as if she had absolutely no idea that she was undoing every single defense that left all the walls up I had about romance within my private sanctum.

"So...you really have oil in there?"

"I do." My bag next to me, I pulled out a small bottle of a mineral oil that otherwise would be 'baby oil', but I paid a premium for because of the wonderful scent. "It keeps me warm during the winter; helps moisturize my skin and keeps me from getting too cold. Of course, it does have other uses."

"I wonder what those could be?" She puts on the innocent act, a little nibble on her knuckle going with the revelation.

A move she knows will do other things. Such as disturb the right strap of her camisole, which she accelerated with a shrug to that side and a bit of a slant. Before I could even fathom it the strap fell down, resting in the crook of her elbow. I hesitated a moment as the swell of her right breast became even more apparent in the article of clothing which seemed to be tight on the bottom but loose on top.

She then crossed over her legs as I shook the bottle, and at that moment, I was relieved I didn't flip the cap yet. Her eyes full of unhidden lust, she kept her gaze trained against mine, and noticed every moment as I soon open up to the fact that her legs are crossing in a way that's a bit wide for her figure. My breath quickened as I looked down at her skirt, my sexual impulses and inner vixen failing to hold back my need to take in her modesty. She stretched her lithe form out to raise her skirt those critical few inches she needed to continue the tease. A creak emitted from her mouth as the cross came to the middle and I knew what she was doing.

"Ooooh, Par." Her look was knowing. "I hate how my lower back gets. I have to stretch out a bit here."

Mind you she said this as I was hardly looking at her lower back; my gaze was directed slightly more southern. With shallow breathing I uncapped the oil bottle while she finished the stretch and untucked the tank from her skirt as her legs make another swooshing sound from her hose. I tried to tame my inner vixen from trying to mentally undress her further, trying to figure out how heated this wanted to get.

Rationally, I kept reminding myself I was in school. That we were gambling a suspension on this if someone found out. But nobody ever came up to the bell tower. Especially not when the cold outside can easily permeate the walls up here, and we aren't giving any mind to it being seven degrees cooler than room temperature.

But rationality was losing, big time. With those innocent blue eyes, Rory was prepared for me to return the favor from last night. And this will eventually become a cycle of our love for each other. She shook down the second strap, still keeping herself technically dressed, but preparing for what was to come.

She gave me a coy look, sucking on her lip, that small knowing smile between us suggesting she knew this was going to start out innocent, but not end that way.

"You want me on the desktop, then?" I nodded.

"Flat on your stomach." She got up from the desk for a moment, making a flourish of spinning around so her back was to me. The skirt spun with her before it came to a stop, teasing me with just a slight glance before she grabbed each side of the desk to slide herself towards the middle so I could start the massage to her side. Rory's hands rested at each side of the desk to center herself so that her feet were just slightly hanging from the narrow end of the desk...

"Crap." She winced as I realized quickly that her head was a bit unsupported, followed by a groan. I looked at my messenger bag, a bit perturbed about having to take a break from my seduction. "I should have--"

I couldn't see her face but I knew she was frustrated herself. I broke in before she began to doubt herself.

"I got this," I said confidently, stepping away from her and towards my bag, next to Rory's backpack. I quick grabbed it, thankful for the locker stop where I took out the heavier texts, and not at all sore that _War & Peace _was no longer in that bag. I quickly shucked off my sweater, stuffing it inside of the messenger bag and walked in front of Rory, smiling.

"You can utilize this. It's not perfect, but my sweater is in here." She nodded, lifting up her neck before placing it back down on the bottom portion of the bag, cushioned with my sweater. She rested her head against it, immediately relaxing to my relief, taking in deep and calming breaths as she prepared for the ultimate fruition of her dreams over the last few months while I stared at her half-bared back. I brought myself closer, feeling strange about examining the freckled flesh.

I had imagined the seating reversed so many times, of massaging her back, taking it in with my fingers. I can admit I was slightly overwhelmed as I let two fingers settle against her skin to see how dry it was.

"Mmmm..." She let out a creaky approval and I took the bottle of oil, pouring out just enough to moisturize the exposed skin. I felt my nerves building; she had been so intimate and knowing of me. Could I do the same for her? I worked the liquid around my palm, taking in slow and calming breaths, knowing that this small massage was going to build our intimacy.

I let the fingers make a circle along the top of her spinal column, turning the next revolution into an oval so I could take in her spine. Shuddering again I began to take myself out of my usual mode. Playing, trying to be natural about this seduction. My voice hardly shuddered as the touch wasn't shrugged off, but welcomed with a soft mewl of pleasure.

Soon, I was talking. Just trying to forget about everything, go on about something that was as far away from Gellar Manor as possible. _Just keep talking_ , I thought to myself as I worked in the oil, being deliberate, judging when I could make another roll-down of the cami to expose more of Rory's back to my oil-soaked hands.

I went on, talking about things I loved about my childhood. Rare things, but still, they were things, in my voice. I told her about how Madeline and Louise dragged me to a Backstreet Boys concert at the Civic Center at their peak and how I hated it, despite having VIP access.

"They were all...I could tell they were lip-syncing throughout the show. Regarding us the same way most performers do in this town; the mid-point between the FleetCenter and MSG, just a bunch of rubes and hoping they didn't have a repeat of the Great Circus Fire of 1944. They put in little effort in the show, yet you saw girls deigning these men with their virginity! Seriously though, "I Want It That Way" is a completely terrible song with all the heart of a Roy Rogers ad! And still I went...because those girls are my friends." I chuckled. "Also, I had the towncar service and the nanny who could chaperone."

"You didn't like them at all, did you?"

"Not a bit. I have some guilty pleasure pop songs I enjoy, but until your sudden invitation, that was my last concert for a long while. But you know the worst thing?"

"Hmm?"

"Their manager, this portly guy, I forget his name. Looked completely like someone who should be introducing himself to the neighbors as being forever 500 feet away and unable to interact with children. He approached us while Madeline and Louise were getting pictures and autographs and made comments that we'd be a wonderful girl band. That he could see it in his mind."

"Really?!" Rory's surprise in her voice popped up, but I tamped it right down.

"You've heard me sing though. In the shower. Do I sound like 'girl group' material?"

She laughed, and I didn't flinch a bit. "You...have a great humming voice?"

"Unfortunately, the music industry doesn't think much of hummers." Suddenly she let out a snort, startling me and slipping my hands up her neck before letting out a long moan.

"What?" I felt insulted in that moment, before Rory made it known that some things I still don't know that well.

"I love your humming, no matter what anyone else says. Especially when it's against my flesh." I caught her suggestiveness and that's when I realized how it was construed. "Maybe you could hum a few bars later?"

"Glad you went with that rather than the other definition." I giggled, continuing with the story. "I basically told that dick to buzz off and Madeline and Louise were pissed at me for weeks. They eventually got over it, but I wasn't about to allow them to be stuck in that rigmarole for the rest of their teen years."

"You made the...right call." She gasped. "Oh, linger there for a bit. Deeper." I found a stressed spot along the back of her neck without prompting and obeyed her wishes with a rubbing in of a bit more oil. I used the heel of my hand to apply varying pressure, using her state of relaxation and aural cues to guide me.

I quickly found a rhythm, moving center-left-right down her body, easing the stress out and feeling her become relaxed and at ease, all the stress of the last weekend beginning to melt away. She let me know how each part of the massage felt, and compared it positively to what she did for me in RN. Despite never really having any kind of practice outside of my nanny or by myself, I had a good hang to it.

But then came the nervous part for me. I slowly slid down her cami keeping her modestly to reach the lower part of her back. She lifted herself up and I felt a quick shiver, a seemingly psychic effect of Rory's now-uncovered breasts upon the cooler desktop.

"Man, that's cold!" she yelped, and I admit, I let out a little laugh, while completely feeling that we were now getting towards that point where the innocent massaging foreplay of the past was leading to something very charged.

 _This is it; someone catches us, as unlikely as it could be, we can't excuse it as necking._ My thoughts were cautious and slow as I took one more look towards the door outside I knew was locked. She caught onto my apprehension, relaxing herself further.

"Don't," she responded. "Don't even think about that door. Think about me. That's all you need to concern yourself with right now." I looked back down, my fingers along each side of her back. I took in a deep breath, concentrating on her relaxation, her pleasure.

After she told me so, I didn't spare the outside world another thought. What she said worked. My mother was beyond that but in that moment, it was all about tending to my Farm Girl. I applied more lotion, working it in, Rory becoming even more relaxed and open with each new stroke and knead from my fingers. I could feel her raise herself up just a little bit, to get that little bit of pleasure, but she was well-behaved, keeping her hands at her sides and refusing to move her fingers any closer than they were.

I expected her to break down, to sneak in a fingering of herself. I would not have noticed, being deeply distracted. But Rory made no move. I moved the undershirt down and she remained still, guiding me with her words and her sensual little mewls of pleasure. I could sense her arousal picking up, a bit of dampness along the small of her back, along with an 'accidental' caress beneath her underarms, wet with perspiration.

"You really are about 'living up to your fantasy', aren't you Gilmore?"

"Mmmm...yes, I am. But, you are building me up." The small bit of encouragement helped me along.

"How?"

"You're going to find out in a few minutes." Her tone teased me; I knew where this was leading to. I kept up the sensual massage, surprising myself with how much my pain receptors were just downright refusing to communicate and didn't want to ruin this at all. My rested knee on the injured leg had to be hurting, and yet it felt quite fine, taking the spare cushioning of the chair as good enough for the moment.

Eventually, there was no more cami material to take down. Her full back was exposed to me, and I had worked and relieved every section of it. The tag of her skirt hung out just that bit along her waist, along with the zipper at her side with the puller in the 'up' position. But just below her skirt, the waistband for her pantyhose. Rory helped by working herself out of the pulled-down cami from her waist down to her legs, then letting it dangle and fall from her feet.

Now it was final; we could not stop. I ogled her backside for a minute without shame, taking in her curvature, the way her spine bent just perfectly, along with the many freckles and moles dotting along it.

"You know what I've wanted to do?" She kept her voice low, the innocence of it contrasted with a shameless sexual husk. "And I have a couple of times too. When nobody was looking and Mr. Mercurio made us watch the boring film adaptations of the books in class...I would look around towards everyone surrounding me. I would make sure you were entranced in the film. Then, with nobody looking, I would slide my right foot out of my shoe that was purposefully tied loose, bring it up and..."

She paused as my mind spun, my left hand tracing along the bottom of her back, slightly rising up.

 _No way_ , I thought. _I was imagining that. That didn't happen._

 __"My toes slid beneath the bottom of your blazer. Sometimes socked, a couple of times with hose. You seemed unaware, bored to death by overbearing acting out of Russian books by screenwriting hacks. There I was, my fingers and pencil along your back, and my toes..."

I bit my lip. Hard. "You...you pushed...up the back...of my blouse." I wanted to unzip her now.

"I loved every moment of it. Bare skin against my nylon. A little innocent circle, brushed off as just me needing a place to rest my weary foot." I began to part the teeth, encouraged by the lack of a negative response. " _Crime & Punishment_...a nightmare of a book, and a slog of a miniseries, but plenty of time to spend with you. Building the mystery. My crush getting deeper. And there you were, either unaware, or playing right into me using the space behind your back in the desk chair for my own impure goals."

I was shaky, my index finger feeling along as I found the snap of her skirt and broke it apart. "I thought...I was daydreaming."

"You were not." I felt my heart constricting, beating faster. "I spent most of those movies imagining you in an untoward and inappropriate manner. Fully relaxed, yet wanting to taste you. Stealing that little bit of touch for myself, craving more. But I was a good little girl, willing to only take the small little samples I could get."

I remembered those little flitting touches, thinking they were just quick little kicks against my seat, leg twitches, that kind of thing. Though it was odd that they disturbed clothing at times I wasn't complaining, but I certainly didn't think of them as purposeful.

Here she was though telling me they were all on purpose. That she was worshipping me in all the ways she possibly could. I felt myself clench at the fullness of the insinuation.

"I took advantage of every single opportunity since we got back in September. At lunch. In student gov. And in your car...." A moan. "I love how your leather seat molds against me. And I love every single opportunity I get to touch you, even when you don't notice." Her breathing became shallow, her courage building. "Ever since that night you went out on that date in Washington, I've just felt like I have all this energy, wanting to go somewhere, but it only comes out with you. I can only let you know how it is. I don't want anyone else to ever know I have it and..." A pause. "And you must think I'm crazy, getting into all of this--"

I shook my head, just thinking about how she's wanted this. "Gilmore, you used our field hockey unit as an excuse to know if I love it rough." I laughed, tugging at the zip of the skirt and letting it open. "I think I've pretty much become accustomed to knowing you were seducing me from the moment we got back after Labor Day, and it's fine. More than fine." I was teasing and light with her, trying to keep myself calm as I pushed down her skirt. "At least now I know I wasn't hallucinating your secret little touches during movie time."

"So...you're not mad?"

"I have no cause to be." I pulled down the skirt with the camisole. "And I assume now that you pretty much had no shame if you were flirting with me despite you-know-who."

"I still wasn't going to make a move until I could break up with him. That much I did stick to," she admitted. "But when I was in bed at night, it was you I thought of. Nobody else."

"Nobody else?" I still questioned. "So you weren't imagining me and Cindy Crawford going at it in front of you? While Gabrielle Carteris watched?"

That earned a groan. "Mean, Paris. Really, really mean." I was in the glow of knowing she didn't think of anyone else. "You ever tell anyone--"

"Not happening, promise." I held her clothes, putting them against her side, leaving her in her blue hose. "How are you feeling?"

"Well, I can't feel past my waist, so I'm honestly and truly relaxed. You know how to give a massage very well, Par-Bear."

I blushed at her compliment, hoping this wouldn't be the last time this would occur. "I was scared I would be a stumbling mess."

"I'm the stumbling mess, promise." With the skirt dispensed with, I was ready for the next stage of this. Something I wanted to repeat. I didn't want this to be the last time, but there was still that small threat of it being so.

My eyes landed upon her ass, not bared because of the hose, but for the situation, enough for me. I had envied it from the moment she turned tail on me that first day, not knowing my attraction then but knowing that I was looking at it with regularity. She looked beautiful in that moment, not looking at me and concentrated in full on her pleasure.

Cautiously I let a couple of the fingers on my left hand run along her rear, starting at the small of her back, then along the curve on her left side. Testing, trying to figure out what brought her to a fulfilled state. She let out a slow moan and I let my fingernail indent, trying to stir myself up with the sound of the tightly-wound nylon denying me full contact. My body was already very tightly wound and I was doing all I could to deny myself any pleasure in this situation, just all about Rory.

"Yeah..." She was perfectly wound, closing her legs tighter as my fingertips bridged the gap mid-way down. I let myself get into a new circle rhythm, taking in her symmetrical curvature in an oval-like pattern. I could feel her trying but failing to get any kind of friction going as she began to involuntary grind against the desktop from this intimate touching. I then made a slight move just a bit lower, intending to tease.

It worked.

"Fuuuuuuck..." Oh, hearing my innocent Lorelai Leigh let out a long curse word just gives me enough pleasure alone, my eardrums perking at the draw-out and harsh fry in her voice. I wandered closer on my next pass, earning a harsh hiss.

"My oh my, Gilmore. Aren't we a little stressed?" Mmmm, I loved getting out the teasing voice, then letting my fingernail dip in along her ass between the nyloned bridge. "There isn't something you wanted me to do, is there?" I played with her a little more, my light yet still ragged voice in that tone I know she loathed in most circumstances. "Your clitoris must be pulsing with want right now, needing some kind of touch. But it can't have it in this position."

"Paris..."

My fingernail dipped in deeper, moving ever south. I could barely make out the back of her mons betwixt her closed legs, and it taunted me. She spread out just a bit, and I could see that her puckered opening slowly blended into her perennial raphe. I knew it could be prominent, but that was rare, and to know my girlfriend had that feature gave me another hallmark into how she brought herself pleasure. Curiously, I padded my index finger against the very small flap of skin through the nylon.

She immediately pushed up, rising against me.

"Christ!" Another little circle. "Goddamn."

"So you do like that." Somehow there's no way else I can describe how I felt about this besides 'giddy'. "Is this why you enjoy your laundry days so much? You don't even need any frontal stimulation, do you? You can easily orgasm from either the back or the front." Another touch, another curse word. I continued to use my words to hit her pleasure points. "This is why you cum so much; you're very sensitive in so many ways." She pushed up suddenly; more cursing. "You love it when I make you cum, don't you?" I noticed a nod, a rushed 'mm-hmm'.

I wanted to learn more. "Have you ever imagined me from behind? Like I am right now? Teasing, testing, your body at full attention for me? When you've masturbated and got yourself all wound up in your room, have you slickened your fingers with your saliva and imagined me, grasping your backside as..."

I moved closer. "...I taste you. Drink you in. Let my tongue guide itself along your perineum, then up towards your clitoris. You get yourself so slick sometimes you must use two towels in bed beneath you, layered up. Sometimes that's not even enough and you've taken to having two spare sheet sets in the closet."

She winced upon the mention. "I gush so much," she said. "I'm gushing up right now." My fingertip continued to tease her perineum through the hose, getting close to the gusset protecting her modesty. "A couple of times...when I was at peak ovulation...I did wear a pad. Only for that. I hate pads but...I ruined panties as I teased you."

"You did now?" I draw out my words, loving this. "How badly?"

"I...I..." I could feel the edge of the hose gusset; it was absolutely dripping. "I tear them. I shove the material into me, imagining you so turned on you...don't even have time to rip them off. I haven't even needed a vibe; I don't need it at all. My fingers...your fingers...they're always good enough."

I pushed the gusset in with my fingertips; obvious wetness dripped down. "You've never used any toys at all. Never."

"Never. I honestly don't need them."

"Anything else? Lubricant?"

"A couple of times; I...I actually used it in Washington a couple times. Because it couldn't be traced to me. I rarely use it...I still have ¾ of a tube left."

I smiled. "Seems like you're moisturizing just fine." A pause. "Have you ever ruined hose after school?"

"As in?"

"Have you ever done this?" I dipped the edge of my fingernail against the wettened gusset, until I felt just enough pressure to let the thicker material give. "I've read some tales, you know. Some women do maintain some hosiery exclusively for dates and when they're feeling particularly frisky during the workday. It does have a certain modification because the adult stores, despite the lack of that material, decide to use that as a business opportunity and charge triple for a pair." The nail tried to find a snag, eventually getting that satisfying little drag. "And nobody is the wiser unless they're with you."

"I...I have ruined pairs." Rory wasn't playing innocent by any means. "I...when we were talking about that statistical project a couple months back? I could...smell you. Deeply. But you had an event to go to. So I could only call for project prep when I got home."

"Are you saying..."

"I did." I felt a rip; I was in. "I wasn't aware of my kink then. But after getting off the line...I was hot. I couldn't take it, rubbing my legs together without even being aware of it for twenty minutes. I needed release."

"How much?"

"So much! Oh, fucking A!" There was my finger making bare contact. "Finger-fucking to the thought of you...I locked the door, laid on a pillow to have something to fuck my fingers against and just had my way."

"You didn't want it to be your fingers, did you?" I took apart her argument. "It was the best available implement. You didn't even want **my** fingers. That was just what was on-hand, was it?" I began to separate the material, knowing her permission was granted the moment we decided to come up here. "No fingers...none. They're fun, but they aren't my tongue, are they?" She was silent as I found her clit, moving myself into position. "Those fingers can't know you like I can. You know me, and my word speed. You can't help but think about how you want to feel it within you, stirring you up, pushing you further. Making you see the entire galaxy as you faint in response to how you've been driven to an inch of your life."

Her breath quickened as the insinuation hit full-force. I knew how much she wanted this, that it had to be one of her fully-formed fantasies in the time she's held her infatuation with me. It was the simplest, the most primal one to be found. I broke apart the material more, careful to make sure none of the nylon ran so low to make the hosiery useless. I ripped apart the gusset until it was but a circle of fabric, outlining the prize.

Rory's lips were full, red and flush, her clitoris primed. I ran my finger alongside each portion of her labia, earning little yelps and mewls from her, teasing and hoping that she was fully receptive. I shook my head, wondering how I had gotten this far.

"You're sure you want this," I asked, making sure I had full consent to go forward. "I will stop anytime. I promise." Rory looked back, nodding her head, her innocent eyes assuring me that all I had done so far was completely welcomed.

"I...I'm sure," she assured. "I don't want to...lose you, but if this is the last time...I want to go out remembering this, forever."

I felt emotional, knowing that this might be our last time together. I put on a brave face despite the circumstances.

"You will," I said. Sliding my hands against her back I carefully bent in the chair towards her backside. I was still intent on denying my own pleasure, but Rory wasn't going to have any of that.

"Y'know if...if you feel like...rubbing against the desk or...your hand. I have...no problem with that. At all."

I shook my head. "But this is all for you--"

"It's for you too." A huff. "Now come on, less with the talking, more with the making me happy here."

I had to admit that brought a smile. "If you want us both happy, Gilmore, who am I to deny you that pleasure?" She turned back around, letting all her thoughts focus on nothing but the pleasure I was giving. I wound my tongue around my mouth in clockwise and counter-clockwise circles.

 _Stop thinking_ , my inner vixen scolded me. _You are **not** going to talk through this or avert. You're getting her off orally and making this an afternoon to remember. Now shut up and just go with it_.

"Okay." That was the final word. Rory's heady scent was at the forefront, luring me in, the glint of her flesh reflecting the spare light. I slowly slid my tongue out, hoping that I wasn't going to disappoint her. Plenty of reading on the subject came down to this moment.

That reading was useless. I needed to know by touch, taste and feel. I tore the hole a little bit more, careful not to cause a run. She lifted herself into the air, moving a little bit down and angling her body, forcing me to move with her. I didn't know what she was playing at as I found myself moving closer towards the desk, and more to the south until I could barely feel the edging of the desk.

 _Fuck, she is playing at exactly what she said._ Rory moved herself on the desktop In such a way that I found the desk corner right exactly between my legs. She had trapped me in and the front of my skirt was the only thing between direct pressure against my clit through my underwear.

"You there, baby girl?"

"Ror--"

"One of my intense dreams was of catching you in a classroom, like that. In the way you peeked in on Mom and Max, but they aren't there. It's just you, turned on, hot, rubbing yourself against a desk edge. And...and I don't know who you're fucking yourself too. Your blouse is open, you're fondling your breasts and eyes closed just focused on your orgasm and--"

I began to tighten up, the intensity of the imagery building me forward. I held up my hand, needing to focus on her and only her.

"Please...stop." Firm and pleading, I needed to remove my pleasure from the equation. "I love you...I love your thoughts and how your sexuality is blossoming around me, Gilmore. But I **want** to do this for you. I want to." I was shaking, knowing I couldn't see her eye to eye but hoping I made clear what I wanted this to lead to. "And yes...yes, I'm feeling so damned turned on from all of this. But this might be the last time we can do anything. Ever. If Sharon gets me--"

"She's not."

"But the chance is still there." My hands caressed the back of her legs. "I love your intense imagination but I need you to give me this. Please. I'm too overwhelmed by everything and--"

Suddenly she began to turn around, and I had to pull my hands from her legs. I didn't know what was happening before unexpectedly, we were face to face.

"Paris." Rory stared at me, in deep concern, her face and body flush as she took a sitting position on the desk.

"No, Rory, we need to stick to the--" She put a finger to my lips, but I stayed persistent. "Rory, don't you--"

"I'm here, with you," she whispered, her deep eyes questioning and completely enchanted by the sight of me. "And you are in an alarm of all of these thoughts, of too many distractions." A soft sigh. "I want you to relax."

I felt panicked, trying to turn things back towards what I thought we wanted. "I am relaxed, honest. I--"

"Paris, I know your heart. How you feel." She slid around the desk, only in pantyhose and opened her legs, beckoning me close. She brushed a stray few hairs from in front of my left eye. "And I am so turned on right now from your words, your touch and your actions. But my mind has been going too. About Sharon, about how this is the last time we could be possibly together and we want to bring it back to before the night of the dance marathon, when our want for each other wasn't known. When I could only express it in the most innocent of ways."

I tried to look down, but the moment I did, I found myself taking in a droplet landing on the desk. I looked up to see if it was from perspiration.

The sight in front of me was stunning. My amazing love and partner in all aspects, was in tears. Crying. She let her emotions fall into her words as she took my hand into hers.

"You know why I share how I think of you? Of how it builds up inside of me and I can't hold...hold it in any longer?"

My mind knew where this was going. Exactly. I had been holding it in denial, wanting to have a perfect fantasy fulfilled. I wanted to help Rory, while trying not to put too much hope in myself.

"Par." She barely could let out the shortened portion of my name. "I loved the massage. Every single thing about it, and I cannot forget this afternoon, and I won't. But..."

She took my other hand. Her hands clenched deeply into mine, and here I was, facing her, knowing what was next. Her breaths were shaky, and I shook my head, beginning to feel the emotions warring within me.

"I...I...I love that I can be with you. That it's not me projecting love that I don't think you return. Sitting in a desk, knowing well I can't do anything be..because I'm scared, and you are too." She paused to build her courage further.

"And honestly, I think the return of the massage?" I nodded. "It was all I needed. The only thing. That was all because...." with tightly closed eyes, she let the words spill forth.

"I...I...I want to see you. Because this is us. The right now. Not...the past. We're...we're not two people...hiding their love away any longer. We aren't hiding it in a massage or flirting or little touches we hope register, but not too much because we're fucking scared. I..." She kept crying, tears falling freely. "I don't want to lose you, Paris Eustace Gellar. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to have you turn your back on me again, and in that moment, I just...I...I..." I clench my fists tighter within Rory's grasp. "Our reality is here...right here." She pulled her right hand free, clutching it against her chest. "I haven't felt a range of emotions in all of my life as I have the last four days. I have never felt like harming another soul, but I have now. I feel protective and loving and...I cannot fathom if that bitch takes you away from me, from Chilton, from Connecticut, what I would do. And if she does...I don't want your last image of me being that I'm some kind of freak."

"Oh, God, Rory--" I clenched at the thought. "You're not--"

"The past is the past," she reminded me. "Our flirting in RN? It was the past. We left it behind yesterday. I...I never want either of us to do that again. To have to be stuck daydreaming."

I tried to understand the point she was making, and I grew emotional, still quiet, but responding. "I wasn't able to face you any of that time, or even allude to my feelings." She pushed closer, and I could feel her again taking my other hand, moving me towards the desktop. "And I was fine with that, honest--"

"We both know we were not OK," she said, shaking her head. "We have been moving towards this since Hillside and...it's not silly. It's not experimentation. It can't be, and it won't be, and..." Her gaze held mine. "I want to see you when we're together. I...I tried. But I failed." She pulled again, and I knew fighting about this wasn't a choice. I picked up my uninjured leg, sliding it onto the desktop. Slowly I maneuvered the injured one up, careful to not inflame anything. She moved her hand atop of my back, pulling me closer until finally I was laying on top of her, my legs open between hers.

"I used to dream of doing unhidden and unnoticed things to you," she said, as her fingers played with strands of my hair. "I thought you were untouchable, an ice queen. But the last month has broken that, because you're an amazing and full-hearted woman. And I guess my fantasy about overwhelming you from behind unaware, it was in there. As a fantasy. Not as a reality, because you're here. You're my girlfriend and..." She shook her head. "God, you think I'm crazy."

I sighed deeply; for all I put myself down at times Rory has a long habit of doing it herself. I smiled, just running my fingers along her bared side. "Well, we're both in therapy now. Peas in a pod." I laughed. "So...you want to see me, don't you? This is what it comes down to. I'm no longer faceless or just a built figure in your mind to think about and be in lust with. I'm yours and I'm real, and we're sharing dreams, good and bad. Where we started from, in those desks, that's distant for you."

"That's a good way to put it. Yeah." She looked off to the side, and then back up to me, pulling me closer. "I...I didn't--"

"You didn't. Not at all." My left leg rested between hers as I found a better position, while my hand was moving lower. "Nothing was ruined. I...I guess we put too much into this, that's it. And honestly, if this is our last time, this is how I'd want it, to be honest. Up close, not trying to figure out certain gymnastics to find our culmination." I let out a nervous laugh, only for it to be frozen as Rory's lips suddenly found mine to bring me into a lingering and damp kiss. There was no notice or ceremony and I just fell into it without feeling any guilt. We tangled up a little, my hand finding the curve of her ass, only breaking apart when I felt a sudden twinge in the injured foot. I lifted away as she was fully and completely winded, and smiling happily.

I shook my head, knowing the exact reason for the sudden kiss. "It was that sentence, wasn't it?" She let a chortle and bit her lip.

"What can I say? Your use of the English language is a turn-on." I repositioned myself and my foot before coming back down. "Not weird?"

"Downright normal." I smiled, and closed my lips back onto hers, beginning to work anew towards the said culmination. We slid towards the middle of the desk, just touching and exploring without any of the games or ceremony of earlier. Everything was out on the table and this felt more natural, less artificial. Fewer words were exchanged as I allowed her to view my sexual handiwork anew, moving down from her lips, along her throat and along her clavicle until I was at her breast. My fingers found her plumped labia, still primed, still wet, and I stroked them and her clitoris stiff again. I loved the feel, the need, the heat she was expressing as she propped herself on her arms to welcome me.

This was a much more natural rhythm for me, her wording short and whispered to encourage me. The buildup of the previous tease was there, but everything was laid out on the table; natural affection worked, while we still needed time to work on playing out fantasies. Today, a critical day in my lifetime, was not that day. And that was just fine.

I kissed down, along her breasts, especially on the underside, with her gasps encouraging me further on, then along her navel, the limitless skin between there and her center seeming like a long line and broken by the waistband of the hose. I teasingly tugged at the band with my teeth, just enough to scrape them along her flesh too.

She loves that, it seems. I tested out with the softest of presses of both rows of my teeth along her belly.

"Oh, fuck!" She involuntarily closed her legs slightly. "Warn me, damn it...oh God." I looked up, my eyes wide.

"We are going to play with **that** more...eventually." I then moved my focus back down, kissing, licking and scraping her midsection as I could sense her scent and detect the change from dry to wet. The dampness, the heat, it drew me towards her center. The thinnest of hairs guiding me past the untorn section of hose, towards where the gusset used to be.

I could sense it merely by touch, not even a glance. Her intimacy, full and open, framed by growth which was managed enough but not to the point of obsessiveness. It was her. I kept my eyes up her body, making sure that she was good with this. That she was receptive.

The touch of fingers upon the nape of my neck helped give me the guidance that this was all true. No more words between us. Just the actions we shared. Of finding each other in a world my mother wanted to splinter apart from us. I wasn't going to Maine. I wanted to be right here, in this room, with this woman, forever.

Soon I was inhaling her musk, deeply personal, just her. She opened her legs to me, the glint of wetness within the confined space of the ruined gusset very obvious. On my own I felt myself compressing, closing my legs together and trying to build up just enough friction, just wanting a little ride-out while I fulfilled her. Her fingers smoothed along my scalp as I tested with lips, tongue and the slightest bit of teeth. She was deeply swollen, so ready for me, and I could feel the heat along her flesh. I grasped her at her sides, circling my hands around her hips until I worked them into the hose so I could take her at each side of her ass.

This is what we both needed, what we desired. Not a built up play scenario, but just the both of us, together. Heat, dampness, need. My heart filled with love for this woman who was defending me against the worst threat of my life. Dampened hair, red lips, my focus completely on nothing but her and making her happy.

The thought caught a snag. **_I'm_** _making her happy. Nobody else._ I was becoming her drive, helping her discover herself as a woman. It wasn't going to be anybody else. I no longer have to side-eye a boy that I think is treating her wrong. She is mine, and her love for me is so overwhelming and passionate that it's dropping her walls. Building her fight.

And she was hoarsely asking for me to fuck her. I still can't get over her throwing profanity all over the place and it just triggers a pleasure point in me. I comply, my hands securely grasping her as I look above to see fingers circling her nipples, moving out to her sides, and back again. Her head, thrown back.

I'm doing this. I was giving her this memory. Her voice guiding me as I worked her folds, felt her slickness increase. She's solely focused on this, along with me. I needed to make her feel like jelly for the rest of the day.

I needed her to forget that up north, my fate was in the hands of a judge. I tore the hole further, looking down, seeing long runs down to her shin in what remained of the nylon. "God, I love that noise," she admitted before letting out another profane word. She opened her legs slightly more to hasten the destruction and the sound was driving me further.

Circling her clitoris, I knew I wanted her ruined. To smell so fucked there was no choice but to take a shower before class. My tongue enjoys how she feels. How she tastes and what happens when I hit that right point. I dare to move lower, flirting with her perineum at a few points. That brings out harsh and raw words from her, but she's not telling me to stop. She wants more of it, willingly. Her gasps sharpen, voice getting gravely, and I can tell we're both being intense here, fully living this moment like it is our last before we must part.

We don't want that. But it could happen. I moved up again as she gets close. She pushed up against the desktop, leaned back on her arms. I looked up, finding her fully aroused, nipples completely out, hair a mess. It's like our deepest dreams, but made real. By now the gusset rip is at the waistband, tangles of material making Rory's legs look like she's in a bad teen magazine with awful photographers showing off 'weathered' legwear that some label wants you to pay $900 for. My own friction is non-existent and I can feel myself so slick in a way I could never imagine myself getting to.

I hate to be crass here, but I relish eating Rory out. I love how she gets turned on by me manipulating it, be it through getting sultry with my words, or physically. I love feeling that slickness on my chin, her arousal dripping on my lips. That need she feels for me, manifesting in a completely liquid manner, it's what I want. It's a powerful feeling, knowing I can make her cower with my touch, yet knowing she probably gets the same way when she's willing to take my own cunt. It's a give and take that's grown powerful, and I feel her voice become hoarser.

"I better come soon...can't hold...back!" She implored me to bring her to the point. My lips, mouth and teeth work her as I sensed the surface beneath us slick with sweat and arousal. I dipped two fingers in beneath my panties, gasping as I felt the cotton was soaked through. I was a bit mortified but worked through it; I could deal with that later. Rory was the priority now, along with a possible last memory.

I wanted this to happen, and I put my full concentration on the task like I was graded on it. I couldn't fail; if I did I would feel like a terrible hostess. I knew it was coming, I could feel it. I hurriedly stroked myself just to hasten past my own pleasure. I knew I was working of adrenaline and when it was all over, I'd be suffering a bit of pain in my leg. Her pants, increasing in speed, voice growing higher, begging me to finish her off.

"Fuck...come on...get me...over. Make me...foam!" My tongue worked as fast as it could, finding the perfect pace of circling her clit. Counter-clockwise, then clockwise, with an occasional cardinal direction swipe here and there, I did it all. Back down towards her perineum, then back up. The temptation grew to feel out where I knew I was forbidden. I would come back to that one day; it's enough we got the 'lunar time' subject out of the way. My hands, grasping her hips, keeping her as still as possible. I was putting my all into this, no matter what.

I didn't think this would ever end. That eventually I'd tire of it. I didn't want to. I couldn't. Looking up towards her, completely in a trance, that drive. The intense look I knew where nothing but her come was in mind at the moment. Almost there.

The next few minutes are a blur as I dared to circle a finger along that sensitive line below, to give her all the pressure she craved. She wanted to come and she was just about there. My other hand, just all the way in. No ceremony, just driven by this so badly that I didn't need much of a push to spill over.

I began to feel the tightening and the need. She was just about to. The room echoed with her screams, not enough to make anyone think they needed to check this room, but enough for a ruckus. Her taste was growing headier, deeply personal. I put on the full press, getting her over as she stopped supporting herself with her arms, inelegantly thudding onto the desktop before grasping my head with her right hand and helping guide my mouth where it needed to be. Her other hand felt up her breast, a purposeful gasp each time she felt or grasped it. Her grunts grew louder; I needed this, she needed this, everybody needed this to happen.

Within the space of a minute, she pushed herself, and that was it. She spilled over, biting on her lip as she rode it through. I kept working my tongue as she mixed my name with God's and I had my own little spillover, a bit more contained, but just as fulfilling. She almost pulled my hair too tight and I had to reel back a small bit, but this is what we both wanted. It was full, intense, completely loving. I felt her ride out something deeply needed, connecting. The both of us just felt that relaxation and release we had craved for the last few days as for a moment, we could forget the scarring world around us.

The only thing important in that moment was the both of us. I was completely dampened and ruined, Rory even worse. I was down her until she cursed out loud, the oversensitive nature of her nerves finally getting the best of her. I moved away, sliding myself up her taller body until we met eye to eye. She was breathing in small spurts, trying to settle her lungs back to normalcy. Everything felt intense in that moment to her, and the rise and fall of her chest was palpable. This was intense, completely personal, and most of all, important.

We both needed this moment. I brought my mouth against hers, sharing a deep and connecting kiss, her taste shared between us. I'm needy for her to remain in my life, so we can continue to share this unexpected connection we never expected to have. But my emotions were a jumble, so within the kiss, I began to let my guard down.

Crying, I knew that if this was our last moment, it was worth it. That we would sear into our individual brains that we were not going to forget this moment. She began to cry with me and we slid into sitting positions. I barely felt any pain in my foot or legs, and my body granted me the mercy of refusing to let my pain neurons interfere, releasing adrenaline to keep the focus on the comedown.

Rory's eyes were intense, her blush deep, and she pressed herself against me, wanting that body-to-body contact before we had to part. In that room, on that desk, that was all we needed, this time before the world either let us go or would let its cruelty be known. I settled against her, my thoughts weighing heavily that I wanted more than this. I loved being intense with her. I cannot let this relationship go without a fight.

The both of us, we're united. We must be. There can't be a parting this afternoon, and my prayers of not going back to the Manor with Sharon have to be answered. We're wordless for another few minutes, except for a glance at the clock assuring us that Rory would have time for a shower and that her habit of having an emergency pair of hose in her bag in case of a run was justified. A few more kisses, some more touching. Just the slightest bit of a hand running beneath my shirt on the sly, Rory's eyes suggesting that even with our physicality, she has no intentions of stopping her little flittering touches and disturbing of my undergarments beneath them, and her fingers freely take in my bra band

I welcome that whole-heartedly. Except while driving. Or in front of Charleston and our parents. Some limits must be set.

And then, finally, she speaks. She smiles at me, after letting a deep sigh, bites down on her lip and...

She stared directly at me, eye to eye. Let out a little laugh.

"I didn't even know that was a fantasy." That voice is set to fully innocent. "And I did expect them off." A shake of her head. "Not even one thought of removing them, huh?"

I shook my head, what was she going on about. "Removing?"

Another laugh. "You don't even know? Wow, our minds did short circuit." She reached out and...

A small touch to the right temple...

...of my eyeglasses.

I knew then. My eyes widened, realizing that I was so intense that I hadn't even spared a moment to remove my glasses. Even as I knew wearing them **and** contacts might leave me with a headache, but that wasn't even paramount in my mind. Without a thought, Rory took them at my right side, lifted them from my face, and slid them off, before folding them closed and setting them to the side.

I could only shake my head and curl up my lip slightly as I didn't even give a thought to the fact I went down on Rory while wearing my glasses. She hummed, finding the case in my messenger bag, opening it, and gingerly placing my glasses back into it before closing it softly and carefully and putting it back in.

I'm telling you, this girl is enough to scramble my brain sometimes. With this confidence knowing she was the one driving this relationship towards an intensity we never thought we'd hit, she took the lead, still looking luminous even without any clothes on above her waist and completely ravaged legwear. Rory moved back towards me, letting out a small murmur of thanks before laying the smallest and cutest of kisses upon my lips. I shook my head and gestured slightly, annoyed with myself slightly that I definitely wasn't following my eyewear manufacturer's guidelines, yet...

"I could have removed them," I rationalized, trying to make it look like I intended for it to happen. "But then, you would have been disappointed, Gilmore."

"Sure, I totally believe that." She winked back and looked down. "Just like I thought you wouldn't rend my hose so badly this morning when I slid them on...as I pre-soaked the crotch while waiting for you to change."

I couldn't believe it. "Oh, you didn't--"

"I did. I knew if I didn't get you alone today, I was going to go mad." She clicked her tongue, and did a purposeful hair toss. "I released pheromones I knew you were gonna pounce on eventually. It wasn't a matter of if, but just when in that quiet study room you were going to finally act. Basic human sexuality and attraction, my fair friend."

I looked down at my lap, just taking in that she knew I'd more than massage her. "I knew the moment you had the hose on, Ror."

"Oh, you didn't," she retorted. "I know you're frustrated when I wear hose. But now?" She began to slide them off. "You'll be more than that. I predict that from this point on you're just going to take one look at my legs and that spark will hit. The spark that we came up here and you went down on me in glasses and tore up my hose. That at your heart, even as cultured as you are, you are a primal being who loves sex, and especially giving it."

She was now bare-legged, and completely nude. She didn't even give one thought to her state of undress, standing there and beginning to turn the tables on my WPM getting her hot and bothered. "You see me as innocent, a completely open book, and I bet when we were still dreaming this would never come true, you were sleeping deep and thinking of me in ways you'd never admit. That you wanted me damp, undone, completely at your mercy. I know I've thought the same of you. But the thing is, we would never admit it, would we, Paris? We thought of ourselves in the purest and most demure manners when we were awake, but once we fell asleep, that wasn't happening, was it?"

Slowly, Rory approached me as I slipped my damp underwear off and into my bag. I was still as she handed me the soaked ball of nylon to put in. She invaded my space, as I nodded in affirmation that whatever thoughts I had of her were likely much less controlled within my dreams.

"Paris."

"Yeah?"

A small pause. And then...

"Whatever happens with Sharon? I'm standing my ground and we're staying together. I promise you now; this is not going to be our last time." She was completely stern, almost hitting the same tone of voice Ms. Peters did when she was pissed. "If I lose you, I will never forgive myself if I don't fight to keep you mine. Because I still have so many things I want with you. Some of them completely innocent...and others? You're going to be shocked."

I kept neutral, challenging her to name something. "Am I? Name one thing?"

With a nod, and so close I could taste her, she answered.

"Like I said, we will eventually get intimate even if I am going through the curse of Mother Nature towards women. But...I felt that little graze of your tongue earlier. You didn't want to mention it. I know you're playing with your kinks. You probably didn't even realize it."

Finally...

"I love the feeling of you eating me out. But just that little bit of anal stimulation? Only a small bit? That worked, so well. I want more."

My mouth dropped. I barely grazed the pucker, but it was all she needed. She grabbed her bra, shirt and skirt from the end of the desk and that innocent smile of hers suddenly seemed to be sexually sinister.

Mind you that I was still hung up on her first sentence there, but the further insinuation pushed me into an overdrive. I wrinkled my eyes together and sighed, giving off the smallest of smiles as I took her in. There was quiet as I watched her dress, just taking in the moment and all of her words. Unrolling her extra hose from the backpack, sitting on the edge of the desk and sliding them on, leg by leg, then onto her bra. I just wanted to take this in, treasuring this small moment before we learned our fates as great sex turned into a battle of sensual glances. Her knowing that I was having to retrieve my spare underwear from my locker. My knowing that I had defiled one of my most private places in this school I know so well. I then took out my smaller hairbrush and ran it through my hair, hoping I looked unaffected by this lunch period hooky.

Soon, she was fully dressed, looking rather unaffected from three minutes before being completely ravished. Rory then approached me and just kept her glance on me in a manner which had me a bit unnerved, but kept all my attention. She took my hand and helped me off the desk as I finished gathering everything back up. I felt my foot stiffen as I let it settle back to the ground. Neither of us had spoken since her admission, and as I took an offered crutch and slipped it back beneath my arm, I was still in awe.

We had done this. Our fantasy was fulfilled another way, but we had shared a moment neither of us would never forget. We remained oddly quiet getting into the elevator and making our way to the locker room so she could shower before lunch's end. II eventually put my glasses away and distracted myself with biology reading while she showered, fully and utterly satisfied and not needing anything more for the moment, sealing everything up as I was content and in clean undergarments once again, thankfully. We didn't dare say a word, afraid that some wayward student would know we came from a liaison not involving lunch. It was odd that we didn't have to speak a word and she came out of the changing area, the only sign she might have done something unusual for her during the lunch hour being dampened hair, easily explained with the excuse that the school heat kicked in hotter than usual and she needed to cool down and clean up during the period and had me accompany her as a lookout. It had all gone well.

Finally, we were both out of the locker room and in the commons outside the dining hall, looking at everyone beginning to stream back in from either there or an outside lunch. For all anyone knew we had just had Wendy's off-campus, so there was no way we'd be caught. Before we had to blend in the crowd and head off to our separate classes, we took one last glance at each other, wondering when the call about my custody hearing would come. If it would come early, or if biology would become the ultimate goodbye. We both finally spoke, hoping for the best.

"Hopefully it all goes well," I said, hopes held high. She looked down at me, wrapping her right index finger comfortably around my left thumb. "I don't--"

"We won't, Paris. I mean it." Her blue eyes held so much hope for the future, and I could tell she didn't want it to be broken. "If this is it, we went out well. But it won't be. I won't let it." She bent down, softly brushing the shell of my ear with her lips.

"I love you. And I'm not letting go. Especially when you eventually have to turn the tables on me after our little adventure upstairs." I was stilled as she let her voice husk in a way that was so unlike her, I felt tingling along my back and into my lungs.

"You've left an ever-fixed mark upon me, Gellar. And now..." A pause. Then, the slightest little flick of the shell of my earlobe with my tongue.

"You've fulfilled your threat of going down on me from a couple years ago. Thus, I shall go down on you." She left a small puff of air along my ear as she pulled away, and I felt weak in the knees, recalling the bench all over again. How former threats were now full overtures of love.

And how I had fatally realized that Sonnet 116 was not a threat to her, but now one of the earliest interludes of our flirting. Pulling away, she gave off an innocent smile, as if we hadn't just fucked on a desk fifteen minutes before.

"See you in biology, Paris!" And then just like that, she was far away, leaving it light. A promise that despite all that was going on in downtown Hartford, we still had one last meeting today, a fear that it would be our last still hanging in the air.

I lifted my arm, letting off a little wave and a shy "Bye!" as I watched her depart. Bringing my mind back to an academic focus mixed with that of the anxiety of my fate for the next week awaiting, I have to hold out that everything will be OK. That I have advocates helping Rory and I to lead our lives as we do.

That Sharon can't win. I can't let her win. But it's out of my hands. My fate is in the hands of an attorney who could be intimidated by my mother's awful asshole of a lawyer.

But I can't let those thoughts win. I'm going to stay independent. In Stars Hollow. With Rory. Without the threat of my light being extinguished by Sharon.

It's time to block those thoughts and bring myself into thinking of the next class. I'm not going to let her get to me, because Rory has shown me that I **must** keep it together. To be who I want to be.

To be her beloved.

These next three hours may have me jubilant or reaching the lowest of lows. We will just have to see where the court ends up taking us.

Hopefully not as fugitives...  


* * *

**  
**  
Lorelai's POV, 2:20 p.m.  


 ****I don't think I've been a part of a more nervous group of people in my life than I did today. I was a bit nervous, but I had reason to relax a little since Paris had no connection to me at all besides being my daughter's girlfriend.

For Harold and Fran though? Much different. As I had a small pub burger with fries at lunch, they barely were able to touch their own food. Harold looked at his turkey on rye as if it was going to jump off the plate and scream at him to eat it, while Paris's nanny couldn't bear to touch her salad. It was melancholy, and I knew I couldn't say it was going to be OK, because I wasn't even certain that was the case.

I kept picturing Judge Gray in her chambers weighing all the evidence and the testimony presented. I didn't envy her job of having to come into family court daily and trying to figure out who was right or who was wrong, and that's simplifying it; there's too many shades of gray to even say there **is** a right or wrong. Among the four of us, only Elisa and I ate lunch, really, and even she was iffy on whether she put on the best defense for Paris. All the anxiety was there, and as we streamed back into the courtroom, we could only hope for the best out of the decision.

It was an outcome Hampton was sure would go his way. He was already at his desk with Sharon, giving off a smug look towards Elisa and Harold that said he definitely had this in the bag. For all we knew that happened to be a money bag thrown at Judge Gray to make sure Sharon got custody. Dr. Birnbaum could only assure us she knew Paris would know how to cope, no matter how the decision went.

I hated this, the waiting. Along with the dread, I just felt a prickle against my heart that I wanted pulled out from me. A week ago I didn't even picture myself here, but alas, Mrs. Gellar decided this was the way she would react, and damned if I was going to have Paris go back to her without a fight.

Soon though, the journey began its end with the entrance of the court officer and his call for all of us to rise as Judge Gray re-entered the spare chambers with a neutral gaze in our directions, then a call to sit down. In a few minutes I was either going to be thankful for this woman's impartiality, or else she was going to be the most myopic woman I've ever known. Harold and Elisa gave me an assured glance, followed by Francisca, as the Hartford and Stars Hollow police officers and doctors sat in the gallery, hoping for the best.

Strange of course, how none of Sharon's friends were offering the same support on her side of the courtroom, which was completely empty. I closed my eyes, deciding that giving any glance towards Judge Gray would somehow curse her towards suddenly giving Paris back to Sharon.

"I have had a chance to look over everything," she said with a light flourish. "As requested, I have been able to look at the case files, police reports and as requested, the divorce settlement, along with the testimony presented."

I said a silent prayer for Paris as she continued. "I have considered this case very carefully, especially considering the status of the subject as having her birthday next Wednesday. This means that any finding of the State rendered today would be merely temporary in the eyes of the common man; as of 12:01 a.m. next Wednesday, this court no longer has any standing as to how Paris Gellar conducts her life. I have taken that into account in my findings."

She continued on. "I know that the court is to be impartial, in order to render a decision that is in the best interests in the child. In doing so, we are expected to make sure the child is safe, no matter the decision rendered. The safety of the subject is paramount over anything involving the parents or guardians of the child. However, we must also take in mind how the child behaves, and in this case, we have a child with no records or dealings with the authorities, outside of an odd uncharged school break-in merely influenced by peer pressure and fitting in to some sorority thing. A young woman who is at the top of her class, and bound for an Ivy League college, and who has the mental maturity that definitely goes beyond her seventeen years and 357-ish days since her birth.

"Mrs. Gellar. I have read through your petition, along with the divorce settlement presented by your lawyer, and I am left with many questions. The first is, why would you bring yourself into direct conflict with your daughter like that? Or even more, why hire a private investigator to follow your daughter?" I still had my eyes closed, but followed the raising inflection of her voice. "Frankly if Paris had discovered that investigator following her before you revealed he was...I would be appalled. You could have easily asked your daughter what was going on. Just a simple question. Or sat on what you thought and let her tell you. Instead, you violated her privacy and turned what should have been a moment where you could have proved to be an accepting parent into a combative situation, where it should have never been so.

"What is worse though, is that what is in this divorce agreement, which limits how your former husband can live his life?" A pause, as she thumped her finger against the agreement paperwork. "This should have been struck by the presiding judge in your divorce proceedings with prejudice. It **cannot** be enforced. Mr. Gellar has half-custody of Paris, without restriction, but this agreement made a tatters of that, effectively restricting him to certain nights at your whim and forcing him to purchase a dwelling which restricted him from being able to carry out that half-custody by decreeing he can only have one bedroom until Paris turns eighteen. As of this point, it is the court's finding that the custody agreement between Sharon and Harold Gellar is unenforceable. Although I am not privy to how exactly custody was split, I am finding that restricting Harold's access to Paris by effectively making it so she only could sleep on a couch during his time with her created an environment where she couldn't spend half her time with her father, even if she wanted to. With only a week to go this is pretty much only a ruling for the record than in practice, but the court finds that the original half-custody agreement is enforceable and overrules any secondary agreements made in the settlement."

I began to open my eyes, turning towards Sharon, who scowled at the judge. Hampton wasn't looking too pleased with himself either. I moved my focus towards the judge to hear the rest of the ruling.

"As to the disposition of whether Paris should go home to you Mrs. Gellar...pardon me for departing from protocol here, but...are you seriously petitioning the court to force your daughter back into a situation where she was harmed? Where you physically assaulted her?" The tone of her voice turned grave, and her glare was icy, eyes dead-set on Sharon and Hampton. "That you would even think the court would entertain the possibility that after you nearly killed your daughter on Saturday morning and jailed you for her protection, would allow you to resume your life as if nothing happened, that you did not choke her? Or put her in crutches, along with attempting to go for the gun of an officer of the law?"

"Fuck." I mouthed the word; I didn't even know Sharon had attempted that, and it was news to Harold too as he was in stunned shock. "That detail was placed in the report and corroborated by Paris's nanny yesterday when she finally felt comfortable to give an interview, and confirmed by the officer. This was after Mr. Hampton's underlings tried to chill Mrs. Regaldo by threatening her with deportation, despite being a United States citizen for five years. I did not state all that until now because I knew it might cause Mr. Gellar to become angry and it was a small detail since you were subdued far before you could go for the officer's belt. But it was apparent enough through that and your attempt to assault Ms. Gilmore last night that if I do allow you to regain primary custody, forget the voters. Forget the judiciary board. Or my family. I would not be able to look myself in the mirror any longer, knowing I sent a young woman back to someone who hurt her through words and actions, and put her at a high chance of being harmed again...or worse."

Then, she delivered the hammer. "Mr. Hampton, that you would even take up this petition and force the State through this farce of a proceeding is not only absurd, but as someone who takes the law seriously, offensive." She glowered at him as if he was absolute scum. "Reading through that divorce settlement, it is clear that the judge who presided over it let other influences blind their judgement, and I feel like you were part of that. I cannot do anything besides nullify the non-enforceable living arrangements, but I can assure you, that the state bar will be looking into your conduct, and that of the judge presiding over the agreement. Especially your character attacks on Ms. Gilmore this afternoon, which were not only completely uncalled for, but which a damned Criminal Law 101 student would never even try to pull off." I admit I kind of swooned as she not only put a sneer into that statement, but a pound on her desk with an open palm for added emphasis. "The court is offended by your actions, Mr. Hampton, and let it be known you have harmed your client by attempting to abuse the justice system in order to get your way."

Back to Sharon, and she was **pissed**. "The finding of this court is that Harold Lawrence Gellar is awarded full custody of his daughter, Paris Eustace Gellar, and because of the circumstances presented, his current arrangement for Lorelai Victoria Gilmore to be Paris's guardian is now as her **legal** guardian in his place for the remaining days until next Wednesday. The court, in good conscience cannot place Paris Gellar back into the custody of Sharon Gellar, and fears that harm will come to the minor subject if Mrs. Gellar is in her presence. It is so ordered that there will be an order of protection, effective immediately, for several subjects in this case. Mrs. Gellar, you are not to come within 1,000 feet of Paris, nor of her friends, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, Louise Shelby Grant and Madeline Linda Lynn, and once you depart this courthouse, that distance will also go into effect for Lorelai Victoria Gilmore and Harold Gellar; the latter being out of a fear you will retaliate against those two.. This also applies to electronic contact via e-mail, telephone and text messaging, along with written letters through either the mail or any kind of messenger through a no-contact order.

"It is also so ordered by the concern of Taylor Archibald Doose, a selectman for the town of Stars Hollow, that you will not be within a mile of town limits, or face immediate arrest for trespassing. Finally, Hanlon Darroch Charleston, the headmaster of Chilton Academy also presented the same concerns for his institution, and you are not to be 500 feet within the limits of the Chilton campus or any off-campus event with anyone I've mentioned participating.. These restrictions will remain in place even past next Wednesday, for the next three months, and may be extended upon my review."

I could see Sharon grow angry, having to ball up a whole bunch of rage. None of us were being real jubilant (OK, I was banking Taylor's middle name, you really think I'm passing **that** fun up?); this wasn't what we wanted at all going into Saturday morning, but it was the only thing that the judge could do.

"Finally, because of the financial hardship you put upon the respondents to this petition of custody, the plaintiff is ordered to pay all of the defendants in the case, including those who testified today, salaries lost to respond to this petition, along with all court costs and attorney's fees for the defendants. Clearly, this young woman had enough support where they all responded, despite this proceeding taking away a much- needed work day they critically needed before the holidays. Finally, the petition for full custody by Sharon Gellar, notwithstanding the previous rulings, is dismissed, with prejudice. Any attempt to appeal this ruling will be denied."

And this was it; finally, we could all relax. "It is so ordered, and this ruling is final." She struck the mallet with her gavel with strong force, and I could seriously hug this woman if I wanted to! "We are adjourned."

That would be it, if this were a world where we expected Sharon to just accept the ruling and leave peacefully.

Of course, this is Sharon we're talking about. She rose out of her seat, throwing back her chair against the bar behind her, and immediately stating what she thought of Judge Gray's ruling,

"You fucking bitch! Impartial judge, my ass!" Hampton attempted to control her, to no avail.

Judge Gray hadn't left her seat yet thankfully, so about seven feet of oak bench stood between her and Sharon. She pounded the gavel with force. "Mrs. Gellar! I am only going to say this once; one more word towards me, and I will find you in contempt. You will also find yourself in jail once again, but since it would be a repeat offense atop your charges from Saturday and the hold last night in Stars Hollow, you **will** be held through the holidays. You will also face travel restrictions and I'm going to just fathom a guess that you'll probably have to give up your passport, which I know you're treasuring like fine china to keep and you should be lucky I did not restrict despite thoughts of doing so. The lack of respect you have shown the court is offensive and if I were you, I would now leave the courthouse quietly." A firm pause. "Mr. Hampton, let's actually control your client. The ruling is final."

The tall court officer quickly moved from his position next to the court reporter, ready to intervene if Sharon attempted to rush the room. He glanced nervously around the room; everyone on our side of the room stayed seated. Again, Hampton rushed out advice to Sharon for her to stay quiet.

This time, Sharon took the threats seriously. She gathered her papers and coat, Hampton gathered up his briefcase, and with a firm glare directed in our side of the courtroom, both left in a flourish, to everyone's relief. No further words were dropped and the pneumatic door in the back of the courtroom closed with a thankful and peaceful tap against the frame.

Judge Gray let out a relieved breath and smiled at her court officer. "Thanks, Bruce. I'm glad you didn't need to go against that scrawny lawyer; just would have been embarrassing." The joke was definitely needed and all of us laughed as she turned to us. "If there isn't anything else, we are adjourned, and I hope you all, along with Paris, have a wonderful holiday." One more gavel tap, and that was it. Francisca immediately went for Harold, who brought her into a much-needed hug, and I turned to Elisa, looking shocked, as if she had just slayed a giant.

"Apologies for my language, but...holy shit. We toppled Hampton. The bar's wanted to go after his ass for years but the judges upstairs bowed to him as a state legal legend. Amy Gray though...she's never been swayed." I felt excited that this case really helped the self-confidence of this woman, and I hugged her gladly.

"Thank you, Elisa. Thanks so much; I was scared of what would happen if it went the other way." I was emotional, and this is all I wanted, the assurance that I did nothing wrong. And now I legally could protect Paris from Sharon.

 **Legally**. To be thankful that the state is seeing it fit that I can protect her until next Wednesday, you don't know how goddamned grateful I am to that woman up there for seeing through Sharon's charade.

Harold and Francisca broke apart, and his attention shifted towards Elisa and I. "Thank you for your incredible patience about all of this, and coming through on such short notice."

"Absolutely not a problem, Mr. Gellar." Elisa was relieved to get through all of this. "If it wasn't for Lorelai's testimony though, I don't know what would have happened." She nodded at me. "I swear I saw you scheming to injure Hampton while he grilled you up there."

"Considered, but shoved off; let the bar at him," I proclaimed with a smile. I then turned my attention towards Harold. "Thanks, Harold; you're a good man sticking by Paris like this."

"Anything for my Sweet Pea." His eyes lit up. "Although now that we have this sealed, I have a big favor to ask you."

"Name it." He moved close to whisper in my ear for a long minute. Certainly, I'm not going to repeat what he asked of me, but I'm really excited about what he is asking.

"Oh God, of course! I can definitely make that happen." I'm giddy about the future, and knowing that Sharon can't touch any of us, it's a burden off all of our minds. Both Dr. Merton and Dr. Birnbaum also agreed, talking among each other and calmed by the judge's ruling our way.

At least now, everything's firmed up. Sharon has to stay away and it's just a countdown to Paris becoming an official adult. I'm sure later on, she might end up trying to test out that order of protection, but for now, I can relax.

But even more, Rory can too. I can't wait to tell her...  


* * *

**  
**  
Rory's POV, 2:50 p.m.  


 ****It's a weight off my mind. That's all I can really say.

Nervously I had kept palming at my cell phone nearly all afternoon, waiting for Mom to text me anything, good or bad, with Paris putting hers in her locker after lunch to stave off temptation and trouble. The court system certainly knew how to build the drama, and by the time Dr. Eure's class had started, still nothing back from her. By then I was able to slyly hide my phone behind my bag and Paris and I kept up our notes as the class went on, glances occasionally at the device to see what was going on.

I could see for once though that Paris's notes were hardly serious. Just a scribble mark here and there and another short note in another place. I felt pain in my stomach waiting; surely it wasn't this hard to figure out custody, wasn't it?

I managed a couple brushes of her hand along the table, to reassure her. She gave me a seductive look back hidden in her glare in response. We were both just waiting to be put out of our misery, and could only hope for the best. Soon I was digesting the lesson, while at the same time tracking the sweeping arm of the classroom clock waiting for a response from Mom.

Finally, at 2:39 and 51 seconds, it came with two short vibrations against the tabletop. Paris's attention immediately went to the phone and she tapped my side; we both knew what was in this text message was either going to solidify or relationship, or challenge it even more.

I already had a plan in my mind after the student gov meeting; I would take the wheel of the Jag. We had a half a tank; that could get us up 91 all the way near Vermont to Greenfield, or west to one of the small hamlets north of New York west of Danbury and we could work from there west. _I could do this_ , I thought. _Sure, I'm absolutely terrible about bus routes, as I learned with that trip to see Jess, but I know my way around a map. And a woman scorned will get her way. If Sharon scorns me, I'll scorch her ass!_

 __I clasped the phone, ready for whatever was rendered. Either way, I loved Paris, and I wasn't leaving her side. I turned on the screen to see '3 SMS Messages', clicked into the menu to view them...

_From: Mom_

__"Here we go", I mouthed, allowing the message to appear on the small square screen. Dr. Eure was in some PowerPoint, so nothing stopped me from reading what Mom sent. I slid the phone over with Dr. Eure's focus off of us, and we both read, with a foreboding sense of fear.

_Rory, just got out of court and the judge ruled for Harry. Paris is staying in the Hollow! I am officially her LEGAL guardian until Xmas :)!_

__With that, the calm was setting in; we were safe. Onto the second message (which took a bit to read; Mom taking up text-speak is a nightmare!)...

_Sharon is done; the judge laughed her outta court & she has 2 stay 1000 ft from u Paris & I & M/L. A mile from SH, 500 ft from Chilton._

_No phone mail or comp contact either. U r now safe!_

__I could see Paris beginning to let go all the anguish and the fear she felt. One more message to read...

_Harold sends his <3 for his Sweet Pea, along w Nanny. Tell Paris I love her too & you 2...behave when u celebrate ;)._

_Oh geeze!_ I scoffed out a light but offended whisper of "Mom!", but Paris didn't care. Not a bit. She read through all three messages again, taking in that she was safe. I felt all the fear melt away from here and she reacted in a way I would have never expected.

"I'm safe," she whispered, as I could see her smile widen and then...tears. Tears of relief, of joy and of the release from having to look behind her back and hope her mother wasn't there.

Dr. Eure could see the interruption, and she acted, as predicted, walking towards our table and immediately finding the phone. "Miss Gellar! You are not supposed--"

She broke through the teacher's expected rules reminder with her emotions on her sleeve, and everywhere else. "I know, I know. No cell phones. But I don't have to go back to my mother." A short pause. "Oh my God. I don't have to go back to Sharon." She looked to Madeline, who held her hand at her chest with relief. "That feels really great to say out loud."

"Paris, I still have to--" She handed the phone to the teacher.

"I know, end of class, Rory can have it back. But I needed this. I really, really, needed this." Tears fell freely as Dr. Eure clasped my cell into her hand. "I'm safe and I'm loved and..."

Dr. Eure knew a moment when she saw one, and held a little bit of empathy. "Miss Gellar, would you like some time to yourself?" A small smile. "Obviously your head isn't in biology today."

"Can I join her?" I asked, with Madeline following. Dr. Eure looked at both of us and knew that it was a useless endeavor to keep to the lesson plan. Shaking her head, she surveyed the class and gave us a small smile.

"We're in the last three days before break and Thursday's quiz is a breeze," she rationalized. "I don't usually do this, but I'm releasing the class early. Stay here and chat, head home, get to club early? Whatever you want to do." She handed the phone back to me to a chorus of 'whoo-hoo's that didn't care about our circumstances, just that class was over. "This is a one-time only thing, of course, so don't abuse it." Dr. Eure asked Paris for her attention one more time. "I'm happy you got what you needed your way, Miss Gellar."

"Thank you...thanks so much, Dr. Eure." Paris was still crying happily as Dr. Eure went over our reading for tomorrow quickly, and nobody was looking at this early dismissal as a bad thing at all! With that, Madeline came right over and hugged her friend.

"Oh, thank God!" Madeline nearly barreled over the blonde with her bear hug and Paris sighed happily into Madeline's shoulder. It was all relief, exactly what we needed going into the holidays.

"I'm not going back. I don't haveta go back!" Paris was glad to let go the small fear of Sharon coming back for her and getting revenge. The woman's plan failed miserably, and almost all the stress was gone. There was still the wild card that Sharon doesn't care what the court says, but I'm sure the state is going to make sure she sticks to their orders.

"Paris, my Christmas miracle came true," Madeline proclaimed. "I prayed last night that you'd be OK, and now...it's true. I'm so glad." The jubilant girl focused on me. "And I'm glad you didn't have to go on the lam or anything."

"Yeah, Harvard would have docked us for leaving the state, I'm sure," I assumed, as Paris shook her head while wiping her eyes with a tissue. "What? It's true."

"Eh, I would have just put it on the 'life experiences' heading and fudged a few things," she declared. "I'm just glad this is over and I can sleep....I hope. Rory--"

"You're OK, Par. The cops in the Hollow are at the lines on each of the roads; mainly it's for speed enforcement, but they'll know your mom. She isn't getting into town easily, if at all."

"That's good to hear." She stood next to Madeline, and before I could even fathom it, Paris quickly turned her emotions from the reaction about custody right to the next thing. "Anyways, we have bigger problems to deal with now. We have to figure out Francie's next move. Gilmore?"

I was flummoxed for a moment; going from one extreme to another would have thrown me off in the past. But Madeline and I quickly veered to what was about to go down after school. "I would assume she'll try to force us out and it'll be something big or something small."

Madeline quickly floated her theory, pointing it out with her finger. "Impeachment. Mention Monica Lewinsky to her and she'll have a rant about the hearings that would have Sean Hannity telling her to chill out. I'd look at that as her main attack."

"But can we even get impeached?" I asked. Paris quickly had the answer.

"Unless we pilfered the treasury or used school monies and facilities to hold an underage _Eyes Wide Shut_ thing or something, no way. We haven't committed any crimes, and the Winter Formal was ruined thanks to you-know-who. If she brings it out, Ms. Peters will shut it down with a speech about cooperation and harmony. I can pretty much predict it."

"So how could she get us out? Could she use our romantic interest as a conflict of interest and I'd at least have to step down as VP?"

"Tried, and failed, at least six times in the past among past president/VP couples. You elect who you elect and if the president and VP are in love, that's tough. Besides, she can't try it, what with the knowledge we have about how she got the senior class presidency through her big mouth." I winced and then chortled at her wording, along with Madeline, and Paris just rolled her eyes. "Come on, you're both eighteen! You hear worse on _Friends_!"

"I just don't want to be reminded of her blowjobs!" Madeline argued. "She does it all wrong and uses too much teeth. With Brad, I--"

Par quickly brought us away from that elegantly. "I'd also expect her to pull out the 'what have they done for the school' chestnut in that we don't do much. We did plenty; service club funding, more cooperation, but not outright obedience to the Regents, finally getting the school radio station to allow those kids to use MP3's rather than clumsy mix CD's, and the fact we found a better vending machine contract outside of selling the school's soul to Coke for a few years. Finally, there's the 'if Paris stepped down, Rory would be a mouse' attack, basically claiming if Rory somehow was student body president, she'd wither under pressure. I put her under pressure all the time; she could get the job done."

"And Rory's anger for Francie could fuel the boilers downstairs for three years," Madeline interjected. I nodded.

"Damned straight; I'd run the government just like Par did." I wasn't going to deny my pride about how I'd do. "One more thing, she'd probably argue she could run the government better alone than the two of us."

"Please!" Paris scoffed at the thought. "She couldn't even run her first fucking initiation for the Puffs without nearly getting 2% of the female school population thrown into juvi. She'd do terrible alone in student government."

"I thought of one more strategy." Madeline pointed out one last argument Francie could use to push us out, mocking the girl's voice. "But Rory and Paris are lesbians. We can't have lesbians in government...why dearie me, they might force us to have a Lilith Fair use the school stadium or...oh, my God, make our good strong Chilton boys look weak and timid!" I laughed heartily, and Paris smiled, but knew how to refute that straight off.

"Oh, but Francie, ladies ran this school for 150 years, without the boys. And Lilith Fair isn't touring, it's December, you ditz!" She was almost giddy, rather than scared. "Trust me, we are leaving that room as president and vice president. Francie **can't** and won't get to me, and if she thinks her friends dropping Holocaust taunts at me is going to make me wither, she's got another thing coming!"

"That was--"

"I knew it was Beth Howard," she told Madeline and I, to our shocks. "Her terrible script was telegraphed into that threat. As much as I'd like the satisfaction of seeing her scorned by either of you I wasn't going to let her get to me." I nodded in response; not answering back was probably right. "I didn't need either of you putting her in the hospital."

"Wrong place. It would be a slab in the morgue." That wasn't Paris or I. That was Madeline, deadly serious, a bite in her voice so vicious it burned. Paris's mouth dropped open in shock and she wanted to scold her, but was quickly stopped. "It's true. I'm nice, but when someone tries to be malicious to my friends, I'm not going to be charitable." Paris could merely nod as I still found myself confused by Madeline's bitter side.

"I...know that well," I said, hoping to end this detour. Madeline nodded back at me, then let off the smallest of smiles. Paris knew we wouldn't seriously threaten her, but it was still out there.

"Okay. We have a government to defend. Hopefully it's quiet or just full of bluster. Though that's me, hoping for the best." The three of us got up and Madeline headed out of the room to meet Brad outside of his class, leaving the both of us alone outside a few other classmates to wait out the last five minutes. I could sense so much relief off her shoulders, especially when she felt relaxed enough to give me an easy smile.

"You have this, Gilmore," she intoned with confidence. "Don't make me regret that May day I threw everything on you." I laughed a bit, throwing her off. "What's so funny about that?"

I smiled back, showing my teeth to her and moving in close. "I have only one regret, Par. Only one." I brushed her left wrist with my fingers playfully. "If only I hadn't been moony about Jess, I would have loved to know...what was happening in your bedroom the night we won?"

I admit it, I'm bold. Too bold, in fact. Now that I'm public I'm not afraid to make Paris blush in a classroom about aspects of the complicated but beautiful tangle that is our relationship. She turned away from me and her breathing became shaky. Her eyes glazed over.

God, I love doing this to her. She seems lost in thought for a moment. I totally expect her to go into either 'whatever' mode and stalk off, or monologue about privacy.

Instead she moves in close and in short detail...oh God...

"Five clitoral orgasms. Three fingers. One soaked-through mattress pad." A little peck on the cheek. "Results I hope to exceed one day with the genuine article." She gazed down, towards my lap, and there's the soft smile that makes me melt. "And you know I deliver on my promises."

I didn't think it was possible, but she eases onto her crutches and makes her way out of the room, leaving me stunned behind her, a contrast from when she found out I set her up with Tristan.

Yeah, the Paris paralyzed with fear about Sharon is gone for now. Wayyy gone. I'm still catching up from the massage from earlier and my girlfriend flouting her self-made 'no kissing at Chilton rule' is back, with abandon. The flirting is right back to where it was. I leave the room and I'm thinking of two things besides the meeting.

 _When she heals up, how am I going to wear her out?!_ I really can't think of a way, and I know once we're sleeping together again that it isn't going to be normal, by far. Just her fingers and tongue this afternoon...and then to hear that before I go in for the most important student government meeting ever?

Yup, going to need to have to find some kind of control. Especially now that her scent is stuck in my mind.

The other thought?

It's going to be a loooong winter at Chilton. For my sake, I hope Costco stocks blue hose in bulk...  


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Paris's POV, 3:40 p.m.  


 ****When I went into the election, I thought I was running merely as a candidate with qualifications. That nobody would care about my personal life and just wither in my presence. I had no designs on caring about my perception, as long as I balloted first and did what I promised, that was going to be my simple legacy.

I also scoffed at Madeline and Louise's polling at the time. Especially Mads's crack about hoping for a sex scandal. Sex? Me? Surely you must be insane! The only sex that was going to be entered into my administration was the filling of the 'F' box in on the certification.

Seven months later, sex is all I can think about. And all I was hoping for is that it didn't affect my position as student body president, nor Rory's as vice president.

The tenor of the conference room was definitely different from every other time I was in there. I was hoping for the best out of this meeting, that I could just get out of here and we could all move on towards starting to plan for prom at the next meeting in three weeks.

Sharon made sure that didn't happen, and now Rory and I had to face the music. I entered the room with my agenda and sat at the head of the table, as everyone else came in. Lemon and Madeline, everyone else, along with Chip.

No Louise, of course. Her spot was blank, as well it should be for all the shame I had in not telling her. From her at least, the silent treatment was deserved.

And then of course, there she was. The Hydra in the way of all my progress.

"Gellar." I couldn't stand looking at her, knowing she was trying to hijack me, everything I wanted to do for Chilton, and for what? Just because I loved a girl?

To think, I wanted to be her friend for awhile. I wanted to know her and...

...it hurts to say this, but I did once covet her body in a summer camp changing room. Sure, I felt extreme jealousy for her, but she pulled off a bikini that summer in ways I could even dream of as my puberty hormones went all over the place.

"Jarvis," I bit back. "Looking forward to winter break?"

"I am." She smirked. "Even more, taking your position and that lady of yours out of here. She's not going to know what hit her today."

I merely shook my head in response and waited for the remainder of people to come in, including a few spectators, and of course, the woman of the hour. She came in the room and quietly sat down, but not before Francie tried to psyche her out.

"Hey, Rory." The greeting was hardly cordial. "Are you enjoying the fish at lunch?" Rory glanced up for a moment, only to regard Francie's taunt as sad and beneath her. "I'm talking to you, Gilmore. You do realize you'll lose your title, right?" Rory nodded, continuing to go over her paperwork. I just looked on, wanting to see how far Francie would go on with this charade as Rory wrote something down.

"Birdie, I'm talking to you," she continued, her voice grating and eyes narrowed that the girl wasn't responding. "Come on, let me get a rise out. Of course, being the man in the relationship, you should know how to get a rise." Still no response, and this was growing to be tiresome. Finally, she grabbed Rory's pen out of her hand, forcing Rory's gaze up to her eyes.

"Got your pen!" she said. "Why aren't you responding to my taunts?"

"Because I'm secure in my sexuality, and rehashing all of the talking points of the American Family Association is kind of sad. Surely you'd love to lay down some good old fashioned slurs at me." A sly smile, and then that sexy husk hit her voice. "Oh, that's right, Francie. You got laid out not to be a vicious trollop or lose your senior class presidency. You're reserving that hot talk for off-campus." She put her hand in her backpack to grab another pen. "Oh, go ahead and keep that pen; it was a freebie from Stars Hollow High, a place with the saddest bullies in history. You might feel right at home there. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to save some fireworks for the actual meeting. Thank you." With one last icy stare Rory went back to her work and Francie was nice and flustered.

I was of course hating my foot more and more after that verbal foreplay; you thought my voice did things to her, but hers was just...yeah, I'm too frustrated. Thankfully that was just the point Ms. Peters came in, Rory and Francie dispersed and I could finally get down to business.

Routine and parliamentary procedure was a big help to me as getting into the introductions, asking for the minutes to be entered and doing all the things I had to before debates and voting started helped to keep some distance. Rory was able to calm herself before the storm of whatever Francie was going to play, which I really needed to happen in that moment. I wanted normalcy, and this is exactly what I needed in that moment to get that balance again.

Eventually though, it was time for the moment I dreaded. I looked around the room as the last order of routine business was fulfilled and looked down at my agenda, the first item of which I really wanted to skip over, but couldn't.

"Next order of business," I said neutrally, "Senior class president Francine Jarvis has a proposal." _Please just be a lacrosse scoreboard. Or a bench. Anything but what I'm thinking._

 __Francie gave off that little smirk of hers that made the bile in my stomach rise up and clicked her tongue, while giving a dead-on glare to Rory. I think I caught her mid-mouthing threatening Rory's doom, with her shaking it right off.

"Thank you, Miss Gellar." Funny thing to thank someone you want to throw out isn't it? "As you may have heard, it seems there has been an issue that came up this weekend. Apparently, our esteemed student body president sustained injuries in a fight with her mother."

_Oh, you aren't starting it out this way..._

__"A fight with her mother which involved who she was dating. Now I know we are supposed to discard everything personal involving those in authority in student government. However, I fail to see how Miss Gellar can fulfill her duties as student body president when she is under constant threat by her mother. As a courtesy to our faculty supervisor, I am asking that we disregard our usual protocol and to let Miss Gellar heal from her injuries that I take over the duties of student body president until she feels better."

Ms. Peters was appalled, looking right towards me. "Miss Gellar, do you feel well enough?"

A little smirk, and a scoff from me. "I thank you for your concern, Miss Jarvis, and thank you for thinking of my health. But I am here, in this seat, and we have three days to winter break. I'm coherent and perfectly functional. In fact, my mother cannot set foot on this campus without arrest, so let me assuage that concern straight-off. I think by our next meeting in three weeks, I'll be fully recovered." I then pointed at Rory. "And even then, you forgot a step in the succession plan. If I fall ill, as my vice president, Miss Gilmore would take over in my place."

I knew Francie was just doing this for show, but played into it for entertainment value. "Well, I think I should note, Ms. Peters that those injuries were caused by Miss Gellar defending her sexual relationship with Miss Gilmore." As we did too many times lately, Rory and I both remained stone silent. "Surely, this would ensure a conflict of epic proportions if these two were to break up and Miss Gilmore were to disregard her former girlfriend's platform. Why...Rory could go scorched earth, torpedo her lady's agenda and the rest of us would be left with a mess to clean up. As a neutral party and for the good of the school, I am asking for a voice vote--"

And as predicted, here came Ms. Peters with the torpedo. "What you are asking for, Miss Jarvis, is for these two to be impeached."

"Not in those certain words." The older woman stared her down.

"And that will not happen," she clarified. "Nobody has done anything wrong, and these situations have occurred in many student governments before, where the president and vice president are a couple. I am certainly not going to allow you to use Miss Gellar's personal life as an attack on her character!"

"Ms. Peters, surely you would agree you have a conflict of interest as both the advisor here and on the _Franklin_?"

Internally, I was giddy. If she was back in the Army, Francie would be down on the floor giving 100 at this point with a high heel upon her back. But our adviser still had her words.

"The only conflict I'm having right now is whether this outburst deserves detention or not. Again, unless Miss Gellar and Miss Gilmore are causing clear harm to student government, there will be no forcing them out. The bylaws of the student constitution do not provide an impeachment channel because we have something stronger than that with the faculty; it's called a suspension from activities."

"Does anyone else agree with me? I'm sure there's some here that are concerned about these girls running student government while being romantically involved."

Jason Darling got up. My first thought about him being pro-Francie was that he was going to support her, along with Tom Hammond.

"I definitely have an objection..." he started. _Great, here comes the hour-long filibuster..._

 __"Get over it Francie, they won fair and square and if they got together, what's the problem? At least they're watching out for us, together."

"Jason!" She was startled by his support of us, and moved towards Tom to suggest he owed her something. I could only hope he wouldn't put his foot in his mouth for her...

"I think that Ms. Jarvis has a point." Predictable as always, Hammond. Still, it wasn't enough. Ms. Peters rolled her eyes while judging the situation further.

"Does she? Please then, tell me how these two girls have been disruptive in any possible manner in the last month. Regale me with this information and maybe I'll agree to this plan to put the positions of student body president and vice president to a re-vote."

"They're going to get Mr. Mercurio fired!" Francie proclaimed. Lemon wasn't having it.

"Please. The administration's had it out for him for years. That was just the straw that broke the camel's back, Francie. He was the disruptive one with his stupid seating chart, not them."

"Ohhh....well, um...Tom, help me out here." This was quite amusing and I glanced a look at Rory, who I could tell was wanting to pop some corn and enjoy the fun going on in front of her. "Wait...they held back information about the RTS vote! If they were gay they--"

"Of course I was biased for the funding, Miss Jarvis, I brought the motion forward," I told her. "No matter my sexuality I wasn't going to throw a student organization out for the mere reasoning of 'just because'. I allowed a lacrosse funding motion to go through and I can't stand the sport and the guys playing it."

Tom finally had something to throw at us. Like a sad, wet trout, but still...something. "You abused Francie's hemline provision for your own sick and twisted purposes!"

 _Really, four months in student gov, and that's the best you could think of? Maybe Francie was right to suck your sad little manhood off._ Rory got this one while I thought how much of a bullet we dodged in not having him as senior class president.

She turned on the sweet and just went full-bore into him. "Mr. Hammond, I find it highly inappropriate of you to think of me and my girlfriend in this manner. Yes, the hemline thing might have helped bring us together, and I will admit some impure intentions on my own part in going along with it. But if you're mad that we got fired up over two extra inches of thigh, surely you're not thinking of the students of this school in the middle of growth spurts who don't have to worry about buying or re-hemming skirts as often as they used to."

Her attention then directed towards Francie. "Again, we have tried to accommodate every motion you're tried to bring to the table, Miss Jarvis. The both of us have been more than cooperative to you. Have we taken any advantage of the position outside of the parking space and key perks? Have we tried to push through some kind of overpowering agenda?"

"Well...no. But--"

"And we will continue to be for the students. Not just for us. We haven't made extraordinary demands out of our offices, we've managed to have reasonable campaign promises that were easily fulfilled. And we did not have to pass your hemline thing despite how much you're still blaming us for that...thing. We did." She stood up. "Miss Jarvis, if we have done anything to wrong you and the senior class, please let us know. Our lockers and the door to the _Franklin_ are always open. But if this about you annoyed because we're a couple? It's not right. We're not doing anything to make you uncomfortable. We wouldn't want to put any of our fellow students in a position they don't want to be part of. Our private life...is our private life. There are times you and I have disagreed vehemently and passionately, but I am not one to take a grudge and put it out in public."

She moved close to Francie, invading her private space, daring her to challenge her and go for a suspension. "This is the only time I'm going to say this to you, or anyone else. You **will not** take what my girlfriend had happen to her on Saturday morning and create a 'damsel in distress' agenda, or use it to mold it to your ambitions." Her voice clenched. "I apologize for going out of procedure, but she almost **died** at the hands of her mother. I don't give a damn if she was dating Justin Timberlake and her mom objected to that; either sex, any situation, that is an unacceptable reaction, and Paris just went through three days of hell hoping she didn't get pulled back into that position by the state." I held my heart as she emotionally defended my honor. "She did absolutely nothing wrong and has been holding me back from getting into trouble with you, so you should be thanking her, not stripping her of the well-deserved authority the students of this school gave her. She has spent all her life at Chilton tirelessly earning an education, and I will not have you tear her down just for who she loves, how she feels, nor her emotions. Get over last year, move the hell on with your life and let's get through this last part of the year without tearing each other's throats out."

Rory swallowed, moving away from Francie, who was quite pale. Silence permeated the room, as I saw Rory and her tear-filled blue eyes shift for a moment in my direction. I couldn't say anything else; she had taken a situation I thought would be violent and filled with heated words and calmed it down with a monologue that I could not have scripted.

"Thank you," she said, before taking her seat again, while Francie was too stunned to say a word.

Like I was that one day I dropped 'loser' on Rory. I deserved that and regret it at every moment.

"Miss Jarvis, do you have anything further to say?" I knew this wasn't over. Not even close. Being dressed down by her now-mortal enemy, Francie was going to seek some kind of revenge on her, like that ridiculous Christmas Day protest she hinted at once.

But for now, she knew when she was beat. "I...withdraw my resolution." She then slithered into her seat quietly. We didn't expect, nor want an apology. Tom tried to take the sword from her.

"Francie, I--"

"Forget it, Tom. Sit down. It's not happening," she ground out firmly, and that was it. The fire and brimstone we expected was but a nearly expired highway flare instead, petering out along 91 in the rain. Tom sat down and it was all done.

Rory and I had survived. There were sure to be eventual consequences down the line with Francie and her cronies, but for at least winter break, we were still president and vice president. All the weight I felt carrying Sharon and student government was gone, off my shoulders. I asked for the next resolution to be read, a request from C-SPAN to allow coverage of the school's Bicentennial celebration coming up in February. A no-brainer I was all but happy to embrace and accept, along with a few other light business matters that went through with little debate or discussion. Even among those who turned down RTS, only Tom seemed to hardline with voting with Francie, and everyone showed just as much respect for me and the gavel as they had pre-revelation.

Within a half-hour, the meeting was pretty much over, and near all of us were looking forward to having a fresh start in three weeks. Finally, with a last motion passed asking for a long-gone former Chiltonian to get a day in their honor passed, that was it. Francie was complacent, all 'yes' or 'no' on her votes, while Rory...

I think the anger was finally melting away. Sharon couldn't get us, Francie couldn't get to her, and soon she was free of Chilton and starched blouses for two weeks. She was happy to let all of this go.

"The motion carries, and that's it, business is done for the 2002 part of this school year. We come back next year January 14th, and hopefully you're all rested for the last semester before college or whatever you want to do. We're adjourned, and happy holidays." A hammer of the gavel, and that was it. Rory got up, relieved and headed towards me, while Francie wasn't about to pull her aside again, choosing to exit the room quietly.

This time though, Ms. Peters got to Rory before I could. At first I thought she went too far in my defense, but the assuring hand on her shoulder quickly told me otherwise.

"Good job nipping that, Rory. I thought for sure she was going to have it out," I heard her say. Madeline came towards me and I let the conversation go to concentrate on her, as she had some news.

"Guess what? I took your advice; I'm seeing U-Seattle on the Monday after Christmas, along with U-Dub and Evergreen. I had my dad make the calls; he's got a lot of Costco and MS stock, thus a lot of contacts at both schools." I beamed; she was taking this seriously.

"That's really good." I demurred. "Although I assume this isn't a trip alone, is it? You wouldn't mention an average college sightseeing trip without ulterior motives."

"Wha? No, I--" I snorted. "Fine, yes. Brad's mom is letting me take him out there, get some feelers out over there. He's got his Equity, AFTRA and SAG cards so he can pretty much get work anywhere there, or even Vancouver if he can get an ACTRA card...where if everything works out...we'll be up there New Year's Eve night!" Madeline squealed and I just rolled my eyes happily at her excitement.

"You realize you have me rooting for you two, right? That's really hard to do." I sighed, feeling like I was making up lost ground from years of not giving her enough attention. "Thanks for having my back, Mads. Would've sucked if I didn't have you kicking my ass at times."

"Well, it's what friends do, no matter what." She hugged me slightly. "And now you get to go home, relatively speaking and feel safe now that Mommy Dearest can't get to you."

"It is a relief." Frowning, I was honest. "This isn't what I wanted though. Just acceptance, or even just bland annoyance. Instead, we deal with this and be thankful it has to work out. Even Louise."

"I know. I hope I hear something from her...anything, soon. Since mid-October it's all been silence or just low-interest topics. There's something wrong."

"There is. But for now, if she wants to keep it private, we respect that." A nod. "I will admit one thing though."

"Hmm?"

"I've actually cleared my schedule for winter break outside of the one Harvard interview that Saturday after New Year's. No volunteer work just for hollow CV points. I don't mean to be selfish, but...I have Rory, and at least for one break I'd like to take advantage of it. No charities or the usual ball circuit. Though I'm sure Vance Beardsley's still going to try."

"Sorry, don't care about Vance...are you saying once you heal up...you're going to be lazy?"

"Not lazy. I can never be lazy. Just more...relaxed. As much as I can in the Hollow." I was unnerved by the look Madeline was giving me. "What?"

"You did something slutty at lunch, didn't you?"

"No! Of course not!" I looked around. "Lunch is not required to be eaten in the dining hall."

"You went to the bell tower, didn't you?" I regarded her question for a long moment, before having to admit defeat.

"I did." I let the other words come out softer and with my gaze averted. "And she went with me, but still--"

"You daring thing." She slightly snickered. "Not up to full-on sex yet?"

I shook my head. "I mean, we sleep close for now. I have to heal up. Finally, there's the guilt about Louise. I know I'll let it go lately, but for now, I just have to settle myself down a little. Rory is the daring one, and I'm all shy here. Besides, I'm more in a giving mood than that of receiving...I've been attracted to her for a long time. I want to know what gets her off."

"'Tis the season for giving, they say." I let out a small breath and laugh. "Although a little birdie tells me a big birthday is coming up."

"Maddie...nooo. Don't remind me." I cringed at the mention of the b-word. "Especially because you know why I loathe it so much and that day."

"Don't worry, we'll be quiet as usual." She saw Ms. Peters and Rory break up their conversation. "Letting you go; relax tonight for me."

"Relaxing will be done." I nodded at her and turned to Rory, who definitely looked like she wasn't talked down to at all. "So...how much trouble were you in for that outburst?"

"Trouble?" A smile. "Are you kidding? She complimented my WPM and word choice! And we were completely in the right; no attacks and just laying out the facts of our relationship. Angie didn't have a bad word to say at all."

"You need to stop calling her that. She is our--"

"I know, faculty supervisor. But it's all out of the way, even if Francie will be in plotting mode all break." A happy sigh. "You look lighter."

"I am lighter." I moved closer towards her. "So light, I'm buying at Luke's tonight. Only fair after what you all did for me today." I didn't even think about what I said; it just seemed natural at this point, though Rory expressed immediate concern.

"Luke's? You're ready for public scrutiny?"

I smiled, just feeling relaxed about it. "Dean's not going there for a long time, Jess and I get along, and I impressed the townsfolk. Might as well make it town-official."

"You know a town meeting is required for 'town-official' status, right? And that's two weeks from Thursday night."

"Rory..." I slid my hand into hers, and looked directly in her eyes. "I might have been shoved out of the closet with all the grace of Kerri Strug in that second-to-last vault, but I'm intending to stick the landing. I'm out here at school and besides the chickenshit note people, everyone else has been as 'eh' about us as an average couple. They're still hyped up about Brad and Madeline; we're pretty much in the clear for the most part. Your town might be a little traditional, but I'm sure I'm not going to be run out any time soon or refused service anywhere."

"Well, when you put it that way, maybe you have it right." She squeezed against my fingers. "Three more days. I heard you a little bit back there and...thank you for using winter break for a **break**."

"I mean it. Though I wouldn't rule out a charity thing if it popped up and I did have to go."

"As long as it isn't with Vance Beardsley III."

"It won't be. You can kick his ass if he attempts to ask me out." I looked around the emptying room, finding only a couple of girls in conversation. I took the quick opportunity to lay a kiss on Rory's lips, sneaking it in where I could take it. She returned the quick kiss, leaving me flustered as I realized something.

"Raspberry lip gloss." I sighed at the taste and she whimpered lightly.

"You have your blueberry, so you opened yourself up to my multiple lip gloss flavors, Par-Bear."

"Mmm, I did, did I?" I let out a laugh full of the creak which makes her weak. "I'll probably need to examine your selection further after dinner."

"And what about that paper for Econ?" she reminded me. I laughed it off.

"Probably need some help on that with your grammar and spelling check behind me...breath tickling my ear, your notes softly whispered into it...a cami barely able to hold all of your heft within and your legs crossed together, standing as another pool builds up between them."

Her voice was barely audible. "I'm taking off my hose once we hit the highway." God, her teasing, just perfect. "By the way, do you smell me?"

"You got pissed with Francie, of course I could." My fingers slid up her arms towards the underside, where I could easily make out the dampness beneath them along the blouse. "It's that Argentine temper of yours."

"Par?" A pause, and her eyebrows knitted together with extreme frustration. "We need to get to the car before that Argentine temper asks you for three fingers, right here, right now."

"Right here?" My thumb was against her wrist and I continued to tease. "Lunchtime surely was sating enough."

"Still hungry; I'm gonna need a definite shower before Luke's." I was tingling and with that, we escaped the conference room and now I've known this has been a good day.

A **very** good day. Rory's not about to go down on me or anything, but having her in this state, deeply in love and fully in lust, I'm not ready to be exhausted yet, at all.

If I'm being serious though, if this is what winning a court case for custody feels like, I need to shape up, because when we win a debate?

At this point I'm going to be very sore the next day, and with twelve debates ahead, I'm going to end up very exhausted from her...  


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Rory's POV, 7:30 p.m.  


 ****I honestly don't know what is with me lately. I was never this aggressive, this turned on...

Let's face it, Sharon out of the way? It's released me. I don't have to be morose, or angry, or wanting to punch a wall. I can get back to my true emotions, to return to my normal and docile state.

With Francie muted, it's even more so. She's gone for now. I'll probably be confronted before Friday by her and her lackeys, but for now she's been talked down to and that's it. Most everyone doesn't care about my relationship with Paris. Most aren't even shocked she's with me.

It makes things easier, especially in town.

But it does make things harder in town. In the past, with Dean, along with flirting with Jess, it was all nearly innocent. There were kisses for show, to be territorial, to show I was fine with what I had. Hands held, on the smalls of backs, or mostly in innocent places.

I have no such shyness about having my hand in Paris's back pocket at all, and though she's a bit more above the belt, neither does she. It's freeing, relaxing...

I'm really happy about today, and tonight. Sure, the kids at the high school are always going to be jerks, but why should I care? I'm not in their school. I might be in their town, but otherwise I have little contact with them.

I mean, yeah, after I got my shower in at home and Paris and I walked to Luke's, I got some shaming as I walked with her in the cold winter air towards downtown. She was looked down at the ground, nervous about how the townsfolk would take her out in public, just as a girl with me, rather than 'that scary girl asking all the questions and trying to make us look like Silent Hill'. There were a couple of jerks off to the side calling me 'Dyke Gilmore', and another girl who was glad I never hit on her at SHH.

But then there was Todd. 'Lane liked him once' Todd. 'Worst double date in known history outside of my mom's and Sookie the same night with Rune' Todd. There he was in the town square, in that dopey hat and judging from his red eyes, on a certain drug which made the world look slow.

He got our attention, and Paris looked up after he called our names.

"Ohh man, Dean was massively bummed you dumped him for a lady, dude," he said, as Paris rolled her eyes. "He spent all day taking about you, Rory."

"Well, that's fine," I told him. "If he wants to play 'jealous ex', let him."

"Although...he isn't cool either. He was swearing all day saying something about seeing you next Tuesday and that you were a female dog. He used different words though and my other buddy says I shouldn't say them like he did." He looked at Paris. "This is the scary girl who's your girlfriend now?"

"Um, yeah." I felt nervous about introducing Paris, but Todd, besides not wanting to be in a motor vehicle with him after partakes in a certain habit, is utterly docile. "This is Paris. Paris...this is Todd Deland. Dean's best friend."

He held out his hand and Paris nervously brought hers into his. "Umm, nice to meet you...Todd." She was protective of her wrist, only letting him shake her hand for a few seconds. "What college are you attending?"

"Not decided, but that school in Wyoming with cars on TV looks pretty rad!" He laughed deeply. "Hey, you're cool and Dean was making you sound evil and scary. You're not."

"Well, you're fine too." A snort. "Umm, we're going to Luke's now. Nice to meet you."

"You too, city named girl." A pause. "Hey, if you're ever in the neighborhood and you want to hang--"

"I'll consider it," she said, holding up her hand. "Good evening, Todd."

"Yeah, good evening." We left him behind and Paris shook her head.

"We're sure Sean Penn didn't have that kid after _Fast Times_?" She laughed and I smiled back at her. "He doesn't seem like a friend of Dean."

"I don't even think he remembers dating Lane, to tell the truth. But at least he didn't make a--"

"Wow, that girl is pretty hot! The blonde has a nice ass!" He let out without provocation and to no one in particular, as Paris just let it brush off, taking the compliment without anger beyond a skyward look at the dark above us.

"I was going to say not a sexist crack, but...it's Todd." I shook my head.

"Better him than Duncan and Bowman." She took my hand and we walked into Luke's, where the supper crowd was strong, with Miss Patty, Kirk, Babette and Morey and Gypsy, along with Bootsy in there. And right in the middle was my mom, Paris's nanny and a very bemused Mr. Gellar, along with who I assumed was the attorney who took Paris's case.

"Rory, Paris, come on in!" Two tables were pushed together as Mom waved at us to sit down, though Paris immediately went for her father, hugging him tightly and kissing his cheek in a freeing way she certainly wasn't afraid to do now.

"Daddy!"

"Sweet Pea!" The two embraced happily and I had to admit, I was so happy for them both. She then went for Francisca, greeting her in another hug with exuberant Portuguese. I sat next to Mom, with the seat next to me free for Paris.

"Glad to see you home rather than on a cannonball run halfway to Pennsylvania right now." A wide smile as I sat down. "You seem happy."

"Overjoyed; this happened and Francie was laughed out of her impeachment attempt. The worst I can say about this day is I didn't get to see the dress-down this judge gave Sharon."

"Amy Gray is my new hero in life. Seriously, I want to vote her in for Senate or governor or something; she refused all of Sharon's bull and made Hartford's worst attorney look like an idiot."

"She wasn't swayed by anything, was she?"

"Gosh, no." Paris sat down next to me and began talking to the attorney, Elisa, who shared her legal strategies for winning the custody case, beyond ecstatic. I was feeling much better as Luke came around with his order pad.

"So, Paris, I heard you're buying for everyone tonight?"

"I am; without all of these people I'd probably be alone and miserable at the Manor."

"Your funeral then," he grumped out as Mom and I ordered our usuals of chili cheese fries and burgers, while everyone else varied between burgers, steak sandwiches, and for Paris, her wintergreen tea, a double grilled cheese on Texas toast, and a salad on the side. The menus were gathered and we all went back to conversation as Mr. Gellar got my attention.

"Rory, I have to say, I'm glad you kept up my girl's fighting spirit. She seemed pretty down Saturday night, but you brought her right back to fighting form. I'm really proud of you."

I shrugged off the praise; I definitely didn't do it alone. "I wish I could take all the credit, but I can't, Mr. Gellar. You instilled strength and independence in Paris in the first place." She glanced at me, then her father. "Without that, I don't think I would have drawn to her. I'm lucky to have her, but also for you for fighting for her."

"Uh, thanks, Rory." He smiled and Paris turned her attention back towards me.

"I still can't believe it. I'm safe and...I just can focus on you and school now. That's all I've wanted from my mother, the ability to live my life. It's a pity it had to be this way, but--"

"Paris." We both looked up to see Kirk turned around in his seat. She seemed a bit exhausted, but friendly with him.

"What do you want, Kirk?"

"Just...I congratulate you and Rory on your romance. I hope to find something like that one of these days. Well, with another woman, because I'm not a woman, though if the right man came along I might actually feel attracted to a man and feel a romantic interest in him like you are, only with men instead of women. Because I'm not a woman, you know, and I also do not feel offended by homosexual sex, though I haven't seen that except when my mom accidently tuned into a scrambled pay-per-view channel and I saw a couple of--"

"OK, OK, Kirk." She held up her hand, understanding the point despite his continued rambling. "I get it, you want what we have, but with another person. That's great. It's fine."

"So you understand."

"Of course I do...as long as it's not that intense dancer you brought to the dance marathon."

"She never called back. I even sent apology flowers and chocolates to her studio. She never responded."

"Probably for the best." This was something I never expected; Paris and Kirk in a civil conversation. "You'll find someone, it just takes time."

"Really?"

"Everyone has a soulmate," she rationalized. "Someone out does like you, Kirk."

"You really think that?"

She stopped to look at me for a moment before pulling me against her at my shoulder. "I know it's sappy, but everyone does have their someone." I had to hold back a laugh at Luke looking at Paris at the counter like she had managed to communicate with an alien race, but at the same time? I was wont to swoon. Who would have ever thought Paris was such a deep romantic?

But it was good she was relaxed, as any fears that I'd be in a town not accepting of her quickly disappeared. Pretty much everyone was amazed by her and our romance, and Paris was incredibly patient and kind describing our love in a family-appropriate manner. Babbette made a claim to us that she could have predicted it a mile away.

"The way ya were dancing with her, Sugah, that wasn't you trying to just win a contest! You two were all in simpatico, of one mind! 'Twas only a matter of time."

"But what if we had gone out early?" Paris argued. "There was still a chance we could be out of sync."

"Come on, that last second grab to tick Taylor off before he could gleefully get ya two off the floor? Wasn't happening." Babette looked at Paris. "Ya gotcha self a real babe there, Rory." Paris turned away, her face flushing with embarrassment as I took her at the side and continued the fun teasing.

"Definitely my babe," I admitted fully to everyone. Paris looked up, still trying to get over the compliment, just in time for Gypsy to get in her piece.

"And I heard through the grapevine she can get under the hood pretty well; I talked to that Madeline girl when you were here for the play and she said you came out and changed a tire for her once and also put in a new battery for her."

"I picked up a few things in a big garage like that of my dad's. I'm not ASE certified like you, but I know my way around a few European cars." She smirked, setting her hand on my thigh in that moment and being bold. "And motorcycles." I gasped at the way she pronounced the word, that reoccurring image of me on her bike wrapped around her protectively appearing once again.

What is it about us Gilmores and bikes anyways?

"Yeah...her bike," I said. "Which can't be out for a few more months."

"Thank goodness," Mom interjected. "Though I would eventually trust these two on one...safely." Paris nodded, knowing that was one thing she couldn't argue with Mom about. That she was finally getting an 'eventually' was a good sign that I was inching closer to the dream coming true.

"Safe as can be." God, how I wanted to be wrapped around her on her Ducati...

But for the rest of the evening at Luke's it was just thinking about how lucky we were. Paris and her father and nanny caught up plenty and I was relieved to still have Mom in one piece as our warrior in helping us be a couple. I didn't have to second-guess myself any longer. Hearing from Miss Patty about how proud she was of us definitely made the night, along with seeing her and Francisca become fast friends since she also knew some pretty good Portuguese. Paris was really happy about that, since Hartford's community is kind of limited and she was always hoping Francisca could find new friends to talk about her Spanish and Brazilian telenovelas about.

Although Bootsy recounting an anecdote about seeing two women in Pawtucket was enough to get him thrown out of the diner. I won't retell it, but suffice to say when Kirk gets to stay and Bootsy doesn't, it's definitely a unique night.

But one part of the night away from Paris and my Mom stood out. Shane came into the diner as we were finishing up to say goodbye to Jess before heading off to her relatives in Tennessee for the holiday, and I could swear that he was actually going to miss her. I didn't get that sense for the last few months in my Paris bubble, but they had actually grown to be a pretty close, if still in-your-face couple. Even when she kissed Jess goodbye pretty deep, Luke seemed to have grown used to it and as she left I could see him shaking his head, as if he was losing someone for the holidays. With Paris and Mr. Gellar deep in talking with Gypsy about their cars, while Mom and Luke were talking with Miss Patty and Elisa talking to Kirk about something or other, I was finally able to get a moment with Jess at the table near the front door.

I approached him, a bit nervous since until last night he didn't know about us at all. I asked him if he wanted to talk, and he was a bit quiet, but did. We broke the ice for a little bit as I explained what drew me to Par before I got down to it.

"I...I know you think I'm crazy that I'm even apologizing for this. But I do feel bad that I didn't say anything about Paris. I didn't know what to do."

"Of course you didn't," he said, shaking his head. "I don't think nobody does. You get a feeling in your stomach about someone and you just wanna keep it to yourself." A pause. "But I kinda knew at the wedding. It was a good kiss..."

"A very good kiss," I said, stating the obvious.

"But it wasn't...it was evident you had your mind on someone else, a someone else who wasn't styled with a Flowbee." He crossed his arms, leaning back on the chair. "Plus I didn't wanna fuck up more than I did already."

"You wouldn't have. We just needed time to smooth things out, but...it wasn't you." It was freeing to admit it. "It was Paris, and all I was thinking was...'if I can get through a summer with her, maybe it can work'."

"And us?"

"You?" I wanted to hear Jess's thoughts first. He sighed, looking towards Luke and Mom and with a bit of unease, finally made it clear.

"We'd break up. It'd be messy. And you've got Harvard, while I don't know what I'm doing a week from now most of the time. Plus...them." I nodded as he pointed towards the townies. "With Paris it's only her bat-shit crazy mom, and that at least gives you a push to stay together to spite her. We'd have an entire irrational town to deal with, not even mentioning our relatives here."

"The crazy, it's undeniable. And we would have gotten awkward, eventually." I looked towards Paris, laughing freely with Gypsy and Kirk, about what I don't know, but to see her smile it got to me. "God."

He could see it too. "Smartie's got your heart, doesn't she?" I was still in awe. "Even if we were together you'd still have been bound eventually, huh?"

"From the moment we crashed into each other. She's the only one who can make me feel joy, yet get me so fired up that she reminds me why I'm at Chilton and wanting my dream career." I was wistful about the future. "No hard feelings at all?" He let off an easy smirk, and I was able to relax as he told me about how committed he was to Shane.

"Shane's good for me; I was about to apply for Wal-Mart but a cousin of hers has an in at the Barnes & Noble in Waterbury near the Timex museum. I haven't told Luke yet, but once the new year starts, I start there part-time with a shot at full if I can graduate in June. It's a bit of a long way to go after school for work, but at least I get to be around books and out of Crazytown most of the time."

"Wow. I didn't even figure on Shane being a motivator." I was giddy that Jess was settling down for some kind of work, but still had to give him a bit of guff. "So you're gonna be working for The Man?" He rolled his eyes, but still smiled.

"Hey, change starts from within. And now you and Par get to score books on my employee discount. It's all win-win."

"Making me swoon here, Mariano." Days before I thought everything was falling apart, but in reality, it's all coming together. "So we're cool?"

"Very cool. And Dean got thrown off the hockey team; apparently the guys on it don't take well to him trying to beat up girls. Emphasis on **try**."

"Paris would've taken him if she didn't had crutches."

"No question at all. Smartie's tiny but she's got the strength of a team of oxen in her, physically and spiritually. I know not to piss her off." Paris finished the conversation and headed our way, hearing the tail end of our talk.

"Got that right, Reb." She wasn't using the crutches, instead depending on a limp and hold on the tables to maneuver around the room. I took her hand and helped her sit down. "The guy's a cheap lunk anyways; a real man just would've attempted to allow me a defense of the hit, but going for my wrist was just weak."

"You're really thinking about sportsmanship in a fistfight with an ex?" Jess wondered, as did I. She just smiled, knowing she was right.

"Hey, you went at him that one time the way it should be, offense and defense. He didn't even afford me the chance to fight back."

"Rory helped you win on TKO though, so there's that."

"Frankly he shouldn't have gone after me in the first place, really. I didn't do anything to him, honest." Jess and her looked at me, feeling a bit uneasy about having to hear them riff about Dean. "Ummm, you're not comfortable with this, are you?"

I shook my head. "I'd really like to put Dean in the distant past, really." Jess nodded, understanding and apologetic.

"I think this entire town would want the same thing." He turned his attention to Paris. "I thought I'd never see the day, getting along with the townies."

Paris nodded. "They still bug me, a little. But like you, I figure we all have to co-exist here, so might as well get along with them rather than being like I was last year. Even Kirk."

"But what about Taylor?"

"Well...he did save my life last night." I then saw that smile she had when she had some kind of plan. "However, if you ever need some kind of co-conspirator to carry out a--"

I quickly expressed my disappointment...though not really, holding back laughter even as I rebuked the two of them. "Paris! Jess! Don't you two dare!"

"What?" Paris shrugged her shoulders. "I'm just suggesting my services shall Jess need them."

"Yeah, ease up Gilmore, we won't actually carry out anything." Jess wrinkled an eyebrow upward. "Over Christmas."

"Ah, geeze." I shook my head as Paris then turned towards talking about his Ginsberg obsession and her admission she had read one of his titles, and launched into a vibrant and profanity-filled debate about writers. I broke away from it with a peck on Paris's cheek to distract her for a bit to talk to Paris's dad one more time, who was just about ready to leave. I again thanked him for accepting us and he nodded, mentioning something else.

"I'm glad you stuck with her," he said. "I don't know how many times Sharon set her up with guys who she just loathed, but I really can't blame her if they all turned her off to men."

"What about...Tristan though?" The elephant in the room was there, and I wanted to hear his opinion on him. I know it's all history, that she'll never get together with him, but I still wanted to hear what Mr. Gellar thought of him.

"Tristan's a good boy; I've known him forever. His parents though are distant and..." he wandered off, looking towards his daughter with raised hands keeping up with Jess in her debate. "My heart to God, I think he would have been the only acceptable boy from Hartford I'd be happy would be with her." He hesitated a moment before taking me aside.

"Rory, I'll admit, sometimes I'm not the best parent, not at all. Paris loves me, but I'm definitely not around as much as she'd like me to be. This...this was pretty much the last straw for me. That if I didn't support Par here, there'd be an intractable break between us. And as much as I know she's independent and a strong girl, without support, she'll wither away, and she was just doing that before you came around." He shook his head. "You brought her back, and I'll be always grateful for you grounding her back into having friends and more things to live for than Harvard."

I pursed my lips to explain how I saw it. "It's mostly her though, Mr. Gellar. She can easily be strong in school, but with her own life? I was with her yesterday with Dr. Birnbaum, and I'm not going to say anything except that she's good and one of the strongest women I've ever known. But she still needs help, and support. Without it, she feels lost and alone."

"I'm not letting that happen again," he promised, and I could be assured that Mr. Gellar's words were true. "But as for Tristan, to answer your question. Those two are kith and kin. I've known them together and although I know you meant the best for them, that date was never going to work out. Not everything was going to be fixed with that night, and though I thank you for trying...one day you'll understand why it didn't work out fully."

I nodded. "It's something you really can't say, isn't it?"

"It's on Paris," he said, nodding. "But as for you...thank you again, Rory." I smiled at him and he headed towards Paris to say goodbye for the evening. I was left unsure about the still-unanswered questions about her and Tristan, but for now, they were best left unsaid. I felt a hand to my shoulder, turning to see Mom behind me.

"You did a good thing, kiddo." She paused as Paris was enveloped by her father, both of them incredibly overjoyed. "We have her safe here. That's what matters most. But you two also have a deep bond."

I craned my neck up at her, surprised. "Deep? Mom, a month ago you weren't exactly our biggest fans."

"Well, things change. For the most part, people can change too. And over the last week I've just seen a change in the both of you. Determination, firmness, and just this strength you have that I never saw you have with Dean." She brought me closer, kissing my forehead. "Paris is not only your guiding influence, but your cheerleader, in turn. And I was so glad to help her stave off Sharon in court today. I don't think I'll feel as big a relief in my life for a long time as that moment."

"Same when you texted," I admitted. "I'm still surprised she didn't get her passport taken away though."

"I think Judge Gray is kind of hoping she goes so Paris doesn't have to deal with her and it makes the restraining order kind of moot. Or _JAWS_ is off the beach of whatever resort she'd go to over the holidays. I still don't see her going though."

"Not at all." I heaved out a breath as Miss Patty and Francisca said goodbye exuberantly. "Just too bad the Revolutionary War reenactment already happened this year, we could have had them also act as our security force."

"We all quake from those scary pop-guns; I know I'm not robbing the liquor store with those guys around." Everyone began to clear out and say their goodbyes, and this day we were all nervous about actually didn't turn out half-bad. Even if we have to be vigilant and keep our eyes out for Sharon, at least I know for sure the town sees Paris and I as completely benign, and that they can handle having us as a couple.

It's all a relief and I can only hope as time goes on all of these issues, especially Sharon, will ease up and we can just live as we used to...

Though I wouldn't want to live how I 'used to', now that I think about it. Quiet about my love of Paris, my sexuality, my true self. Even with all that's going on now, it's better than pondering and stewing about Dean being boring or safe, and Paris and I still in our cycle without end.

I look at her at the cash register giving Luke the money for tonight's food and I know that what we were used to is now in the past, and I want it to stay that way. She comes over to me and I know that we still have plenty of bumps coming along the road, along with potholes.

But we're still together, and she's not locked in the Manor, struggling to leave. That's all I wanted out of today.

Now what I want out of the future is an open question, but at least I know we're going through it, together...  


* * *

**  
**  
Paris's POV, 11:00 p.m.  


 ****Frankly, I'm relieved to know that at least through the holidays, I have a home where I don't have to be afraid for my mortality. That I don't have to quake in fear of Sharon coming to cut me down.

And yet, I'm still cautious. The bedroom door is still going to stay locked at night and there's going to be times I see a sweep of the headlights in front of the Gilmore home and hope it isn't her car. I'm still going to be hurting for at least a couple of weeks from her reaction physically, while the mental scars may never disappear.

There is a weight off my shoulders, but because of who I am, I know that it could be taken away from me in a matter of seconds. I have to live for the moment.

It's strange; I would have thought the spark would have disappeared by now. That we would have found a rhythm soon enough and our need to show our love for each other would have become normal by now. But there isn't a normal for us, and whenever we lay eyes on each other, there's a spark.

Even tonight, it's there. I'm in my pajamas, dreading that all we have is about to be put to halt for a few days thanks to Mother Nature, and still, I want it with her. I'm hurt as hell and my face is nearly back to normal, but still, I look at her and all my senses are heightened.

She can't touch me too much because of my injuries; how I got through lunch with those gymnastics I did is a miracle in itself. I just want to express my love for her, but because of Sharon, and still smarting over Louise and her feelings about our romance, I just can't. Not right now. I need to recover, to have a break and...yeah, it's frustrating. I have to deal with it and just know I can only give rather than receive right now.

It's late at night and I have all of these thoughts in my head, and eventually it all ends up in one place.

Well, one part of my body in one place. I just want to scratch this itch, but I'm a guest in Rory's home. I just can't...well, it would be uncouth. It's banal and animal and I certainly can't do it. This is my mind, after midnight, taking in her entrance into REM sleep and all I'm thinking is that if I was healthy, it would be me, and not her dog-eared paperback of _Jane Eyre_ that helped her fall asleep.

Just all kinds of frustration building up here.

Mind you, I'm happy. Over the moon. Sharon can't touch me, Francie is but a figurehead at this point and now all I have to focus on is the Harvard gulag to come before the end of February. But I have to heal up first and...

"Ohhh God..." My left ear is jarred by a sudden sharp gasp in the air. Maybe I was just hearing things. Surely that isn't...it can't be--

"Yess, Par. Mmmm..." Dear, no, this is not happening. She isn't taking up sleep talking, there's just no way. "That's sooooo relaxing...ooohh."

This isn't helping that frustration. Not at all. I whimper as my mind goes from a focus on sleep to what she's saying in her slumber. I put my hands purposefully at my sides, not wanting to indulge myself. I really can't, I shouldn't. If I do something like put pressure on my foot, it would be an unwelcome trip to the emergency room.

Yet, I crane my head up to peek up at Rory in bed above me. My eyes are completely adjusted to the dark, so with the slight street light brightness coming through her window, I can indeed make out the outline of a hand slightly pressing against her stomach, feeling out, touching. I can't get turned on by this, and yet there is her body, slightly exposed.

I feel a tightness in my throat and my breathing becomes shallow. I immediately scold myself and want to go back to bed. But I have to admit, I'm entranced. I'm needing to see this. I mean, we've gotten ourselves off before, whether behind doors, through phone lines, or some other means. We know that we both get this wound up. I saw her in the town car when she just got glass-eyed and wound up over my fucking voice. And this afternoon she outright used my words to push our fulfillment further.

This is different though. It's more intimate, natural, tuned to how we are now. She continues to mention my name, in her sleep somehow undoing the drawstring on her sleep pants. I can smell her; I know she's in this mood where she's just not going to be put to a halt in rest.

Nor is my own body. I know it too well, that just as I'm hitting my period it wants that last gasp. Too many times this year I found myself in self-fulfillment to sate myself before nature takes its course. Sometimes, such as when I was in Washington with Rory, I just let myself off in the shower so it wouldn't end up in my sleep talking.

Then there was August, when a 96ºF evening and a call to her about newspaper strategy ended with a cold shower, damp clothes and my body oversensitive to such a point I thought I was going into some kind of shock. I was too turned on to even function.

I look at her dipping fingers below her waistband. She's in a purple tank top, her nipples fully peaked against the fabric and her shallow breathing in full force. She wants this, in her sleep, right now. I want to help her, but I know I can't, and I won't. Her body, her sleep, her choice and as I think about that, she purposefully drags herself along the mattress to use the friction to bring down her pajama pants. She turns around, and I can make out the top of her ass. I need to turn away...

But I **can't** even do that, unless I would like to sleep through a painful night. And amputating my foot below the ankle to cure that isn't exactly relief by any means. I'm stuck with turning my head, looking at her bookshelves, the lower parts where Rory keeps her guilty pleasure romance novels. OK, I can mock them in my head, have a laugh, go to sleep and relax.

Except now **they're** distracting me. Titles in gaudy fonts taunt me with the titles upon the spines. _The Pleasure of the Countess_. _Her Magical Need_. _She Rode in For Her_. _That Unexpected Seduction_...

And that one's really catching my eye. This isn't some garbage Bantam churned out quickly. All the titles are popping out at me, but even more, the little pieces of spine art that accompany them.

I wouldn't put it past Rory to have a bunch of male romance novels, stuff from the Victorian era with Fabio-like dolts on steeds and women who ignored the advice of their corset fitter and went wayyy too tight to the point there was no point to hiding their breasts at all or their very apparent breathing and gastrointestinal problems.

Yeah, the misfit corset women are still there; it wouldn't be a romance novel if it wasn't. But instead of burly men who would make Lou Ferigno look like a wimp...

On the other side of each cover, the star of each story? They were being held by a **woman**.

Another girl. Sure, the art certainly wasn't something that had a Harlequin cover artist quaking in their boots; these books seem to have a little more 'rebel' feel to them. I bring out _That Unexpected Seduction_ from the shelf...

"Oh fuck!" I whisper to myself in shock. This wasn't something you'd find at the Stop & Shop checkout. Hell, no. This was a vintage pulp novel with slight wrinkling on the cover, a picture of a young brunette woman in 50's high school garb in the arms of another girl, a blonde, inches away from her lips, no corset to be found, or even a bodice to rip. Next to the picture, text reads ' _She just needed to make him jealous, but she didn't expect to cut him out...for her!_ '

And in the background, I kid you fucking not? A good ol' motorbike of undetermined make or model, but judging from the blonde's dress of jeans and a tee pretty much accentuating her frontal accoutrements, they both weren't hopping on that bike with some other guy. I have just enough light to read a section that just happens to have the page bent back. Maybe it was some boring drivel about how she was torn between her feelings for a guy and the cover lady...

Except, I had to be careful. I was stopped by the pages stuck together, having to part them from each other slowly. That's...a sign of some kind? I then turn to the page and...

Um, wow, yeah, that last thing? Not caused by light water dampness seeping onto the page. This book was written in the 50's, but even for 2002, this scene I'm reading involving some bleachers and a small town dance would still be considered scandalous.

"Oh fuck..." I mouth out silently, just as Rory has an outburst of her own.

"Oh yeah...gooo down on me, Par-Bear...lick up my honey, fuck!" The sudden words startle me, and I whip the book out of my hand and in her direction, where it ends up bouncing right off her face. After a few moments she comes to.

"What the heck?!" she cries out rightfully, and I dart my head up to see her trying to adjust to being jarred awake. Her eyes slowly open and the first thing sighted by her is the spine of _That Unexpected Seduction_. Barely awake, she looks towards me, and then the book.

The alarm in her eyes is obvious. I'm still trying to get over her dream self-referring to her arousal as 'honey', but the more obvious thing was her revealed interest in lesbian pulp literature.

"Paris? Why did you toss this book at me?" Her voice is very tired, but in a charged way, is sexually husky and enticing. She looks at the title. "Oh...crap." She cringes. "You were never--"

I decide, honesty is for the best here. "Never discover your used bookstore sojourns would in another age result in prosecution under the Comstock Acts?" I smiled as she rolled her eyes at my teasing. "I think I found your porn, Gilmore, and I'm very interested to learn why a good girl like you would read these kinds of things?"

She picks up the book next to her, looking at the cover, hesitating at the discovery. "This isn't porn. It's...sensual and historical storytelling?" I shake my head. "I love the smell of cheap pulp?" Nope, still not good enough. "It's...well, yes, it's porn for my brain. That somehow Andrew and the other stores I go to have never restricted me from buying. But you'll notice that I don't, um, usually buy the books of guys. I only read women's work for my...guilty pleasure. Because they know better and they sort of have that edge to them, you know? Back in the old days it wasn't ever out there and this was only one of a few avenues to advance the need to read about lesbians."

She flopped her bare feet onto the floor, knowing she was explaining why and defending herself, holding the book. "I guess I can admit it; this book? I actually never bought it. Nor did I find it in a bookstore. It was actually up in the closet in a corner when Mom and I moved in."

"Wait...you told me a boy was in this room. So why would he--"

"It was hidden in the back behind the top shelf and it fell when I tried to shift the shelf all the way forward, probably from someone in the 50's. I doubt he ever laid eyes on the book because it was like new when I first read it. New being a relative term here." She held up the book. "I didn't even think about it; it was good writing. In my mind I could just imagine this puritan and prim world Susan Markey was in, boring school, boring boyfriend, boring interests, until Hester Garton came into it."

I was assuming that this discussion was going to be about how she hides these books. It couldn't be farther from the truth. "I looked this up online once, and it seems to be one of the few in the pulp age where the couple gets a happy ending, like that other one, _The Price of Salt_. A lot of these pulp lesbian characters just went back to their guys, or something cruel happened to their lovers to shame them from their sexuality. A few even ended with someone dying. I admit it; this was a gateway book to the rest of the stuff I keep on the lower bookshelves to keep wandering eyes away. I mean, I...I..." A pause. "God, this is hard to admit."

"What is?" I was confused. "Rory, you read these books, the confession is self-evident."

"Not that." A nervous laugh. "I mean...honestly I...I pretty much had to psyche myself up into being with Dean. I had read the classics, sure, but I'm a staunch feminist and most of the time I hoped some of the characters I read in fiction didn't end up in the altar. I wanted these girls to remain strong and independent. I imagined them happy without a man and with only a few guys in my life, I just did not see that traditional construct. That I was supposed to be attracted to a man." She placed the book down. "Dean...he came out of left field, entirely. I...I guess I just bought into all the 'Dean likes you' hype, the chauvinism between him and Tristan, and everything else and...frankly I was the Susan in that book. The first chapter isn't the usual 'meet cute', but the author introducing us to her single mother, her female influences and how she eventually just settled into the expected roles of society, kicking and screaming. It wasn't 'wow, blonde Hester on that bike is hot'...Hester wasn't even in until late in the second chapter and it's about 40 pages of her just being a snob because she thinks Hessie, as she calls her is an uncommunicative bitch who wants nothing to do with her, but really, it's her misconstruing how she woos her. It all makes sense and..." She took in another breath, sliding down onto my bed, building up to a confession.

"Paris? Did...did I just have a dream?" I nodded. "Was...was I kind of, sort of...profane?" Again, I nodded. "How profane was I?"

"For you? You wanted me to lick up what you called 'my honey' after dropping my nickname. Kinda shocked me."

A flush colored her face, and she whimpered with a lip bite. "Hearing you say it, me too." She grimaces. "I guess what I'm saying is..." A pause, and she slowly drifts her hand towards mine. I take it, softly. Her voice is still sleepy, eyelids drooping.

"I...I never, ever thought I would even get close to experiencing even ten percent of the things I've read in those books. I'd read them, dream about them, imagine myself as Susan or another heroine in one of those books. I've always known for years I had odd wiring, that a guy just never drew me. I mean I came off as dowdy in middle school and high school, but I did get ask-outs a few times. From good boys and a few jerks, but still, they were dating opportunities. But I turned them all down. I just never felt anything for them except that they got in the way of a good book to read.

"But then I had that freak-out over Mom going to the grandparents for money for Chilton and I don't know why it was Dean who I felt something for. Maybe it was his bland interests in books I mentioned? Or he was safe?" She waved her arms around, as if arguing with herself over her dating merits. "Then there was Tristan wanting me and you getting hot and bothered about him, and suddenly I built in my head 'I have to prove these richies wrong and I'm happy being a small town girl with the perfect boyfriend', so I just let Dean in."

With each new inch towards this moment, her voice became softer, the introspective of her life heavy. "And by the time I knew it wasn't working, that he was going to build the car for me...it was too late. I let myself become seduced by the idea of 'normal' love. That I needed to return his feelings, no matter that a handjob was icky, that he got jealous over anyone with a penis, or that I came off as the massive bitch when I couldn't say I loved him that night. I had to play the role. I had to be the woman that came with the small town dream girl that went to Harvard. And by doing that, I betrayed my solitary self, who just wanted to burrow with a good book, a hot cup of coffee, and maybe...another girl letting me rest my head against her on a sofa."

I was surprised by how much this book affected her. I didn't go in looking for a confession, just wondering why this book and those others. But this was better. It was giving me further insight into a girl I thought two years ago was a blank slate with no layers, but was no longer proving to be that at all.

"With Lane...I am truthful. I have never felt an attraction to her. She's my best friend. She will always be my best friend. It's almost like she's my sister. But I couldn't even tell her the truth about the self I was coming into. And when she squealed about each milestone I reached with Dean, I thought I was doing the right thing. That was what I had to do, because it was my role. I didn't want her to see me down and alone, but also happy because I was able to tell Dean this wasn't working."

"So what changes then? It's obvious now that Washington and Howard is a turning point, but there was more before that?" I ask. She nods, takes in a deep breath and tells me more.

"If I have to be honest...it was the test I was late for and blasted you and Tristan. But before that, when I was reading on the bench and you got behind me. Startled me just all the sudden and there you were, reciting Sonnet 116 in a way I wanted to think was combative, evil...bitchy." I caught my breath as she examined one of our first close moments together, moving closer toward me. "I wanted to tell you to get away from me, but I just stilled as your words slid into my brain. How you recited that as if that was my doom, but it really wasn't, was it?" I shook my head. "I mean, from day to day I can barely remember what annoying marathon of cartoons I watched with Clara and Dean as his parents used me for cheap babysitting, but I left that bench...and it was like my true self was exposed." She lowered her eyes. "As if you hit me right in the heart that no person has ever done."

Her voice softened as I let out a light gasp. "I remember your scent that day; I think it was a light honey and tea-tree shampoo?"

"I...I..." I didn't even know how to respond. This was a moment I meant to show how much I allegedly hated her. A place I intended to intimidate her. I nod, barely able to crane up my neck. "I did. Yes."

"I still remember all of it. How my heart was screaming that you were mentally pulling my pigtails, but it couldn't be that. No way. Uh-uh." Her eyes narrow. "You are who you are, and you don't have time for love." She swallows, going on.

"So I did all that cramming with Mom, and I thought, 'yes, I have this.' This was where I was going to prove you and Chilton wrong. Instead, I oversleep, end up late for school. And you know why?" A pause. "Do you know why, Paris?"

I shrug, rolling my eyes and preparing for the ridiculousness of the situation retold once again. "I think we were over this a thousand times before; you hit a deer, but actually the deer hit you, and--"

"It...it wasn't just that." Her voice quakes with emotion. "When I finally fell asleep, I was expecting it to be that odd sleep where the caffeine from earlier just screwed it all up. And it was. But once I reached the closest to REM I got that night...it was you."

"Me?"

She nodded. "I was sleeping with my head on a table, not in bed. Somehow, you were behind me, telling me this was fine, that I needed sleep. I had to have this sleep. And you were just...I don't know how I can describe it. I mean, you weren't an angel by any means; the dream you was still calling me Hayseed and telling me I'd blow the damned test. But you were massaging my back, whispering in my ear some encouragement that even if I sucked on this test, I still needed to be at Chilton, so you could have a rivalry with me." A pause, and then her eyes softened, staring at me dead-center. "Even with all this crap you pulled the first few weeks I was there, I was finding you a worthy rival, in my dreams, and it was scary to me."

This is where I expect it to end, just completely innocent. "But then I feel this crick in my neck, and I ask you to help me out. Don't ask why the dream happened this way, but it did." A grimace. "So you help me sort it out, you bring yourself close, flush against my back." I freeze in place. "And then before I can even think about it, you're nipping my ear telling me to play Susan while you're Hester, and instead of your Chilton uniform, you're in her tight shirt and jeans, and you're reciting dialogue from _That Unexpected Seduction_. Things are blurring together, the world of my secret books is colliding with real life, and suddenly the scene changes and we're in this small bedroom that feels like a _Dobie Gillis_ set. I'm losing control. I'm seeing you with curls, that surly attitude, disinterest in my well-being, but you're fucking turned on for me...just, lit up."

I'm shaking my head. "Rory, this sounds like Dean--"

"Oh...hell no! This wasn't chauvinistic like that. Not at all. This dream, it was like...I...you know, like when you just find your bedspreads all over the place and your clothes somehow made it across the room?" I nodded. "This was that, except controlled. I was at a table. I managed to control it, and yet in the dream I was falling for you just getting me into sexual frustration as Hester and it's like...you were filling her role perfectly, except this was more human, emotional...definitely complicated. Flirting, foreplay, anger, all of it, and you warmed me up to the point where I was begging you to rip my blouse off as I untucked your t-shirt and...and..." She whimpered. "I'm recalling it and I just might have to take care of business soon."

"That good, huh?"

"Well, might be hearing it in hindsight. But..." A sigh. "I was just about to the point where I hit my hilt and I was physically getting wet when a sharp pain went through my back in real life, which roused me awake. I looked at the time, I was in trouble and thus began the disaster of that day." She groans. "It was a really good dream killed by the reality of it all, and to top it all off, I had just enough time to grab clothes, and that was it. I changed in the Jeep, but in the chaos..." she glowers in admission. "I didn't grab a new pair of underwear."

As much as I wanted to laugh, it would have been very cruel to do so, even if Rory wouldn't have minded. Instead I went with the next best thing, commenting on how she felt when I dropped the L-bomb.

"So half of that outburst was sexual frustration?" I let a little smirk play onto my lips. "Honestly I could've saw that with Tristan. But me? At that time? I can't believe it."

"Well, you should. I wasn't going to say a word about it to anyone because you can imagine I was already mortified about being late for the test. How could I say anything about it being because I had a sex dream about my rival? A female one at that?"

This was a lot to take in, to be sure. I knew there was history from our first moment together and that we were always on the edge of flirting with our interplay, but I didn't even think about it that way at all. She was a rival I had to conquer.

But yet, I knew. I worked out everything in my mind, trying to work out how the book ended up connecting to the awakening of Rory's sexuality. It's all beginning to make sense now, how she resisted Tristan's charms, but we came back at each other like charged ions, even when I told her I hatet her. She looks at me, nervous and trying to consider how all of this is registering within my mind.

"What you're saying then," I question her, "is that in a way, I'm the living embodiment of Hester. I'm her to you, but real, and tangible." I let my voice drift slowly. "But it went even farther back than that, didn't it? Before you ever read a word of lesbian fiction, that was your wiring. That's what you're telling me, that your declaration after the dance was just finally stating the obvious after years of denial."

I was trying to wrap my mind around this; despite Louise, it was more learning about myself through her to get to the point I am now. With Rory though, she didn't have that. She had no touch, no confirmation that she was indeed who she was before the moment her lips touched mine. It was all through the years only internal in her mind, of her experiences, her life. The way she was raised and how her wiring ended up where she was now. Her eyes are uncertain, but she also seems completely calmed and relaxed, as if all the weight of being the Heterosexual Hope of the Hollow was gone.

I recall her admittance of seeing _Fair Game_ for Cindy Crawford. Even at an age she was when the film came out, it was jarring for her to hear her outright tell me she saw it for that reason.

But now, it's much more than a childhood story to me. With all we've gone through the last few days, it's another pinpoint into the building of Rory's character. She glances at me, our legs brushing.

"Paris...promise you when I admit this, you don't get mad or pissed off." I shake my head at the sudden profanity.

"Why would I?"

"Because...I...I...this has been something I've been hiding for the longest time. I'm scared I'll push you away or you'll reconsider everything, go back to Sharon--"

"Not happening," I assure her. "We can survive things now. I can't leave, and I won't leave." She's fearing me again. I don't want that and I'm scared to hear what she's admitting. The room goes silent for a moment. She continues to handle the book.

"You may want to--"

"Just spit it out!" I raise my voice at her, and she complies, a shock to her heart.

She gets down to it. "The first day. After we met and after I took down your moat." I nod. "When you were being a bitch about it and refusing my help and I finally got sick and tired of it and decided to one-up you on the questions." I nod, a bit chilled to see where she was going with this.

"When you were staring me down as I was one-upping you...I...I..." A whimper. "I wanted so badly to push you against a wall and just say that I wasn't here to bow down at my knees to you. And I looked at you acting so uppity and preppy and I thought I could grow to hate you. Instead...I just felt this surge of need. Like I had been caught and you knew my secret and then...you confronted me and told me to back off, but it felt like the exact reverse kind of thing. That you wanted me to stop hiding this true self. Not be Mary. Everyone else, I have this reputation as a pushover. But not you; I've always wanted to push **you** over, Par. Wanted to test your limits. Just see how pissed I could get you until we reached a point of no return. And I expected it very, very, very early on at Chilton. But you never wavered. You have always met me each and every time and for the last two years, it's been fucking frustrating." The bite in her voice is bitter. "We keep challenging each other, pushing each other beyond the boundaries in our minds. Even when I was stroking Dean off or dry-grinding my quim against him in jeans, I knew it was wrong. Not because it wasn't proper, but because it was against everything I believed in."

I'm holding a bare tether of control. She's saying this and it's taking me into a stupor. And then the admission.

"I have always been in lust with you. Even before I fell in love, I knew that we were bound from that day, that moment, those questions. Before that moment, I thought being attracted to other women was just a quirk I'd grow out of. That I'd just forget once a guy tore through my modesty and spilled his seed into me."

Her eyes are clear, her soul stirred. "That has never been, nor will it ever be, me. When I declared in my head my sexuality it was just to confirm the obvious. It was just a formality. It's probably why I just couldn't handle Tristan at all." She lowers her gaze. "I...I think honestly, in the back of my mind, I pushed you and Tristan together on that date because I hope you'd pair off, like was expected and you could leave me alone and make these feelings I've had for you go away and you'd be high school sweethearts. I never considered your history together, how you lived your life. I was just being selfish and I thought that I had to settle for Dean. The debutante ball, and playing into Jess's interest in me."

There are points in a relationship where a confession is catharsis. I had mine yesterday with Dr. Birnbaum, able to admit that if nothing stopped me, Louise would have been mine. But my mother had her way, and it forever put a fracture in our friendship hidden by sarcasm until the veneer was gone. When she ripped open the wound in the dining hall, I was in pain, but also relieved, because it was finally out there. It got Rory and I to open up and become stronger in the lead-up to Sharon trying to win me back.

But that's all over. Sharon has nothing in her arsenal, and the only ones trying to stop us are jealous. And now Rory, by sharing the meaning a simple book means to her, went even further than she had to, into a place I know is hard for her. To hide herself, who she was for even longer than I ever did, is a tough thing to do. I had physical abuse in my life, and the scars to prove it. They're visible, forever.

Rory has a supporting and loving mother, and strong family system. But she still has hurt inside, not just from her expectations, but her unusual rearing. I still barely know about her childhood in detail outside of the shed, but I can't even imagine what it's like to have a father feeling free to fail on his daddy's money down the San Francisco Bay and not giving a shit about the fate of his ex and his daughter.

But I also take in that one day she missed the test, I almost did lose her. My one word to her made her consider going back to a school she considered her own personal hell, where she was unchallenged and standardized testing, rather than full curriculum, ruled all. I feel tears prickle at the very thought of that regret; if she had left, things would have been incredibly different.

She speaks up again, and I hesitate as she does.

"The day you told me to fuck off after the tickets...yes, I was ecstatic about Dean, and Mom's proposal from Max. But as I let the afterglow lift after closing the door in here for the night..."

And this is where my heart absolutely breaks.

"I sobbed into my pillow for an hour and a half because I couldn't come to you like a goddamned friend and say 'yes, Tristan offered me these tickets, probably thought PJ Harvey was an enforcer for the Islanders, but I rejected him because I care more for our friendship than him'. I couldn't apologize over the devastation you felt. I carried that regret for the entire summer, through Rebuilding Together and all the shit you put me through. I took every single bit of hurt and hate you hurled at me, and you know why?"

"Ror--"

"Because I deserved it. I took a blossoming friendship and let some warped sense of needing to be heterosexual get in the way."

"You need to stop--" I wasn't going to watch her beat herself up, but this is how she lashes out. I have to go with it.

"You had every right to ruin my life. I fucked you over. I deserved to write about parking lots and be belittled by you. I deserved all your scorn and after the debate I broke your heart and for what? Men. One who I can't stand, one who is a good friend, and one who puts himself above all else!"

I take her hands and begin to bring her into a hug.

"I'm saying this in the nicest way possible," I intone, "please, shut the fuck up."

"Par--"

I reach back, my hand moving beneath her tank top and rubbing her back in circles as I pull her atop me in a way that doesn't cause my leg to scream in pain. It's hard, but somehow I pull it off.

"Shhh...shhhh." I whimper as I feel her warmth against me, her scent so close. "We are here. Now. What our fucked-up pasts have to do with now is nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"But--"

"I get to talk now." I made sure my tone of voice had no venom within it. I close my eyes, her soft breaths settling against my neck softly. "You are a courageous young woman, raised by an amazing and patient mother who just went to bat for me in a way I never thought possible. If you even consider that I'd fall out of love with you for how we behaved with each other those first two years, I'm not. I am so far in love with you that having you three feet away from me in your own bed is too far away."

"But my--"

"I love you for who you are. Whatever we did to be absolutely testy to each other, that's in the past. I am not letting my past get to me, and you shouldn't either. You are everything to me and you have to stop kicking your own ass about stupid little things we did. I can admit it, I was a bitch to you at the start. I can still be an amazing bitch to you when I'm not even thinking about it, like a second nature. But it isn't what is going to define us. I refuse to let it be. It should be the same for you; we overcame the poisons in our minds and among everyone else to be here, in this moment, in this bed, together." I moved my assuring hand up, the circles becoming faster against her back. "In my life, I have dealt with hurt, pain, hate, anger, exhaustion. There were even times when I thought ending it all might be the best way out. But you came into my life, you gave me a purpose beyond Harvard, and for that I have to be forever grateful. Not just to you, but your fighting spirit and that book for instilling in you the path we're on now. However you're wired, why you're attracted to me and why you save all this energy for only me, that's still a mystery, but I'm not letting you go."

She was able to smile at that and I continue to calm her, the rise and fall of her abdomen against my stomach a guide to her emotions. We remain silent for a long moment that seems to stretch to about five or ten minutes. I hope this has helped her to see that whatever I hate I first felt for her, it's long gone now.

"You...you mean all that?" she whispers.

"Every single thing." She looks at me, taking in a few breaths, realizing what we had just shared. She sighs and settles against me.

"I...I'm sorry."

"Don't...no, this is fine." I nodded. "This is exactly what Dr. Birnbaum probably wants, some emotional release. A lot of it actually." I shake my head. "You need this, to let go."

"I...I know." With a grimace, she brushes her fingers against my shoulders. "I've just been under the mind that I take my knocks in life and go with it."

I shake my head. "You do need to change your thinking on that a little. Don't hold everything in, because it could cause something bad later in life."

"I know. I just..." She shakes her head. "You're more understanding about this than I thought, you know. I thought you were going to say it was impossible to know my sexuality so early on."

"Ror, it's like puberty; you either know or it just springs up suddenly." I feel her settle against me, her right arm against my left. "I assume you're down here the rest of the night?"

"Too wound up," she admits. "Now you have me thinking about this book and...I'm frustrated."

"Not just mentally, I take it."

She shakes her head and lets out a groan of frustration. "I'm going to be the good girl and let my urges go because I don't want you to be short-changed." I glance at her and notice that indeed, there's frustration within her eyes and coloring her cheeks.

Even more obvious though, is how her body is wound up. Minutes of ranting had to free her soul, but bringing out all that frustration has her turned on from expressing a fantasy going years back from that book. I decide to test her.

"Urges, you say. So if I did...this, you might not want to be a good girl." Slowly I move my forearm up, just enough to disturb the material of her tank top. "All that frustration out and me close by. It can't help your mood, Gilmore."

Her reaction is immediate, as she lets out a shuddering breath. "I...really want to wait for you," she gasps out. "I can't handle touching myself in the shower."

It's an absurd, but understandable answer. "Then lock the door and let yourself off while Lorelai and I are in the other room." I let my hand linger along her side, moving up the material of Rory's shirt to bare the skin beneath. I know exactly what she needs.

"I can't...it's unbearable." She bites her lip. "You're in the other room talking normal to Mom and I'm here thinking of you with a hand down my jeans and for now I can't do anything besides getting myself off because--"

"Rory?" I give her a direct look.

"Hmm?"

"You want to touch me?"

"Well, yes. But you're--"

"I'm injured, not amputated," I mention, shaking my head, my tone softening as I knew this was a perfect time to sate our urges. "Are you scared to query me?"

"About?"

"Well..." I smile, letting my fingers wander down to the waist of her sleep pants. "I'm definitely open to it, and more than that, talking you through it." I brush the elastic, my nail creasing across her flesh.

She shook her head. "But...there's germs. I know you and it's a bit different when I'm...actually down there. And Louise."

I nodded. "I'm far from ready to be back to normal. That's going to heal eventually. But for now....I was the real good girl today." I licked at my lips. "I somehow kept enough self-control of myself to have you be pleased and only took a little pleasure for myself." She nods, her breath shuddering as my ministrations move along her navel. "You've thought of it though?"

She nods back at me. "We're next to each other and when I'm alone, I think of your hands. Stained with pen ink, a bit grey with graphite, or just clean..." I press my index finger below her navel now, pushing it just a small bit beneath her sleep pants. "In Greek mythology once, you lent me a pencil when mine snapped. Our hands brushed for just a second and suddenly it's in my mind all the rest of the day. But in that class, it sent a pulse up my spine."

Oh, I'm interested in this. "I took my notes and then I crossed my legs together and...that's all I felt the rest...of the period. Your fingers. One little touch had me so needy, and then wet and..." She pants as I begin to make out her underwear waistband. "I just felt it all. I got damp and then just shut my legs together...and rode it out."

"This was before you borrowed my shirt."

"Last year just after the debate and Sherrie and so much frustration because the way you touched me, it didn't just feel like a regular pen hand-off. It was like you were making a point secretly to me. It screamed to me 'here's the fingers you missed that night, Gilmore, let me taunt you with them.'"

"They're here now, aren't they?" I remind her. She grits her teeth, panting. "Ooh, got a few little curls leading down the road, Gilmore." I play with the wispy hair, then let my thumb feel out her panty material, which feels thin and sparse. "You also thought you were done with me tonight."

"Thought so, but obviously not." Her own hand is drifting towards my core, taking a more direct course than I am. I shudder at the slightest of contact. "We're odd. Confessing long-time secret crushes one minute, the next..." And now I'm whimpering; her right index and middle fingers are making a line down my pajama pants. "...wooing and flirting shamelessly."

"We never had shame," I note. "We leave it all out there for everyone to see pretty...much. " I gasp as the fingers press through the one layer hiding my modesty from her. "This...clearly a mistake. I need to start wearing underwear to bed."

"Permission denied." She smiles at me and I creak out a moan as she finds my clitoris and strokes it through my pajama pants. She brings herself close and with her other hand, tips my head in her direction and brings me into a slow kiss. I continue to tease her despite her directness and how deep we're getting into this, hooking my finger along her panties and then releasing a few times to rile her up. Rory squeals against my mouth from the tension building up, then releases the kiss as her fingers stroke the material of my pants against me.

"Isn't technically sex here," she mentions with a soft voice. "We're mutually giving each other pleasure, so we're within doctor's orders. Not sex."

"It's sexual," I correct. "And don't be nice about it. We're mutually masturbating."

"You call it what you want and...oh my God!" I lower my other fingers to meet her mound through the thin fabric. "That's...friction...yeah..."

With my free hand I slide my arm out of the sleeve of my bedshirt, while pushing it to the other side so it'll only be a minor distraction while I finger Rory off. Not that I have a sense of control as I try to imagine anything but spilling over prematurely. I look down and I can feel the material fully ensconced between my lips with Rory's fingers making various circling motions against my erect clit. I tangle out of the shirt until it's at my arms, the same time as Rory works herself out of her purple tank, though she just goes with pulling down the straps and exposing herself.

It's getting warmer in here. I can feel the boiling need between us, the fear that an attic massage would be it. No longer; we're both free. I feel her eyes upon me as the fabric of my pajama pants begins to soak up arousal. My own hand moves into her simple 5-pack briefs as I feel a pool of arousal and need that has ruined them forever.

"Fuck...need you..." she grits out, and I comply. We're reaching that point where we know we can't stop this. I'm holding my injured leg as still as can be. It's then she notices something I never even cared about solely by feel.

"A men's fly?" She smirks, opening the button on the pajama pants. I shrug at her finding.

"One of my more annoying relatives has gifted my dad nothing but pajamas since he was in his teens; he sleeps in shorts and a t-shirt. He just gives them to me because he'll never wear them and they're very comfortable."

She nods. "Accessible too." Just the way she says that with her innocence is enough to tighten me up even more. Her eyes seem to light up with glee at the discovery. "Let me guess; he hates those stupid nightgowns as much as I do?"

"He wanted to burn them." A finger slides in and senses my folds, and that's when my mind loses the track with her innocent and playful demeanor with her digit forming into a hook. "Oh, damn..."

"I hate you in any clothes at night," she confesses, lifting up her hips and using her free hand to shove down her sleep pants. "I...hate it when you're down there and not having...fun...with me..." We're looking at each other, going solely by touch as we massage each other towards what's been building up since our tease and fun on Sunday night, and farther back since Thursday. "Press...deeper."

"Inside," I beg of her, while complying with her own wishes. I know she loves pressed stimulation, while I need mine a bit inward. The pants I'm in eventually end up at my knees, while she grunts and shakes her head at pulling her underwear down, confessing her want of my fingers covered in her arousal. She's getting very slick. I spare a look down to see her breasts firm and peaked and this image of Rory in the dim light...I can't help it, it's so beautiful. She begins to sweat, her perspiration glistening her forehead.

But I'm losing my focus. She just finds this spot...this one spot...oh, fuck.

I tightly close my eyes and begin to sweep circles across her clit. I hear bare echoes of her imploring me to 'ride my hand, Par, ride it 'til you come'. Our bodies press closer, thigh to thigh and I bring her close to allow myself to feel her flesh against mine. Just like this afternoon, I can tell when she's getting there, but it's going to be a lot faster this time...

She's far from idle herself though. I still can't believe this quiet young woman is like this sexually, and her thumb is making small motions against my clit as she continues to bring me off with the other against that wonderful spot. I'm overwhelmed, dizzy, needing this new release. The both of us, just focused on each other. I feel her through and through, her clit so thick and apparent as I circle her off. Her mouth opens wide and she shudders, dropping a long drawn-out 'fuck' with each breath. My fire is stoked and soon I can feel the last shudders before I lose control as her fingertip presses deep against my spot...

I quickly have to cup my hand with my mouth, my usual avenue of screaming into Rory's shoulder out because of my injury. But it's still really damned good and I lengthen out Rory's come to make it all that more satisfying.

Still, my own release suddenly feels like all the emotions of the weekend and the last two days are gone and my body can relax. I shudder and whimper, pushing my hips against her hand, wanting to take all of it in. I feel tears being urged on, all the mirages of what we missed thanks to Sharon. I cry out my love for this fiery brunette freely, the walls of her bedroom containing my screams of joy and release.

Soon, I give into her demands and let her off too, her contained cries vibrating through her body as I feel her relief at having a much needed come after having to hold it in through fear and anger. She grasps the side of the mattress as she lets herself spill over into my hand, my name being interchanged with liberal profanity and declarations of her love for me. Her hair is a mess and after fighting with her emotions, she can finally feel like she's won.

It's not long, and certainly there isn't any elegance to this, but it's what we needed. I know it'll keep me sane when I end up trying to get through the rest of the school week without biting anybody's head off. The release is something the both of us only share, and it's well deserved, and she looks at me with tired blue eyes, slowly withdrawing her hand and moving it up my back. I make no moves to remove my hand, continuing to circle her clit through her panties as I can feel she doesn't mind it in much slower motions.

There's so much fight to her, and she went through a hell of a lot these last few days to defend our love. But Rory doesn't quit. She never has, and never will, and that's what unites us, is that we drive through everything, together, at each other's sides. She begins to settle down and I look at her, trying to catch my breath from this gamut of emotions we just spent the last however many minutes it took. I drag my hand against her stomach and she gasps at the trailing of her own cum along her body.

"That's so damned sexy," she admits, softly but with a bold streak of mischief. A small smile on her lips. "Gushing for you. Only for you."

I snort unladylike, lifting my fingers up a few mere millimeters; immediately a small drop forms and I can feel it pool against a fingertip.

"Naughty bookworm," I whisper. "Reading dirty pulp novels and allowing me to make you spill over." She blushes. "Someone's also got a strong lingerie kink. Doesn't matter if it's a Hanes Her Way pack, blue hose, or the Secret, she wants to be fucked in them, doesn't she?" I break apart my index and thumb, allowing a string of her cum to stretch in a little spiderweb-like string. "You have fun being dressed and undressed."

"I...do," she admits, without reservation, content with me circling her nipple with my damp hand and letting out a deep moan. "We need to go to Granby when you feel better, no doubt."

"Ror, you're going to ruin all the merchandise," I say, rolling my eyes, as she shudders from her long roll-around of her left nipple. "Also, I'm not much for a public PDA."

"Oh, I wouldn't feel you up in public. Gosh, no." There's her devious look. "And don't think I'm going hands-off you the rest of the week; you're still going to get plenty of physical affection. I'm testing you."

"You are?" I shake my head. "You know how I can get, so I cannot expect you to break through." She moves in to kiss me, while taking my hand at the same time. She brings it up, damp fingers and all, then takes a slow lick of my middle and index fingers while bringing me in at the same time for a taste.

I don't expect this at all; I wanted to play the 'you taste good' game. But this is even more intimate, and daring. This is a fully aware, fully sexual and uncontrolled Rory, knowing and not caring that she has to be the small-town girl. She sucks at my fingertip as I lick at the sides. Closing her eyes, she feels absolute bliss at her taste, while I have near the same reaction. I dip my fingers in more within her mouth and a small pooling of saliva, withdrawing them into mine to commingle our tastes together. It's intoxicating as we get lost with each other again to the point I close my legs in, pinning her hand between them. She breaks the kiss for a moment.

"Breaking you now," she says, making her point without much elaboration. "You fucking need me. I'm like a drug you can't get enough of."

Shit...she's right. So right. I expected this to be over, but it isn't. Ribald, daring and definitely not backing down; this is the real Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, and even as my academic mind is screaming at me to get to bed, everything else is saying I need another go.

I nod. "Break me," I say, my throat barely able to enunciate. "I'm your love, and your lust object." Her eyes turn a darker shade I can still see through the spare moonlight.

She wants me. I want her.

Rory Gilmore saved my life. Saved me from hell, and from a life of misery and obedience to my mother. She can have me however she wants.

My love for her is so deep, I cannot physically take her so far from me any longer...  


* * *

** Lorelai's POV, 10:30 p.m. **

****This is what I needed. This is what I wanted. To know that I have the security of the justice system keeping these girls together, unafraid that a vicious and angry woman will do anything to get in their way, up to and including bodily harm. Putting on my pajamas and knowing Rory and Paris are safe and there's only running out the clock until next Wednesday morning at 12:01 a.m. to worry about, it's a burden lifted off from me.

I was scared going into this morning, but at least I know now that I don't have to worry about that vile woman trying anything with any of us. And that we have the deep support of the town behind us, as was shown by most everyone at Luke's tonight, who appreciate Paris just as a girl looking for herself with Rory in tow, and not how she comes off.

I'm quickly becoming their advocate, a role I never thought I'd have. Defending Rory's **girl** friend was something I never had pictured in her eighteen years of existence. But it's come naturally, somehow, in some way. Having her father put his trust in me is something I do not intend to break at all, and I will make sure Sharon cannot get to her unless she has a major change of mind.

After leaving the diner though, Michel called me. We have known each other so long, and even with our biting and withering insults at work, deep down, there is friendship there.

There's also a bond. Where I was pushed out of Hartford society because of Rory's existence, Michel no longer knows his father, who turned his back on him when he admitted something to the man that rocked his deep and unbending Roman Catholic faith.

We all know, Sookie and I, along with Rory. And Mia. Michel maintains a strong and vibrant bond with his wonderful mother. But barring a miracle, we will never know Marcelle Gerard, and only for the sole reason that Michel chose a different path for his love. One that ended with him being being denied the funds from his grandfather's will to go on to a university and having to fund every cent of his college education on his own (his mother didn't have much money on her own before Michel began to provide for her), and a wound that's remained upon his heart ever since because of whom he had to leave behind.

The both of us talked for a half-hour. It was the deepest the both of us talked about his personal life in years. He had not approached Paris yet, wanting to give her time and space to deal with everything. But what he told me, I don't think I can forget.

"I will not judge your daughter and her lover at all. I see them both as equals. But sadly, there are many in this world who will never do that. They only see what they want to. _Mon père_ sees my existence as a waste of time, along with many of those men in Québec who schooled me. They see me as a waste of time, and have consigned me to hell. The hell with them. And your girls should know that; no matter how many discount them for their love for each other, many more will support them. Just like you, Mia, and even Sookie have for me. Even if I cannot bear currently to find someone for myself, I offer my full support for them."

I blinked back tears as he went on, knowing that this call was tough. He hadn't even admonished me in any way for hiding this revelation from him, fearful of what he would say, if he would lash out against Rory and Paris for their relationship, and think of me as an awful parent. He did not, in any way.

"They will lose so many people, Lorelai. It will hurt, it will be painful, and it will gut their hearts. But in turn, they will gain a circle of new people to know. A vibrant bunch of people, who look out for each other and will protect them with all that they have. Do not fear anything, and just know that you are doing everything right. You went to court to defend Paris today, and for that, I can be forever grateful to you, knowing that you thought odd of all of this at first, but have pushed all that away, because of who you are. An open and caring woman. And although us two spar all of the time, at the end of the day, we are friends who keep confidences. You hold my secrets and let me live as I'd like."

A pause. "You are an ally to us, Lorelai. And for what you have done for that girl, I cannot thank you enough."

We talked further. There are still fears about idiots like Bootsy, who we know there are much worse forms out there. Of Sharon trying to use somebody else to undermine Paris's protection and get around it. And I'm sure we haven't finished dealing with Dean, who is manifesting the worst of what I feared, that he would be possessive of Rory when he found out.

But at least there's plenty of allies here. Sookie is doing her best to understand why Rory is who she is now. After meeting Dr. Birnbaum, I can never fathom being glib about Paris's mental health again, knowing that she is getting the best care from someone who deeply cares about her, along with her main physician Dr. Merton. Her nanny loves her like she loves her own children, to the point of those children calling her a sister. Madeline is proving herself that she isn't just a tag-along friend doing Paris's dirty work, and is helping her find her way.

And Luke...in his own way, I think he's good with it. It kind of helps that Jess is settling into a 'good friend' track with Rory and he doesn't have to worry about them at all. I certainly don't much longer; the spring and that accident is long history now.

I'm about to go to bed, knowing that things could have gone worse--

Shoot, my phone is ringing. At least it's the cell, so I don't have to search for it. I find it right away...

What?! I pick it up.

"Dad?"

I'm surprised at 10 o'clock at night to see the words 'Dad - Office' on my screen. "Is there something wrong?" I'm in a small panic. "Are you OK, do we have to--"

He stops me immediately. "I assure you, I am fine, Lorelai. In completely good health. But I just wanted to say I heard the news about Paris's custody hearing from earlier in the day from my friend Maxine Gray, and that she is safe with you. Congratulations."

My dad sounds very proud and relieved. "That's what you called about?" I didn't know what to say. "I didn't know you were even following the case."

"I was; Elisa Keller interned several years ago at my company as a paralegal and was sterling, and is a hard-working young woman. I just telephoned my congratulations to her firm and asked that she receive a considerable holiday bonus for what she did for you, Harry and Paris this afternoon. I am very relieved that she is being protected by you and that Mrs. Gellar cannot easily reach her." A pause. "I was worried about her the moment I heard about the incident at the Manor Saturday morning. Thank you for taking in that young woman, my dear."

"It really wasn't anything, Dad. I wasn't going to leave her out in the cold." I don't know what to say; I'm afraid that Emily will come in any moment to tell me off after ripping the phone from Dad's hands.

"But it was everything. And that abhorrent Roland Hampton, to see him go down in defeat, finally? I am glad that his downfall will be from his client trying to harm her daughter and nakedly trying to get that poor young woman back, like the court would send her back under threat of harm. I'm very proud of Maxine's daughter for taking in all arguments and coming to a proper decision, and that is a fineyoung fine young woman who is going places in this state."

"If it helps, he left feeling like Judge Gray shredded the last remaining pieces of his manhood. Apologies for the crudeness." I laugh nervously, expecting a lecture, only to get a hearty laugh in return.

"None needed. He's an awful cheat at the golf course, making that insufferable and obnoxious Donald Trump with his multiple mulligans and 'stroke-saving' drops look like Arnold Palmer in comparison. To put it mildly, he is an amoral jackass who is the shame of the state bar, and 'tis a good season to see him humbled, especially by a fair jurist like Ms. Gray. And hopefully the firm will now have the guts to fight more of his frivolous insurance claims for his list of rogue clients." I'm relieved to know my dad is all fine with this, and he gives me more good news. "I would also like you to know I've heard from others that DCW is adamant that Sharon will not be asked to tender a resignation and she will remain their chair, so Bitty Charleston has seen it fit that they will not be holding their events in their regular hall in Newington any longer. They are currently scrambling with a country and western line dancing bar in Bristol and a quienceañera venue on the West Hartford-Bloomfield line to get their next benefit somewhere to go, and the latter is asking an extremely high deposit to hold the event due to the short notice given. I think there was mention of a young quienceañera honoree who will curse Sharon to the netherworld if they push aside their long-held date and move them to another venue, thus the hiked rate."

"Justice in the world." I was glad to hear that DCW's stubbornness wasn't helping them at all. Still, there was something paramount. "Umm...how did Mom take it?"

"She hasn't told me. Not a word about Rory or Paris since you three departed, sadly. She's deep into planning for New Year's and I've attempted to broach things several times. I apologize, Lorelai. She has not yielded one bit, even as I've told her I see no problem with Rory and Paris's union." He sounds defeated, like he has been breathlessly trying to melt this unneeded détente. "Hopefully in the next few weeks she will miss Rory and accept her. But for now, there's nothing I can do. And I miss you both dearly, brightening my life."

I shake my head. "I do too." We continue to talk, as I catch him on everything. It's good to know that my dad is on our side, even as he risks everything with Mom. I hate that we must to be this way for now, but I know things will eventually heal.

They have to, right?

I am just thankful that for now, Paris will still be here. That I can keep her safe. And hopefully, I will be able to return the favor in the next few days in some form, hopeful that the future continues to have her in it, with Rory, strong and solid together--

And now, Dad has just said the word 'prick'. To describe Hampton. And I'm laughing. Time to continue to mock bad lawyers with my dad, knowing the girls are fine, whatever they're doing below me.

Not that I'm telling **him** what I think is going on with them right now, of course. Nor do I have to know, either...  


* * *

**  
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To be continued...  
  


 ** __Ending author's note -** Yes, my personal canon is that Richard would harbor a resentment against you-know-who for his cheating at golf and would never support his advancement in any avenue of public life solely for that reason. I'm sure that's the canon of a lot of others too ;). Also my thanks to Shawa on ff.net for giving me a quick nudge that Canadian religious schools are different from American schools and Michel couldn't be kicked out of his school due to his sexuality.  



End file.
